Books

Now available as an Audiobook, narrated by the author.

Purchase on Amazon here.

Purchase on Audible here.

Replacement Child opens with the explosion of a plane crash, the injury of a two-year-old girl and the impossible choice a mother must make. The death of a child leaves a hole in the family that threatens to tear it apart.

In a great act of hope, the parents give birth to a “replacement child,” born to heal wounds and provide a “salve for the burns.” The child unwittingly plays
her role throughout childhood, riding the deep and hidden currents of the family tragedy. Years later, as an adult, she discovers the truth of her family’s life-changing event and the complex layers of her own relationships with her father, mother, and sister. Not until she finally has a child of her own does she come to grips with what she silently has known all along: Anything can happen. Planes fall from the sky. Purchase Judy’s book here.

Kristina E. Schellinski uncovers the hidden trauma of the replacement child – born into an atmosphere of grief to substitute for a lost sibling or other person – and helps adult replacement children discover the uniqueness of their self.

Schellinski combines Jungian theory with research from over 20 years of clinical practice to demonstrate how adult replacement children who suffer from physical and psychological distress can rediscover the essence of their being in the transformative process of individuation. Theoretical yet practical, the book discusses core concepts of analytical psychology, psychoanalysis and attachment theory, and detailed case studies address grief, guilt, identity formation, relational challenges and shadow aspects. Schellinski explores how Jung’s birth after three dead children impacted his search for self and his theory and discloses her own personal experience. On treatment and prevention, she argues that by recognizing elements of the condition, clinicians can facilitate acceptance, compassion and healing, and help reduce transgenerational transmission.

This book is an indispensable tool for clinicians, analytical psychologists, psychodynamic psychotherapists and those in other medical professions, and will be of great interest to academics and readers interested in Jungian studies and existential questions. It offers adult replacement children and their families hope for a psychological rebirth. Purchase Kristina’s book here.

Few tragedies are felt as deeply as the loss of a child, whether by death or incapacitation. For many families, the echoes of this pain are even detected in the lives of subsequent children or in an older child whose life has been redirected as a result of this loss. Replacement children share a common experience, one in which they are, often unconsciously, allocated to fill a void left in the family. They are burdened with the daunting task of relieving the family’s unprocessed grief. Replacement Children: The Unconscious Script is a complex and fascinating overview of people caught up in the arduous mission of having to carry on for another. Authors Battat and Brenner present a wealth of research and compelling personal stories about this profound and under-explored phenomenon. Purchase Rita’s book here.

Also now available as an audio book from the links below.
Amazon
Audible
Apple Books

Have you ever wondered, “When will I be good enough?” Like millions of other women, educator/author Barbara Jaffe was faced with that question, but for her, as a “replacement child,” the barriers to acceptability were higher than for most of us. Barbara, like many others, was born to fill the vacancy left by her little brother, who died at the age of two. This book tells the multitude of listeners who have been “replacement children” for many reasons, that they, too, can find hope and healing, as did Barbara. Purchase Barbara’s book here.

Henry Abramovitch’s Brothers and Sisters explores the tension between the myth and reality of brothers and sisters in a variety of cultures and through the poignant stories in the Bible. He looks at the developmental sequence in the sibling relationship as brothers or sisters struggle to find their place with each other and considers why siblings are so absent in works of the great founders of depth psychology. Abramovitch proposes a new vocabulary for discussing sibling dynamics, sibling transference & countertransference. “Our relations with our inner and outer brothers and sisters hold the key to the individuation process itself”, he says. You can purchase the book here.

How does a contemporary artist manifest the conflicts and identity confusion of being thought of as a surrogate?  The fact that his predecessor as his parents’ only child, a son, died at nine-and-a-half, made it especially tough. And that child’s dying was a horriific process of deterioration to experience as well as witness.  Robert Smithson grew up to paint bloody crucifixions and all manner of art in blood red and to enigmatically claim, “You don’t have to have existence to exist.”  For him and other replacement s – too true!

Purchase on Amazon here.