Is there someone in your life who tries to monopolize your time and consume your energy? Or someone who leaves you feeling confused or misunderstood, but you cannot put your finger on exactly how or why? Is there someone with whom you are unable to have a rational conversation and things seem very complicated? Maybe this person is never satisfied, no matter how much you try to love, help, and please them. Are you the one doing all the work in a relationship? In The Cuckoo Syndrome, Andrea Anderson Polk, a licensed professional counselor, helps us fend off the cuckoos–unhealthy relationships, toxic thinking, and self-sabotaging behavior–in order to find our identity in God and discover new purpose, vision, and meaning in our lives.

We know the cuckoo bird as a colorful wooden figurine that pops out of a clock and chirps the hours of the day to the delight of children and adults alike. In reality, the cuckoo bird is a parasite–invading the nest of other birds, destroying the eggs already present, and fooling the family into raising an ever-demanding, never-satisfied cuckoo chick.

Polk, a licensed professional counselor, compares cuckoo birds–nature’s infamous imposter–to the human experience, situations, and relationships demonstrating haunting confusion and unnecessary suffering. Cuckoos can invisibly sabotage our most intimate relationships, our ministries, and our careers–our deepest desires.

In The Cuckoo Syndrome, Polk gives us new insight and ways to fend off these cuckoos that invade our nests with their devious disguises. Cuckoos can take many forms. There is the cuckoo of avoiding emotion, the fear cuckoo, the stress cuckoo, the shame cuckoo, the unresolved grief cuckoo, the perfectionism cuckoo, the counselor cuckoo, and probably the most insidious cuckoo of all: the religion cuckoo.

Drawing from a depth of study in scripture, science, and psychology, Polk breaks us free from the cuckoo’s snare by teaching us to embrace the desires of our heart as we uncover the truth of who we are, who others are, and who God is. We can learn to establish great joy in our identity by committing ourselves to discover meaning in suffering and understanding how our pain is the genuine catalyst for purpose.