Peace At Any Price

Peace-at-any-price people are polite, generous, passive beings who: --Value peace above all else. --Try to avoid arguments, disagreements and fights. --Fear anger. --Have a history of childhood abuse, abandonment or neglect. --Put other people's wants and needs ahead of their own. --Silently dislike aggressive people. --Do not like to ask for what they want. --Attract aggressive partners. --Stuff their feelings. --Avoid making decisions that affect others (i.e., choose movies, restaurants, etc.) But walking on eggshells, giving in and swallowing feelings do not give them the peace they so desperately crave. Instead, they lead chaotic, hectic, hellish lives. Their eager-to-please personalities are the underlying cause of their need to under or over eat, to abuse alcohol and drugs, and to find other ways to run from life. Poor reveals her own experiences and acquired strengths, as well as those of others who have successfully overcome the ?please disease.?

Deborah Day Poor, LCSW, says she was held hostage during her childhood by her abusive, alcoholic father. At 18 she left home thinking she'd left her past behind. In time, she realized that she was recreating relationships similar to the one she left. With therapeutic individual and group help, Deborah found the strength she needed to overcome her peace-at-any-price personality and begin college at age 41. She graduated magnum cum laude from the University of South Florida and obtained a Masters Degree in Clinical Social Work from Florida State University. She is a member of the National Association of Social Workers and the Tampa Bay Association of Women Psychotherapists. Deborah Day Poor currently works as a licensed psychotherapist in Lakeland, Florida. She has worked in addiction and eating disorder treatment centers as a primary therapist and as a clinical director. She has specialized in teaching parenting skills and treating addictions, eating disorders, and relationship dependency. She also worked as a seminar presenter, using hypnosis to help participants quit smoking and lose weight. She shares her experience, strength and hope to help her clients, students and readers become all that they can be.