This revised and expanded edition of Connections, now published by Hazelden, draws on empirically based strategies to help your clients recognize shame as a universal experience and embrace authentic living as a foundation for shame resilience. Topics include
defining shame
practicing empathy
exploring triggers and vulnerabilities
practicing critical awareness
reaching out to others
creating, embracing, and inspiring change
Connections engages clients on a cognitive, behavioral, and interpersonal level. Clients learn via group and personal exercises, handouts, and reading assignments from Brown's best-selling book I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't): Telling the Truth About Perfectionism, Inadequacy, and Power.
The Connections curriculum includes a three-ring binder with facilitator information and lesson plans for twelve sessions, a 114-minute DVD, and a CD-ROM containing reproducible client handouts. The DVD features talks with the author that are keyed to the sessions as well as an introduction to the curriculum. Summaries of the assigned readings and DVD sessions are now included with the client reproducible handouts on the CD-ROM.

Dr. Brené Brown is a writer, researcher, educator, and activist. She is an award-winning member of the research faculty at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, where she has spent the past ten years studying authenticity, belonging, and shame, and the effect these powerful emotions have on the way we live, love, parent, work, and build relationships. Dr. Brown lives in Houston with her husband, Steve, and their two children, Ellen and Charlie.