No One Is to Blame: Is Your Challenging Child a Link? by Susana Balán

ISBN 9781956864489

What is a Link? Might your challenging child have a Link personality? No One Is to Blame: Is Your Challenging Child a Link? introduces Susana Balán’s concept of the Link personality, presenting parents who may feel desperate and hopeless with a way of understanding their “difficult” child so that they can feel more confident in their ability to parent in a way that nourishes both the child and the parentchild relationship.
Links are compelled to be seekers—people who are not content with the status quo but who must find their own unique, often painful ways to move through life and confront the world around them. As children they feel themselves—and are considered by others—to be “different” or “difficult,” feel guilty and fearful even when they have done nothing wrong, and feel tremendous inner turmoil that they cannot articulate. As they become adults, they do not walk a straight line in relation to career, relationships, and other major life choices. Instead, they follow a winding, unpredictable path until they can finally integrate their many identities into a cohesive “self” that can find peace and feel at ease in the world.
In addition to providing guidance and support to parents, Balán offers a theoretical foundation to explain what circumstances produce a Link child and why loving adults find it so hard to help these children deal with their suffering. No One Is to Blame will also help Link adults struggling to understand themselves.

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“No One Is to Blame is a cuttingedge exploration of a behavioral typology called Link, found in many bright and challenging children. Unpacking the Link personality in a comprehensive, accessible way, Susana Balán provides caregivers with an alchemical recipe for transforming the challenges of their complex and precocious child into the blessings of a fruitful relationship. No One Is to Blame is an important contribution that will be appreciated by parents, psychologists, and all adults navigating complex psychoemotional
terrain.” —RABBI DR. TIRZAH FIRESTONE, author of Wounds into Wisdom: Healing Intergenerational Jewish Trauma

“No One Is to Blame is a pleasure to read. Not only is it very clearly written and coherently framed, but it also contributes to the understanding of individual psychological differences. This book will appeal to adults who are seekers wishing to be accepted for who they are, while choosing to follow their own unique path in life. It will also appeal to parents who are struggling with
how to parent a child who is more creative, adventurous, and curious than usual. I would enthusiastically recommend this book—and its companion volume, Link and the Shooting Stars—to clients in my clinical practice. ”
—Jean Turner, PhD, C Psych, Professor Emerita, Couple and Family Therapy Program, Department of Family Relations, U of Guelph

A psychologist for more than 50 years, SUSANA BALÁN has worked with individuals, couples, and groups in the United States, Argentina, and Brazil. For over 20 years she has worked with clients whom she has identified as Links, and who have inspired her to develop the conceptual framework for the Link personality described in No One Is to Blame. In addition to the children’s book Link and the Shooting Stars, the companion volume to No One Is to Blame (coauthored with Claudia Cano), Balán has published in English, Spanish, and/or Portuguese Caminos: Más allá de los mapas del amor y del poder (Paths: Beyond the Maps of Love and Power), Dos para el tango: Nuevas formas para un encuentro amoroso (Two to Tango: Choreographies for a Challenging Love), La utopía amorosa (The Love Utopia), and Tres estilos de mulher (Three Types of Women).