Relationsick
Available
October 6, 2026.
About Relationsick
The body wants to heal itself. By treating your relational trauma, you can create the conditions it needs to begin.
Most people know that controlling relationships can lead to mental health issues. But fewer people understand that our bodies translate relational trauma into physical, chronic, and even terminal illnesses— autoimmune disorders, cancer, chronic pain, and more. For people in unbalanced, abusive, or toxic relationships, this means their relational trauma, narcissistic abuse, and oppression is literally making them physically and emotionally sick– in other words, relationsick.
Building on the Internal Family Systems and Relational Life Therapy models, Relationsick is a trauma-informed recovery plan that will help you rebalance relationships where you give too much and receive too little or where someone is abusing their power- at your body’s expense.
Relationsick will help you break free from the fawning behaviors that keep you stuck in toxic relational dynamics- with romantic partners, family, friends, professional relationships, gurus, or other authority figures- so you can heal your dysregulated nervous system, emotions, and body. Drawing on more than 30 years of experience, Drs. Lissa Rankin and Jeffrey Rediger place recovery firmly in your hands through grounded, ethical, trauma-informed, evidence-based medical advice.
More About The Authors
The Authors
Dr. Lissa Rankin
Lissa Rankin, MD, is an OB/GYN physician and author of 8 books, including the New York Times bestseller Mind Over Medicine. She is the founder of the Whole Health Medicine Institute and the health equity nonprofit Heal at Last, and an artist who researches radical remission, trauma-informed medicine, and the relational implications for medical conditions, including the effects of loneliness, narcissism, and coercive control on health.
Dr. Jeffrey Rediger
Jeffrey Rediger MD, MDiv, is an author, a licensed physician and psychiatrist, and on the faculty of Harvard Medical School. He was the medical director of McLean SouthEast and Community Affairs at McLean Hospital in Boston for 22 years, and concurrently for many years also the chief of behavioral medicine at Good Samaritan Medical Center.
Treat Your Relational Trauma
Drawing on more than 30 years of experience, Drs. Lissa Rankin and Jeffrey Rediger place recovery firmly in your hands through grounded, ethical, trauma-informed, evidence-based medical advice.
Regulate your nervous system, protect your heart with good boundaries, and heal your body by learning to:
– Spot the red flags of narcissism – as well as the green flags of healthy, responsible, health-inducing relationships
– Understand fawning, over-functioning, and enabling behaviors in a trauma-informed way—so you can take charge of your health
– Unpack how religious, New Age, or cultural belief systems can reinforce abuse through ‘spiritual bypassing’
– Deconstruct harmful beliefs that enable perpetrators, cause ongoing harm to victims, and prevent accountability harm you, sotprogram unhealthy conditioning and set patterns that will help your nervous system begin the process of deeper healing
– Get to know the parts of you that cause you to give too much and keep you stuck in power imbalances that can make you sick
– Heal traumatized parts so you are empowered to take a firm stand for yourself and your health
– Communicate clear and assertive boundaries, navigate existing relationships with narcissists, and decide if a no-contact approach is right for you
With practical self-help tools like quizzes for self-assessment, Internal Family Systems practices, and relational recovery tools, this radical new approach to healing from physical illness and unhealthy relationships makes it clear that your body has the power to improve or even reverse trauma-inflicted illness. All you have to do is help it do so
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Upcoming Events
Relationsick
An In-Person Residential Retreat for Healing Relational Trauma To Optimize Health Outcomes with Dr. Lissa Rankin.
Avon Old Farm Hotel is the perfect place for our 5-day retreat. Nestled amidst 10 acres of breathtakingly manicured grounds on Connecticut’s scenic Talcott Mountain, Avon Old Farms Hotel is a haven of peace and timeless New England charm.
October 26-30, 2026
Mauris Blandit Aliquet
10:00am – 12:00pm
Cras Ultricies Ligula
10:00am – 12:00pm
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