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Emotional Orphans
When social worker Cate Shepherd's first patient punches her in the face, she realizes she has a lot to learn about helping traumatized kids.
So Cate duct tapes her heart to her sleeve and sets out on a mission to find captives of childhood pain and free them. When she begins, she does not know that the kids she loves will pee on her furniture, poop on her shoe, brandish a broken beer bottle in her face, and heave a huge potted plant at her head. Nor does she realize they will burrow into her heart, sometimes break it, and mold her into a therapist who is willing to follow them wherever they need to go to heal themselves.
While still a psychology student, Cate begins her career and finds her bliss in an unexpected place: Juvenile Hall. Compelled by the suffering of teens she meets there, and intrigued by her uncanny ability to understand and help them, she pursues a career as a psychotherapist. She comes to understand that her own painful childhood fuels her passion for this work.
At her first real therapist job after grad school, Cate meets Harry Young, M.D., a quirky psychoanalyst who takes a keen interest in her clinical training. Harry hangs out in her dingy little office and watches her daily antics while she re-parents a motley caseload of emotional orphans. Most of the kids have at least one parent still living. Somewhere. But the needs of their hearts remain unmet. Like Cate's.
The residential treatment of disturbed teens is soaked in violence, tragedy, comedy, and creativity. And characters. Like the art therapist who conducts funerals for boogers.
Sometimes unconventional means are required to reach armored hearts. Like smuggling martial arts weapons onto the dorm to empower a downtrodden boy. Or sneaking out the back of the Christian group home to perform a fire ritual with a Wiccan family in a nearby canyon.
And sometimes the hours are long. Like watching over a comatose girl in the ICU after a near-fatal suicide attempt.
One day Harry looks up from his cup of coffee and, with his Sean Connery smirk says, "You're goofy enough to do this work." This is the sword on the shoulder that Cate has been waiting for. With Harry's support and wise counsel, she specializes in the treatment of severely emotionally disturbed adolescents for eighteen years. Cate takes on some of the most disturbed families in Los Angeles, and works inside some of the most dysfunctional systems, advocating for healthy change and developing training programs for young therapists. Each of these children seems to carry a piece of Cate's own healing. And the systems these kids live in often bear an unfortunate resemblance to Cate's abusive family.
Eventually, one of these systems turns on her. Trauma blindsides Cate and rips open old wounds.
After years of helping others heal, she struggles to get free from the shackles of her own pain. And when she is ready to give up, the unexpected unfolds.
So Cate duct tapes her heart to her sleeve and sets out on a mission to find captives of childhood pain and free them. When she begins, she does not know that the kids she loves will pee on her furniture, poop on her shoe, brandish a broken beer bottle in her face, and heave a huge potted plant at her head. Nor does she realize they will burrow into her heart, sometimes break it, and mold her into a therapist who is willing to follow them wherever they need to go to heal themselves.
While still a psychology student, Cate begins her career and finds her bliss in an unexpected place: Juvenile Hall. Compelled by the suffering of teens she meets there, and intrigued by her uncanny ability to understand and help them, she pursues a career as a psychotherapist. She comes to understand that her own painful childhood fuels her passion for this work.
At her first real therapist job after grad school, Cate meets Harry Young, M.D., a quirky psychoanalyst who takes a keen interest in her clinical training. Harry hangs out in her dingy little office and watches her daily antics while she re-parents a motley caseload of emotional orphans. Most of the kids have at least one parent still living. Somewhere. But the needs of their hearts remain unmet. Like Cate's.
The residential treatment of disturbed teens is soaked in violence, tragedy, comedy, and creativity. And characters. Like the art therapist who conducts funerals for boogers.
Sometimes unconventional means are required to reach armored hearts. Like smuggling martial arts weapons onto the dorm to empower a downtrodden boy. Or sneaking out the back of the Christian group home to perform a fire ritual with a Wiccan family in a nearby canyon.
And sometimes the hours are long. Like watching over a comatose girl in the ICU after a near-fatal suicide attempt.
One day Harry looks up from his cup of coffee and, with his Sean Connery smirk says, "You're goofy enough to do this work." This is the sword on the shoulder that Cate has been waiting for. With Harry's support and wise counsel, she specializes in the treatment of severely emotionally disturbed adolescents for eighteen years. Cate takes on some of the most disturbed families in Los Angeles, and works inside some of the most dysfunctional systems, advocating for healthy change and developing training programs for young therapists. Each of these children seems to carry a piece of Cate's own healing. And the systems these kids live in often bear an unfortunate resemblance to Cate's abusive family.
Eventually, one of these systems turns on her. Trauma blindsides Cate and rips open old wounds.
After years of helping others heal, she struggles to get free from the shackles of her own pain. And when she is ready to give up, the unexpected unfolds.
