Why People Don't Heal and How They Can by Caroline Myss
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Book Reviews of Why People Don't Heal and How They Can
Book Review: Book purchase
Summary: 4 Stars
this book was purchased from Amazon. It came on time and was in great condition. I would buy from this seller againBook 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."
Book Review: People Do Heal--just not all at once
Summary: 3 Stars
In Why People Don't Heal and How They Can, Caroline Myss Ph.D and medical intuitive, explores healing from using the age old energy chakra system. As in her previous book, Anatomy of the Spirit, Ms. Myss explains the ages old concept of the 7 energy chakras found in the human body and how their balance (or lack of it) affects our health. But here she takes those concepts a step further, relating them to both the 2,000 year long astrological ages and 7 Christian sacraments. Those may seem like conflicting philosophies but the symbolism as it plays out in our culture and in our daily lives was surprisingly pertinent. The Aquarian Age energy underlies holistic thought-and in terms of healing represents the increasingly recognized concept that we cannot heal part of an organism without treating the whole of it-body, mind and spirit.
Why People Don't Heal also addresses 5 common myths related to the healing process. Much of this information is useful. Ms. Myss points out for instance, that illness is not necessarily the result of negativity. Our can-do American attitudes sometimes result in portraying illness as a failure or weakness. We want to believe that our lives are totally under our own control. But illness is usually the result of complex causes and is sometimes our teacher. Ms. Myss has a complex yet clear understanding of the nature of illness and more important she realizes the focus on health rather than the treatment of dis-ease.
Some of the stories she relates--and the sentiments she relates along with them-particularly her references to "woundology" early in the book, did not seem in keeping with the tenor of the rest of her work. However, upon further reading the paradox seems more understandable given an understanding of her constant contact with those seeking and struggling with healing on a daily basis in her professional life. Exploring the myths and paradoxes also allow the reader to delve deeper and with more truth into their own path of healing. As she puts it, "you biography becomes your biology." With this knowledge, exploring how to heal the body, also leads to healing of the mind and spirit.
Book Review: mean-spirited elitism
Summary: 2 Stars
the underpinning of caroline myss's growing opus is that we will not heal until we start to take responsibility for our actions and emotional lives. I don't think anyone would argue with that, but it's hard to see her other points as anything but a passive aggressive reaction to other people's hardships. it seems like she has become frustrated with so many people expecting her to solve their problems. her two many theses, that we need to stop seeing ourselves as victims and, more recently, that we are all instances of various archetypes, seem like fanciful, mystical-ized version of two basic complaints that someone who spends a lot of time on lecture tours might have: "you people need to stop whining! don't you realize you're all the same anyway?"
Caroline Myss has done little more than take these two observations, along with the other, not terribly stunning realization that a lot of people profit off their misfortune, and dressed it up in a lot of spiritual hocus pocus. then she uses these ideas as a vehicle for self-promotion and as an excuse to insult people, using the fact that this information is "divinely inspired" as an excuse.
maybe some people do respond negatively to her accusations because they cling to their wounds, but others may do so for a simpler reason: because her point of view is deeply insulting.
Myss talks a lot about self-respect, but what does that mean coming from someone who claims to have used her psychic powers to diagnose thousands of illnesses, but who offers no documented evidence to support that claim? from someone who makes a living from the unhappiness of others while accusing them of profiting off their own wounds? who puts Ph.D after her name, when her degree was conferred by a non-accredited correspondence school?
the one good thing I have to say about Caroline Myss is that her work is intelligent and will get you thinking about your emotions in new ways. but it's hard to see her as anything other than a charlatan and a profiteer, at least until she comes forward with some hard evidence to support her supposed mystical abilities. incidentally, the prognostication that she begins the audio version of this book with (that being a medical intuitive will not be an unusual occupation in ten years) has clearly not come to pass.
Book Review: She is not a healer
Summary: 2 Stars
Mind/body/spirit authors and healers are often accused of "blaming the victim." Good spiritual and mind/body healers do no such thing, but some do imply that if you're sick, it's your fault. And if you don't get better, it's because you don't want to, or don't try hard enough.Caroline Myss doesn't just imply that illness is our fault, she wrote this whole book to tell us so. By downplaying or ignoring the social, economic, genetic, and environmental determinants of health, she turns what should be a hopeful message of empowerment into a club of guilt and blame.
Of course, our own behavior and attitudes play a large role in health. And yes, illness does bring some advantages that some people cling to. But people have good reasons for adopting the behaviors and attitudes they do. We adopted those behaviors before we knew better, because they seemed necessary at the time. And we maintain them because our lives are set up to maintain them.
Change is hard, especially if you don't believe you can do it, or that your life is not worth the effort. People need hope, support, and belief in themselves if they are to change. So when people need to change, to improve their health or their lives, you don't want to start by making them feel bad about themselves. That's why this book, far from helping people heal, is likely to add another layer of suffering to their lives.
My book, The Art of Getting Well, was partly written in response to Why People Don't Heal. (I have been called "the anti-Caroline Myss.") My book explains that illness is not our fault, but it is our responsibility to do the best we can to maximize our health and our lives.
It's often the conditions of our lives that make us sick, and many times the key to getting better is improving our quality of life. One element in this improvement is learning to value, love and forgive ourselves and our bodies. Myss takes the opposite approach; she blames. She is not a healer.
David Spero RN www.art-of-getting-well.com