Customer Reviews

The Journey from Abandonment to Healing: Turn the End of a Relationship into the Beginning of a New Life

5 star:		(51)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I wanted to take the time out to write a review of this book as I have benefitted from it from two points of view. I have been a psychotherapist for twenty years and as such have come face to face with the pain of abandonment in many forms. The loss of love through betrayal, death, changed family circumstances, ill health, divorce, etc. It is often the root cause of much of the pain that people present to my office with.
As well, being a person in this world, I too have been abandoned and despite the knowledge I hold as a mental health professional, experienced the full impact of that wrenching, soul-destroying, desperate fear and sadness.
As I reflected on my own loss, I found Susan's book uniquely helpful. It was especially useful to learn about the science of abandonment. It helped me to feel as if I was not loosing my mind and that despite all the information I held as a therapist, as a biological being, some of my experiences were natural and primal and although extremely painful...they were understandable. It gave me a real sense of hope and possibility.
Consequently, I have shared this book with many of my patients. Almost universally they have found it both comforting and helpful as a realistic tool toward healing and change. It is a book that I would not be without in the library of references I use to help others.
There will be times when someone is unable to fully utilize this book. When their fear of being hurt again is so intense that they hold on to the pain of abandonment as a way of never connecting again. A book that truly helps to transform is not embraced by anyone who unconsciously holds on to a wish to remain unchanged.
So, as a practitioner and a survivor, I could not recommend this book more highly!!

Dr. Susan Anderson has masterfully articulated the experience of abandonment as only a survivor of abandonment could know. She is a survivor herself. Her book, The Journey From Abandonment To Healing, keeps a gentle, respectful tone towards the survivor, and is easy to understand throughout.

This book clearly articulates what I struggled to put into words about the abandonment symptoms I was experiencing. Abandonment is defined as an involuntary separation. Some symptoms include loss of control of the situation, separation anxiety and yearning for the lost love, hoping for the possibility of the lost love's return and the desparation caused by this desire.

The book also covers in great detail the physiology behind emotional withdrawal symptoms of abandonment, including the loss of opioids (hormones) which is similar to heroin withdrawal; the significance of extreme changes in appetite patterns; Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; memory loss; the desire to self-medicate to endure the loss; and how society acknowledges those grieving over a death but not over a lost love.

Finally, Dr. Anderson gives some effective exercises in overcoming the crippling symptoms of abandonment. The exercises are not "pat" answers as found in some mainstream books and magazines. These are extensive, healing exercises requiring vulnerable, self-introspection.

I hope this helps someone else out there, too. It sure saved my sanity and all for the modest price of a book -- not an expensive block of therapy sessions!

This is the first review I have written on Amazon.com, and I am writing it because I want to urge anyone profoundly heartbroken, devastated, and utterly unsure of how to survive, READ THIS BOOK. There are numerous breakup recovery books out there -- I've read scores of them -- but this is the first one I have found that is actually addressing _profound_ heartbreak, the kind of devastation that is simply not amenable to logic, conscious affirmations, and rational decisions to cope.

If you've tried bravery, common-sense, and straight-out endurance, try reading this book instead - because incredibly, Susan Anderson managed to not only help you understand what you're going through -- she also comes up with five amazingly original exercises that can actually HELP you endure the unendurable. I know. I've been using them. I cannot say enough about this book.

Anderson doesn't ever water down the agony -- twenty-five years of work with heartbroken patients has made her very aware of the intricacies of abandonment grief. But despite this realistic knowledge of the pain, she offers hope -- not the glib, "You'll recover eventually!" hope of most breakup-recovery books, but a nuanced, particular hope specific to each grief stage, and always attentive to the suffering you are undergoing at each moment. An incredible, generous and loving book.

I am a classic abandonment case. Parents separated as a kid, we moved around constantly, was abused by many people, suffered multiple heartbreaks and friendship breaks that I finally became a closed off, untrusting woman.

My life was very unhappy. Not being able to trust people is a vicious cycle and deep down, I really wanted friends I could trust. My social and relationship life also sucked. I was untrusting in relationships but yet needy once I got entrenched and perhaps as a result of that, would subsequently be tossed away, like thrash.

I was very bitter. I joined therapy but couldn't seem to let go of the resentment I felt for all the pain I'd gone through.

