Customer Reviews

The Feeling Child.

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

 

 

Though some of this information is a bit outdated, the basic idea that children are born with physical needs that must be met in order for them to develop into healthy and balanced adults is timeless. I loved reading the case studies and client's observations about how their childhood experiences affected their adult lives.

I read this book many years ago, before I had children of my own and it unquestionably helped me be a better mother and not to pass on some of the negative patterns with which I grew up. I got even more out of it on my recent second reading.

I haven't had enough experience with Primal Therapy to know whether it works or not, but I do know that preventing trauma and neurosis in the first place will go a long way toward healing society as a whole.

I read 'Feeling child' in mid '70s while living with communal family we shared our primal feelings openly & loved children deeper than we were touched or nursed growing up. The great relief & growing awareness we got from reliving & releasing childhood pain proved that we carry our inner child feelings around lifelong unless we express them totally here now. I read Janov 'Primal Scream' in 1971 helped me deeply healing my birth trama & 20 years of family pain by releasing it safely at home. "The Feeling Child" maybe the deepest child self healing psychology book on therapy about emotions, bonding with babies & self healing. Many babies do naturally cry or scream out pain, if allowed & not smothered by pacifying them with things. But thats scary 'do it yourself' therapy adults fear like colic they blame on' gas pain', not birth trama pain or deep body need to cuddle with parents loving hearts. But real human pain's been ignored & denied by therapists since Freud, Pavlov & Skinner. Even the humanistic therapy folks don't like screaming out our childhood pain, fears & neglected need for self healing. They promote the 'false memory syndrome' to explain memories of birth trama & child abuse denying the national secret epidemic of hidden forgotten childhood pain & fear, plaguing millions of modern people of all ages. All childhood experience stays in unconscious realms.
Janov is still doing Primal Scream therapy, i read & reviewed his recent 'Primal Healing' book.

Despite the age of this book the information it contains is still very relevant. Finally a book on how to raise children from the child's point of view.This book explains how the needs of the child are paramount and must be adhered to in order to avoid psychological trauma to the child which results in behavioral, as well as physical problems, later in life. The book explains how parents are often so cut off from their own feelings that they overlook the needs of their children despite the best of intentions.Includes background information on how traumatic events in childbirth and throughout childhood are stored neurologically to produce the psychobiological condition of neurosis. Simple to read yet very scientific.However, even though the book contains background information on the formation of neurosis, I would highly recommend reading one of his other books in addition to this one in order to get a better understanding of why it is so important to raise children from the child's perspective.

The book was a fairly easy read, though I have had a psych class or two, I think even someone who hasn't can grasp the conceptual theories proposed in this book. Grasping as far as understanding is completely different from accepting however, and I personally, simply could not accept the theories in this book! I have raised 3 children, all whom were dealt with in the same way from nurturing to punishment, as well as their enviroment. All were easy pregnancies and births for the most part as well, and yet they all have very distinctive differences in their fears. Honestly, to accept that the reason one of the 3 is afraid of tight places has somethng to do with the trauma that was experienced and never dealt with from being pushed out of the birth canal...ridiculous!

Obviously I am not a doctor or a psychologist, but I am a logical thinker and a mother of three very well adjusted children, and I find this book to offer little valid or useful theories with respect to child rearing and rationally understanding why a child exhibits a certain fear or behavior in general. Don't get me wrong, the whole book isn't rubbish, there are some valid points made, just don't read it and take the whole book to be the gospel truth on preventing neurosis in children...And while I am on the subject of tearing down this book, why is it that the book's recommendation comes from a professor of Anthropology? What exactly does an anthropologist know about psychology? I wasn't aware that anthropology and psychology were so closly related that you would enlist an anthropology professor to write the review and recommendation for your psych book! Certainly his choice in a "recommender" of the book would lend you to believe that a more qualified person, say another psychologist for instance, wasn't willing to back Janov's theories or lend his expertise to the validity and recommendation of this book.

The author manages to give you the baby's perspective. This book drilled into me the importance of meeting my baby's needs as quickly as possible, with the promise that he would be well adjusted and quietly confident. That was 20 years ago - he could not have been more correct. This book had a profound affect on me and how I raised my son and is the reason many of my faults were not passed along to him. Isn't that what we truly want for your children?

The author manages to give you the baby's perspective. This book drilled into me the importance of meeting my baby's needs as quickly as possible, with the promise that he would be well adjusted and quietly confident. That was 20 years ago - he could not have been more correct. This book had a profound affect on me and how I raised my son and is the reason many of my faults were not passed along to him. Isn't that what we truly want for your children?