Seeing Through Tears

Judith Kay Nelson Ph.D.is a psychotherapist, teacher and writer. She has written extensively about crying and attachment and has lectured on this topic to professional and general audiences in the United States and Europe. She teaches clinical theory at the California Institute for Clinical Social Work and maintains a private practice in Berkeley, California.

• Introduction. Part I: A Theory of Crying. There is More to Crying than Meets the Eye. The Circle of Tears: Attachment, Loss, Crying, Caregiving and Re-attachment. Protest, Despair and Detachment: A Classification of Crying. Crying at the Source: The First Twelve Months. Crying is for Broken Legs and Lost Friends: Crying in Childhood. Crying Lessons and Caregiving Responses: The Social View. Part II: The Clinical Assessment of Crying. Healthy Adult Crying and Inhibited Crying (and Healthy Adult Caregiving). Symptomatic Adult Crying and Inhibited Crying (and Symptomatic Adult Caregiving.) Tears as Body Language. Part III: Crying and Inhibited Crying in the Therapeutic Relationship. Crying in the Clinical Hour. How Therapists Deal with Crying and Caregiving (Including their Own). Part IV: Attachment and Caregiving: Beyond the Personal. Transcendent Tears. Bibliography. Index.

"A concise yet in-depth volume. [Nelson] provides an exploration of crying in its multi-layered origins and expressions. Creatively connecting her ideas to attachment theory…she presents her theory of what it means to cry and the caregiving response it usually elicits. A unique, stimulating and very useful book." ---Laura Reiter. L.C.S.W., Clinical Social Work Journal, 2006