- GenresNonfiction
266 pages, Paperback
First published July 30, 2012
18 people are currently reading
90 people want to read
About the author
Cate Shepherd
5 books18 followersWinner, San Diego Book Awards, 2012
Cate Shepherd specialized in the treatment of severely emotionally disturbed adolescents for over twenty years. Emotional Orphans tells the stories of resilient survivors who overcame impossible odds.
Cate Shepherd specialized in the treatment of severely emotionally disturbed adolescents for over twenty years. Emotional Orphans tells the stories of resilient survivors who overcame impossible odds.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
July 30, 2019
This book is much bigger than the sum of its parts. The author, a social worker, tells the story of her career through the stories of the clinics she worked in, the programs she ran, and the people - children and adults - whom she treated. Intertwined with this narrative is the thread of the writer's own struggle, grief, and psychological work to heal from her traumatic childhood and find new ways to regain connections with her roots.
I do have some quibbles with the writing. This author is entirely too fond of paragraph breaks; she uses them with the same wanton abundance that glitter is used at a parade. But just as it is impossible to complain about glitter at a parade, it feels churlish to talk about the chopped up quality that these paragraph breaks impart to the writing.
Better to simply say: this book is profound. It evoked a reverence in me for the journey of all the patients, of this social worker, and for humanity itself. We do good things, sometimes. This book showcases the very highest kind.
I do have some quibbles with the writing. This author is entirely too fond of paragraph breaks; she uses them with the same wanton abundance that glitter is used at a parade. But just as it is impossible to complain about glitter at a parade, it feels churlish to talk about the chopped up quality that these paragraph breaks impart to the writing.
Better to simply say: this book is profound. It evoked a reverence in me for the journey of all the patients, of this social worker, and for humanity itself. We do good things, sometimes. This book showcases the very highest kind.
December 4, 2017
Wonderful
Beautiful stories of healing. Truly inspiring. Easy to read and will be reread. Great examples of therapeutic process, growth and resiliency
Beautiful stories of healing. Truly inspiring. Easy to read and will be reread. Great examples of therapeutic process, growth and resiliency
November 13, 2022
I really enjoyed reading though it was painful . I did not know how bad the system is !!! No wonder we have so many children that turn into adults that turn into criminals !!! Some major changes need to happen!!!
July 11, 2021
Interesting and emotional read. A number of individual stories, along her work timeline.
November 25, 2012
Humans can bear an incredible amount of pain if we don't feel alone with it. -- Cate Shepherd
Emotional Orphans: Children who are abused and neglected and for self-preservation have turned off their trust instincts and no longer have a connection with adults. Believing no one cares about http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16..., they often act out either by hurting themselves or others and are often incorrectly diagnosed with behavior or mental health pathologies. This is my definition after reading Dr. Cate Shepherd's book.
I've always had an interest in psychology. I am intrigued with how people think and the ways in which our core beliefs affect our attitudes and behaviors. As an emotional orphan myself, when I discovered Dr. Cate Shepherd's poignant book Emotional Orphans: Healing Our Throwaway Children, I knew it was a book I had to read.
In Emotional Orphans, Dr. Shepherd takes us inside her thriving therapy practice and we meet several of the emotional orphans she's counseling. They start out rough around the edges, often downright scary but Dr. Shepherd is not only astute but incredibly compassionate as she wisely looks beyond the hardened facades of these emotionally damaged children in her care. Through consistent validation of not only their deepest hurts but also their dreams and gifts, she is able to break down the self-protecting barriers and get her patients to trust her and bond, often for the first time.
But if life weren't challenging enough, Dr. Shepherd must also deal with headstrong supervisors and twisted office politics and worse, her own painful past. She finds help with wise mentor Dr. Harry Young. (We should all be so lucky.) As a trusted colleague, he offers pointers on how to help her patients but also becomes her therapist as she seeks to come to terms with the horrific pain she suffered growing up.
This book offers tremendous insight into human behavior and the emotional needs we all have. Dr. Shepherd deftly shows how parents foist their unhealed traumas upon their young, repeating the cycle of abuse. She also humanizes the figures we see--and often avoid--every day. The thug with tattoos and leather waiting at the bus stop. The young mother at the 7-11 with a toddler on her hip and a cigarette between her fingers--society's emotional orphans.
Of the many takeaway messages within this highly relevant book is that all humans have the same basic needs. We need to be loved and validated. We need to feel safe and respected. Dr. Shepherd shows us that people's sometimes terrifying outward behaviors are actually desperate cries for help. She then shows us how she gifts her patients with her respect and consistence with life-changing results.
I wish every person on the planet could read this book. What a difference it would make in how we treat one another.
Emotional Orphans: Children who are abused and neglected and for self-preservation have turned off their trust instincts and no longer have a connection with adults. Believing no one cares about http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16..., they often act out either by hurting themselves or others and are often incorrectly diagnosed with behavior or mental health pathologies. This is my definition after reading Dr. Cate Shepherd's book.
