Loving You Is Hurting Me

A New Approach to Healing Trauma Bonds and Creating Authentic Connection

By: Laura Copley

Narrated by: Laura Copley, Donna Jay Fulks

Learn how to heal your emotional wounds, get unstuck, and get into healthy, loving, intimate relationships with the help of this eye-opening book.

At the core of most toxic relationships is a painful trauma wound desperate to be healed. As a licensed professional counselor and trauma researcher, Dr. Laura Copley often found herself disturbed by the stigma that her profession puts on trauma survivors who are in these toxic bonds, often too quickly labeling them as victims or abusers and blaming them for their troubled relationships.

Too often, survivors of trauma are left feeling hopeless, exiled from normal social interactions, and destined for heartbreak in any relationship they attract. Through her work with clients, and her own experiences, Dr. Copley developed a roadmap for healing the toxic emotions that come from being bonded by trauma in relationships.

In Loving You is Hurting Me, Dr. Copley guides you through your trauma origins and into a life rich with meaning, loving connection, and inspiration. Drawing from groundbreaking science on trauma and its effects on the body, and from her own practice including a decade’s worth of research on trauma and intimacy, Dr. Copley presents an experiential and transformative approach unlike any other. Her program transforms your trauma bond into deep connection with the self and safe intimacy with others.

Critic reviews

“A compassionate and concrete guide on healing the trauma that gets in the way of having fulfilling relationships, Loving You is Hurting Me offers a groundbreaking perspective on unravelling old toxic patterns and creating a life rich with love, connection, and purpose. Through her expertise as both a therapist and trauma bond survivor, Laura takes our hand and leads us through a deeper understanding of our family origins and helps us reclaim our story of healing and transformation.”—Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone and co-host of the "Dear Therapists" podcast

“When couples get stuck in toxic patterns it’s often not enough to problem-solve and look for solutions. Sometimes to go forward, you have to first go down: into the relationship’s emotional underground. And what’s often there beneath the surface is trauma: two people held together by the pain of their pasts and trapped in patterns that persistently re-traumatize. Thankfully, Laura Copley is right there to guide us, shining a bright light on our emotional underground and showing us that the only way out is not back up, but “through.”—Ian Kerner, sex therapist and NY Times best-selling author of She Comes First

"Beautifully written…a must-read for therapists and clients alike! Seamlessly incorporating research, psycho-education, and a variety of creative modalities, as well as poignant case examples and moving anecdotes from the author’s own life, we are invited to compassionately explore the dynamics of attachment trauma and the subsequent wounding, shame, and inevitable trauma bonds that are perpetuated and reenacted in adult relationships. Despite the difficult subject matter, Dr. Copley constantly and lovingly reminds us that we possess the capacity to tap into our own magical wisdom, self-compassion, and inner guardians, and offers thought-provoking and meaningful tools to help us navigate the journey from trauma to transformation and post-traumatic growth."—Lisa Ferentz, LCSW-C, author of Finding Your Ruby Slippers: Transformative Life Lessons from the Therapist’s Couch

“Dr. Laura Copley has seamlessly woven together research, clinical tools, and memoir to offer us a powerful journey home to ourselves. This book is for everyone who has known hurt but who also knows, even if only quietly in this moment, that they are worthy of wholeness."—Dr. Alexandra H. Solomon, faculty, School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University; bestselling author, Love Every Day; podcast host, Reimagining Love

Easy to grasp & actually interesting

Dr. Copley’s book, unlike many other informative texts, is easily understood. She makes it accessible to all readers by using examples from her own life and career and language that is not complicated. This book is also a nonfiction that will keep you reading because it is truly informative and useful to both a practitioner and the nonprofessional as well.

Incredible

I had so many aha moments listening to this. The narration was excellent and I can’t wait to re-listen with a notebook to take more notes. Just wow.

A book of hope not blame

Thank you THANK YOU!, Laura Copley. Also a big thank you to Donna Jay Fulks the narrator. Beautifully done.

I have been on a furious search for assistance in my current life. This book is firmly in my top five. It’s hope filled its compassionate and insightful. From the top to the bottom of my heart thank you.