Customer Reviews

The Abandoned Child Within: On Losing and Regaining Self-Worth

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In The Abandoned Child Within: On Losing And Regaining Self-worth, psychotherapist and analyst Kathrin Asper presents an impressive and cogent examination of the "wounded inner child" present in every adult who has experienced physical or emotional abandonment. Asper also presents an effective therapeutic approach for overcoming the devastating consequences of such early wounds to the psyche with their consequent symptoms of impaired self-esteem, depression, disproportionate rage, and inarticulate needs. The Abandoned Child Within is a superb contribution to psychological studies.

This book is a vivid delight: patients' case histories, patient drawings and the paraphrenalia of a therapist's existence. Underneath this colourful maelstrom lies an hypothesis: pathological narcissism is the direct outcome of early childhood abuse and trauma, mainly in the form of abandonment or neglect. Narcissism, in other words, is a defence against hurt and emotional injury. To eradicate it, one must revert to one's roots and deal with unrsolved pain and conflict with caregivers and significant others (in other words, one's mother). This is the orthodoxy and it is supported by a large body of therapeutical experience. Yet, the author neglects to review the entire spectrum of abuse - from physical to verbal, from smothering to ignoring, from doting to absence. A child treated as a parent's precious extension, the parent's only shot at wish fulfillment and a parent's favourite toy is no less abused than a child abandoned and beaten. this book, in other words, deals with a niche - with ONE of the possible dynamics that lead to narcissism. Otherwise, this is recommended reading....

I found this book on a remainders bookshelf, by "chance". It came to me at a time when I was beginning a long descent into the darkness of childhood memories, and I knew at the bottom I would find myself, the abandoned child. This book became one of my most important guides and comforters on that journey, describing what psychological abandonment feels like, how it happens to a child, the devastation it wreaks, hope for reunion with that lost child within, hope for healing. I cannot recommend it highly enough. If you're a Four in the typology of the Ennegram, you will love this book!

During my education in experience oriented Psycho-therapy, I came across this book, when dealing with problems and therapeutic approaches to adults who were abandoned children. The fairy-tale/myth approach didn't convince me much and seemed a simplistic metaphor to the realities of narcissistically hurt children, but some of my fellow students found those to make the book more easily digestable.
Kathrin Asper is based in the Jungian field with a strong inclination towards Gestalt therapy.
I recommend the book strongly to anyone wishing to understand the defence mechanisms and the importance of those, to people who suffer from a deep felt lack of self love, since she is careful to stress the importance of sensitive therapy when dealing with this type of client. Her therapeutic approach is supporting the client in the experiences of "here and now", in sensing the underlying emotions that are awakened in the meeting with the client and not insisting on taking the lead towards a goal. She stresses the fact that adults who have been abandoned as children, often suffer from amnesia, but unlike the other reviewer on this page, I understand the amnesia to be emotional and not factual. The adults have a recollection of childhood, but often speak of situations of abandonement with an emotional distance, their voices are flat, their bodylanguage is dead and their faces don't reveal anything. In prolonged therapy these clients will, if guided carefully and with sensitivity, slowly build trust in the therapist and feel that this person is able to embrace and support them in a way that makes it safe to come in contact with the original emotions again, and therein lies healing.
The book is highly recommendable to people who want to expand their knowledge on this subject, but for people who suffer from lack of self accept and self love, I recommend that it is read after having begun therapy, since it hits the spot more times than not, and might open a well of frustration and hopelessnes that needs care and support.
In conjunction with this book, I recommend reading "The Drama of the Gifted Child; The Search for the True Self" by Alice Miller.

This book is ambitious and the subject is very topical. However, the exposition is markedly lacking in scientific rigour. Narcissism seems to include virtually every neurotic symptom and the theoretical assumptions are questionable. For instance, Asper argues that typical of the narcissists is that they don't remember their childhood. Hence, one must insist that they try to remember. This is very questionable, as patients easily can fabricate memories. For example, one patient finally remembered that her mother said to the little girl that she should "dig her own grave every day" and that she should allow no rewards for herself and only think of others. One wonders whether this is not a fabricated image of the "archetypal witch". But what is most disturbing about the book is the extreme reduction of the myths and fairytales she retells. They are reduced to neurotical etiologies of a disturbed ego. However, the individuals in the fairytale are really abstractions, that is, they are "archetypes". What's more, the story concerns not neurotical symptoms but are in fact expressions of the hardships and problems that we all encounter during life's course. Her reductive interpretations are detrimental to the healing element of the myth. In reality, the fairytale and myth try to occasion a transcending of the trivial little ego-world so that we can see the whole perspective. But in Asper's understanding, it's the other way round. It concerns nothing but this little ego-world. Thereby the fairytales are trivialized. Nevertheless, the book contains much information about this particular type of neurosis so it is definitely not useless.

Mats W