I've always had an interest in psychology. I am intrigued with how people think and the ways in which our core beliefs affect our attitudes and behaviors. As an emotional orphan myself, when I discovered Dr. Cate Shepherd's poignant book Emotional Orphans: Healing Our Throwaway Children, I knew it was a book I had to read.
In Emotional Orphans, Dr. Shepherd takes us inside her thriving therapy practice and we meet several of the emotional orphans she's counseling. They start out rough around the edges, often downright scary but Dr. Shepherd is not only astute but incredibly compassionate as she wisely looks beyond the hardened facades of these emotionally damaged children in her care. Through consistent validation of not only their deepest hurts but also their dreams and gifts, she is able to break down the self-protecting barriers and get her patients to trust her and bond, often for the first time.
But if life weren't challenging enough, Dr. Shepherd must also deal with headstrong supervisors and twisted office politics and worse, her own painful past. She finds help with wise mentor Dr. Harry Young. (We should all be so lucky.) As a trusted colleague, he offers pointers on how to help her patients but also becomes her therapist as she seeks to come to terms with the horrific pain she suffered growing up.
This book offers tremendous insight into human behavior and the emotional needs we all have. Dr. Shepherd deftly shows how parents foist their unhealed traumas upon their young, repeating the cycle of abuse. She also humanizes the figures we see--and often avoid--every day. The thug with tattoos and leather waiting at the bus stop. The young mother at the 7-11 with a toddler on her hip and a cigarette between her fingers--society's emotional orphans.
Of the many takeaway messages within this highly relevant book is that all humans have the same basic needs. We need to be loved and validated. We need to feel safe and respected. Dr. Shepherd shows us that people's sometimes terrifying outward behaviors are actually desperate cries for help. She then shows us how she gifts her patients with her respect and consistence with life-changing results.
I wish every person on the planet could read this book. What a difference it would make in how we treat one another.
December 17, 2014
As an avid reader of memoirs, I found Emotional Orphans to be extremely satisfying with it's well-written, engaging prose and story structure. Each chapter relates the experiences of both the author as a therapist in the juvenile justice/mental health system of California as well as that of her patients (names, of course, are changed and identities protected). The telling life details are conveyed with great humanity and emotional depth as the author struggles to make a vital connection with each patient which often requires her to draw upon painful memories of her own childhood trauma.
I found the stories to be absolutely riveting. Beyond that my understanding of the perils and challenges of staff and patients in the U.S. Juvenile Justice System grew deeper as I read Emotional Orphans. The power of memoir lies in that genre's ability to resonate with the reader who can empathize and discover common-ground experiences in the related struggles and emotional life events of the author. As I read of the author's quest for her own healing, I found my self reflecting on developmental events in my life timeline and that of family and friends.
The book's insightful therapeutic concepts, described in layman terms as each chapter unfolds, produced many "Ah Hah!" moments. So for me to say that Emotional Orphans was both a revelation and an inspiration is no exaggeration!
I found the stories to be absolutely riveting. Beyond that my understanding of the perils and challenges of staff and patients in the U.S. Juvenile Justice System grew deeper as I read Emotional Orphans. The power of memoir lies in that genre's ability to resonate with the reader who can empathize and discover common-ground experiences in the related struggles and emotional life events of the author. As I read of the author's quest for her own healing, I found my self reflecting on developmental events in my life timeline and that of family and friends.
The book's insightful therapeutic concepts, described in layman terms as each chapter unfolds, produced many "Ah Hah!" moments. So for me to say that Emotional Orphans was both a revelation and an inspiration is no exaggeration!
January 7, 2013
"Humans are not designed to cope with overwhelming circumstances alone." - Cate Shepherd
"Some problems in our lives, Cate, are best dealt with by walking the fuck away from them," Harry said. He had such a way with words."
Gosh, this book was amazing. Cate has a way with words and yet she's so brutally honest and transparent. Great, enlightening, inspiring read.
"Some problems in our lives, Cate, are best dealt with by walking the fuck away from them," Harry said. He had such a way with words."
Gosh, this book was amazing. Cate has a way with words and yet she's so brutally honest and transparent. Great, enlightening, inspiring read.
December 24, 2012
Enjoyable read. Interesting insight into the lives of tormented children as told by their therapist. The author is a good storyteller and steers clear of clinical language. Although there is some valuable learning here, the book thankfully reads more like a novel than a textbook.
December 12, 2013
A must read for clinicians who work with trauma
really good depiction of working with wounded kids. Validates all the struggles and feelings that comes with this job. Cate Shepard tells the real story of what it's like for "bad" kids.
really good depiction of working with wounded kids. Validates all the struggles and feelings that comes with this job. Cate Shepard tells the real story of what it's like for "bad" kids.
March 24, 2016
It was a nice book. I really enjoy it at the begining. It had lovely stories that bring a lot of emotions to the reader. It became too monotonous at some point and i lost interest. It is an optimistic book and i can see how many people might be able to love it.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews