“Busting Free” Aims to Address Emotional Healing in the Quest for Better Breasts

So often the emotional healing from breast implant and explant surgery is completely overlooked however it can be equally as important as the physical healing. Amanda Savage Brown, Ph.D., LCSW, a psychotherapist, author, and member of the Breast Implant Safety Alliance (BISA) advisory council, seeks to help guide others in the process of emotional healing during breast reconstruction.

Busting Free: How to Liberate Yourself from the Quest for Better Breasts Before, During, and Long After Explant may be a helpful resource for individuals facing a breast cancer diagnosis, considering breast implants, breast reconstruction or explant surgery. “I appreciate her professional commitment to providing evidence-based resources and tools for self-advocacy. Her expertise is a wonderful and crucial addition to our growing advisory council,” says Maria Gmitro, BISA’s president.

"When I explanted, even back in 2018, there were many helpful resources on the surgical considerations of explant and recovery. Because I went through that journey as a psychotherapist, I immediately saw the gap in professional resources aimed at supporting explant's deeply felt and often overlooked inner journey. Explant offers a huge opportunity to fully reclaim yourself from unhelpful social messaging about your body's appearance. And I knew I could help women seize that hidden gift by writing Busting Free and translating to the explant journey the evidence-based strategies I use as an Acceptance & Commitment Therapy practitioner. It was my goal to provide readers with a how-to guide for giving themselves acceptance before, during, and long after explant. Reading Busting Free doesn't make you stop caring about your appearance, but it does help you forge a lifelong self-acceptance practice that has nothing to do with breast implants or your body's silhouette."
-Amanda Savage Brown, Ph.D., LCSW

About Amanda Savage Brown, Ph.D., LCSW

Amanda Savage Brown, Ph.D., LCSW, is a scientist turned psychotherapist, coach, author, and speaker. In her private practice, she uses the evidence-based approaches of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to help women achieve self-acceptance and overcome people-pleasing, anxiety, grief, loss, and childhood trauma. She also specializes in the psychosocial aspects of breast implants and explant. She authored Busting Free: The first self-help book for women whose life journeys include breast implants. Her digital home is amandasavagebrown.com where she offers a digital library of unique resources for women living with breast implants or adjusting to life after explant. To keep "abreast" of her work, follow her here and on IG and FB @dr.amandasavagebrown. 

About Busting Free

Did the social valuing of breasts lead you to augment, restore, or reconstruct yours with implants? If so, then you know the powerful—at times inescapable—thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that drove you onto the implant table, crowd your mind and heart when it inevitably comes time to replace or remove aging or problematic implants,and persist after explant—even when you’re thrilled to be implant-free.

But you can liberate yourself from the quest for better breasts and heal its harder-to-see inner scars. Dr. Amanda Savage Brown, Ph.D., LCSW, lights the way. Inspired by her own breast implant journey and specialty practice in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, she created a landmark self-reclamation program for anyone whose life journey includes breast implants. 

Now you can access her balanced blend of professional insight and personal experience in this first-of-its-kind self-help book and its digital library of guided audios, demo videos, and worksheets. If you like relatable books that offer science-based change, you will love Busting Free. It helps you:

• Discover the behind-the-scenes process that created your breast “rulebook” and how to stop struggling with its content.

• Tame the part of your mind that tries fixing your feelings by "fixing" your appearance.

• Find your way through this journey’s mental, emotional, and social concerns.

• Transform self-acceptance from an elusive concept into tangible practice—for the rest of your life.

Busting Free: How to Liberate Yourself from the Quest for Better Breasts Before, During, and Long After Explant won the 2022 Best Independent Book Award for Women's Well-being.

Amanda Savage Brown, Ph.D., LCSW won the 2022 Best Independent Book Award for Women's Well-being for her book Busting Free.