Dear Fellow Siblings,

I want to welcome you to a place where, perhaps for the first time, you and your emotional needs are the focus of attention-not your problem brother or sister! My new book, THE NORMAL ONE: LIFE WITH A DIFFICULT OR DAMAGED SIBLING (now available as a Delta paperback), the first ever written by a psychotherapist who specializes in treating siblings, and who is a "normal one" herself. I know from my own experience, as well as from my patients and from the 60 adult siblings I interviewed, what an enormous impact troubled or disabled siblings have on every aspect of your life, and how hard we work to keep our feelings about them secret-even from ourselves. I hope you will see yourself in the passionate, powerful stories siblings told me as well as in my story, and find validation for your own experience. You are no longer alone.

Welcome also to parents, spouses, friends, pediatricians and therapists of "normal ones." This book can help you care for them. With your encouragement, every sibling can claim the right to life, love and success--the "special needs" that everyone deserves to have fulfilled.