Publishers Weekly Calls “The Sitting Swing” An Earnest Memoir
Austin, Texas (PRWEB) December 8, 2005
“Watson’s memoir recounts her fearful, highly sheltered years growing up an only child to Ukrainian immigrants in 1940s Alberta, Canada. This is an earnest memoir, well structured.”
Publishers Weekly
“The Sitting Swing is a lively & frank record of one person’s adventure into the realm of self-discovery, memories, responsibility for one’s own life & the art of taking it back. Taking it back from forgotten childhood events & lessons that unconsciously drive us into dead ends, into rages, into obsessions with control, into immoderate use of drugs & drink — anything to soothe those dreadful pangs of helplessness, insatiability & the fear of a boring & empty future.”
Rebecca Brown, Rebecca’s Reads
“Watson is an intelligent and observant narrator and readers will be pulled in by her astute understanding of the nature of addiction, that at times are filled with many psychological complexities. The result is a moving narrative providing the readers with a superb snapshot of one woman’s quest to free herself from self-defeating repetitive patterns and dependencies. The author succeeds in explaining and articulating the “big questions” pertaining to “relationship addiction,” and thereby gives her readers a firm foundation for further study and analysis.”
Norm Goldman, Book Pleasures ____________________
Irene Watson’s education as a therapist could go no further until she faced her own troubled past. To make peace with the past, she removed herself from life and checked into a residential addiction recovery center. Although she suffered from no chemical addictions, she knew she was addicted to damaging behavior patterns that were road blocks to her happiness and success. “The Sitting Swing” (Plain View Press, 2005) is a tale of a healer’s journey to heal herself.
A respected therapist, Watson has taught and facilitated healing workshops and retreats throughout the United States and Canada.
Her poignant and inspiring memoir begins in a recovery center, where she has gone to understand a childhood fraught with abuse, guilt and uncertainty. Her powerful story is a testament that it’s never too late to change your life, never too late to heal.
Watson was born into a tight Ukrainian-speaking community and a family struggling with guilt, shame and grief over the death of a first born child—a son. The old world immigrant culture placed much of the blame for Irene’s brother’s death on her mother, causing her to hold her next child close to home, segregated from the new culture, victim to the blunt aggression of male cousins and scornful townspeople.
The book visits pivotal moments of the past and then recounts the process of recovery that takes place years later. The Sitting Swing is a healing story about the strength and courage of the human spirit.
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