After actively participating in and contributing to California’s burgeoning self-help movement of the 70s and 80s, and 12 years of marriage, wellness pioneers, John Travis and Meryn Callander, decided they were ready to “consciously” conceive and give birth to a child.

Travis, lauded as a founding father of the wellness movement, was shocked to discover how unprepared he was for coping with the latent triggers of parenthood on his psyche. Both were surprised to find themselves exhausted and unprepared for the physical and emotional challenges confronting them.

In their book, they share the story of their confident plunge into parenthood, subsequent unraveling of that confidence, as well as their marriage, and their discovery of invisible cultural undercurrents, which manifest in what they eventually identified and named the Dynamic of Disappearing Dads—fathers leaving their families—physically and/or emotionally, soon after the birth of a child.

Nearly twenty years in the making, the book offers insights and practical ways of preventing and healing the insidious and devastating impact of this largely unacknowledged epidemic.