When Friendship Hurts
How to Deal with Friends Who Betray, Abandon, or Wound You
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Taking its place alongside relationship classics The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dr. Jan Yager’s When Friendship Hurts, in print since being published twenty-two years ago, is now available in a second edition containing new original research.
Friendship expert, coach, and sociologist Dr. Jan Yager’s prescriptive book on toxic friendships, what to do about them, and how to find or improve the positive friendships we all deserve, also has an updated Preface, bibliography, and resources section.
The Preface shares Dr. Yager’s more recent research that asks the question, “Have you ever had a friendship that made you physically or emotionally sick?” She was surprised to find that such strong reactions were more common than she originally thought. Forty-three percent of the ninety men and women she surveyed answered “Yes” to that question. In the new Preface, she shares their most common reactions.
Another new feature of Dr. Yager’s classic book includes cartoons at the beginning of each chapter by artist Cathy Wilcox and originally done for the Australia/New Zealand edition.
When Friendship Hurts has helped countless men and women to better understand why they get involved in a toxic friendship, and then explore possible ways to mend it, let it fade, or end it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sociologist Yager (Friendshifts) has been studying and writing about friendship since the 1980s. Drawing on the results of 180 questionnaires, as well as earlier studies she conducted, Yager focuses here on what to do when friendships go bad. Successful friendships, according to Yager, are marked by trust, honesty, empathy and commonality characteristics that may be compromised when a once-supportive relationship turns sour. When this happens as it inevitably does in the course of one's life friends may become self-absorbed, overly dependent, highly critical or even betray one another. Underlying childhood issues, such as low self-esteem, intense sibling rivalry and abusive parenting often prevent adults from forming satisfactory friendships. The author outlines a variety of coping techniques that committed friends can follow as they work through negative patterns that are eroding their relationship. She also explains how to recognize a friendship that is so destructive it must be ended (e.g., if a friend isn't there for you when your parent dies, it's a sign the friendship's over), how to actually end the friendship (try saying "I'm busy" when the friend asks to get together), how to detect "harmful" people before you become friends with them (examples are the "taker" and the "one-upper") and how to deal with friendships at work (Yager is convinced these friendships should remain casual). This valuable book will be a rescuer to all readers struggling to deal with an ailing friendship.
