Why People Don't Heal and How They Can
by Caroline Myss
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Book Summary Information
Author: Caroline MyssEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1998-09
ISBN: 0609802240
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
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Book Reviews of Why People Don't Heal and How They Can
Book Review: Oh please....
Summary: 3 Stars
I am forced into the uncomfortable position of defending Ms Myss. No, I don't call her Dr. Myss, for reasons others have amply stated. Until I see her dissertation listed on Dissertation Abstracts International, she's no 'Ph.D.' to me! I also must admit that I have listened to a few of her audio programs, and while I agree with some of her ire directed toward the New Age quackery--love spells and candlelighting and stuff like that--she has come across as a bit arrogant and abrasive--two traits I myself share, so I know whereof I speak. She's kind of a jerk. But so's Dr. Phil. Is it because she's a *woman* we get so uptight that she's not 'nice' enough?
However. (Deep sigh). I don't know about many of the negative reviewers here, but I work in a field where I come in contact with a lot of people and as much as you might not want to hear it, woundology is real and is more damaging than you think. I know people who have literally reduced themselves to one-dimensional caricatures of what were once human beings: one of them has become almost the archetype Vietnam Vet; another is the sexual abuse victim; another, the bitter divorced man who hates women. We all have problems in life. We all have faced, if not in childhood than at some point, absolutely heartrending loss and bad things. All of us. I might not have had the same trauma as you, but I've had something rotten happen in my life. I ain't gonna play my damage is bigger than yours, and if anyone responds to this review by telling me I haven't 'suffered', well, let me just say, you have NOOOOO idea what you're talking about and leave it at that. Troubles, I gots plenty, as the song used to go.
It's the human condition. But to turn those bad things into the core of your identity, why, anyone can see that that's not healthy. Turning your trauma into Who You Are first of all constantly feeds that trauma. When that's your identity, every single day, every single time you refer to yourself as an incest survivor or war veteran or cancer survivor, you are revictimizing *yourself*, reaffirming that experience to be more powerful than *you*. Secondly, you get stuck in that identity. YOu can't grow if you remain so invested in one identity that you refuse to change.
What Myss said in this book that so offends people is by and large taken out of context. What she's trying to say, and I'll admit she doesn't say it as nicely as she could have, is that many times people have an ego-investment in keeping a hold on their wound. One might use it to manipulate others--feel sorry for me! My life has been so terrible!--or one might use one's wound to turn one's back on life and the causes of the problem by escaping into what we all must admit by now is the HUGE and apparently quite lucrative industry of therapy and support groups and self-help. One can bury oneself so deep in spiritual readings and support groups and this and that that one never actually gets to deal with the real life manifestations of the issue.
That is not to say that therapy is not useful. It is immensely useful for some (never had much use for it myself, but I've seen it really help a number of people), but the point is therapy works in your head. Unfortunately, sooner or later, one has to get out of one's head and into the real world, and maybe come face to face with the abuser, or the doctor with the bad news, or the broken family, or whatever was the proximal cause of the wound. Sooner or later, you have to deal with external reality. It's unpleasant to realize how one may have let a persona rule one's identity, or how it's made one do unskillful or hurtful things to others, but it's part of the process of waking up.
My drill sergeant had an old saying that came to mind as I was reading the more foaming-at-the-mouth of these reviews. He'd say, "Throw a shoe into a pack of dogs, and the one that yelps is the one that got hit."
Summary of Why People Don't Heal and How They Can
For more than fifteen years, Caroline Myss has studied why some people heal, while others do not. In her previous book, Anatomy of the Spirit, Dr. Myss illuminated the hidden interactions of belief and body, soul and cell to show how, as she inimitably puts it, "your biography becomes your biology." In this new book, she builds on her earlier teachings of the seven different energy centers of the body to provide a vital self-healing program for physical and spiritual disorders. With her characteristic no-nonsense style and high-voltage storytelling, she exposes and explodes the five myths about healing, explains the cultural and individual contexts in which people become physically and spiritually ill and invested in "woundology," and teaches new methods of working with the challenges that the seven energy centers embody.Both visionary and practical, Why People Don't Heal and How They Can presents a bold new account of the development of human consciousness and spirituality over the ages, and examines the dynamic global transformation of attitudes about healing. To help you get and stay on the path to wellness, Dr. Myss provides rituals and prayers for gaining a symbolic perspective on your life issues; for bolstering your personal power; and for connecting with a universal divine energy. Dr. Myss's breakthrough views on energy medicine and her active approach to healing life issues and physical illness will help you overcome the mental blocks that keep you from becoming well.
A woman tells you, within minutes of meeting her, that she's in a support group for incest victims. In theory, this woman is trying to recover from her childhood trauma, but in reality, Caroline Myss writes, she's one of a growing army of people who practice "woundology," the use of their pain and suffering to manipulate those around them. Myss first noticed this phenomenon in the late 1980s, and began to analyze why so many people seemed to choose to carry such painful problems so proudly through life, to define themselves by the awful things that had happened to them. She offers a program to use "symbolic power"--a deep, spiritual insight that surpasses any conjured by the conscious mind--to craft a genuine conclusion to the illness or injury.
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