So I picked up this book and FINALLY, someone understood what I was going through. Every "crazy" feeling I had experienced in the past, including wanting lovers that had treated me despicably, were explained in the book. I realized that even though I put up a front to the world, I was still grieving past hurts and some of them went all the way back to my childhood

I felt that I could finally be free of the demons that had clung to me. Susan Anderson really gets it but when it comes down to the exercises she recommends, in my humble opinion, she falls short.

The first two are okay even though the withdrawal exercise makes you feel like you are cultivating a dual personality. The third one for internalizing, was highly, highly disappointing. It was very abstract and I failed to see the connection between dreaming of a house and gaining a stronger sense of self.

I was very disappointed but I was determined to make myself learn the exercise, if it would mean getting better. I decided to look up the author's website and found that there were groups were you could ask questions to get help. Unfortunately, you have to be a paying member to pose a question and that ended my quest.

The book has validated my feelings and for that it would always be in my library. I am still re-reading the book to get further insight into my behavior and I have learnt so much for instance:

Why I'm "attracted" to the wrong men and
Why eventually, I would need to let my guard down in order to truly connect with people.

However, I want to completely move beyond my pain and victim hood. I want to overcome and her 3rd and 4th exercises don't do anything for me. She does provide some other useful exercises that I am currently practicing but my inability to get into the spirit of the 3rd and 4th exercises, make me feel as though I were doing an incomplete job

I have also decided to get her other book, from Heartbreak to Connection as I heard it's a lot better.

That's why she gets 3 stars. Judge for yourself

Update: May 10 2008. I have been reading her other book Journey from Heartbreak to Connection and it is a million times better than this book.
Journey from Heartbreak to Connection is a lot bigger than this one, but it's because of the amount of exercises she has included.

She takes you through a lot of self analysis and gives you clearer steps on how to overcome abandonment. More importantly, she provides the rationale behind her exercises (I finally see the connection between building a stronger sense of self and the dream house exercise).

If you feel like Journey from Abandonment isn't satisfactory, get Journey from Heartbreak to Connection

I had a breakup that left me such a basket case for so long that I knew I needed help, so I ordered this book.

This book explained every single thing I was going through.... even the really crazy stuff... like how when I'd see him my heart would race and my hands would shake even though I knew he wasn't going to actually DO anything to me.

The way this guy broke up with me.... he asked me to meet him, for what I thought was a date, and ambushed me by breaking up with me publically in front of her and a lot of other people.

Your book explained to me that I didn't just FEEL like I was ambushed and/or attacked... but I physically reacted that way too. which is why every time I see them together, my body reacts as if it were in danger.

It helped me so much just to be able to understand why I was acting what seemed to be so crazy!

The exercises helped so much too. As I read it, I noticed myself moving through the stages just as described... and as I did the exercises... I started to get the distinct impression that I actually was healing afterall.

This book has been my manual for getting through this crisis... and hopefully finally working out my feelings and issues regarding all the previous ones too. So they might not come back to haunt me again.

When I hit the RAGE stage last week, I may have thought I'd gone insane to suddenly be so angry. But I knew, when I saw it, because it was in the book, that it was me healing... I tried to listen to the advice in the book, do the exercises, and use my anger in productive ways, and know that I'm on the right path because this book is a really good guide.

It will comfort you through the tough times, and help guide you to where you need to go when you're ready to move on through each next stage to healing.

I am happy to be able to see things in this new light.
I feel like this book has given me my sanity back.
Or maybe shown me that I really did have it all along afterall.

This book truly changed my life... I can't begin to say how profound this book is in terms of dealing with loss, abandonment and the feelings which are felt during the recovery process. I have been caught in a cycle of grief over a lost relationship FOR YEARS and nothing helped me as this book has. I think adolescents should be encouraged to read this book in school before they begin to enter into relationships. It is critical that we teach our young that if you do not love and honor yourself, you will always be yearning and needing too much from others.

This is a well researched book about how experiences from infancy through childhood are manifested in the brain and affect us as adults. Susan discusses 5 stages in the recovery of abandonment which I can identify with. Her advice in dealing with abandonment is exactly what I have concluded through my own experiences. It's nice to read a book that I can connect to so well. Having read this book, I can better understand the trauma I experienced as a child. It also gives me more hope that someday I will overcome the trauma that I've felt and be able to have meaningful relationships without fearing abandonment. It's an easy book to read and doesn't necessarily make you feel bad by bringing up bad feelings. It simply tries to address the issues surrounding abandonment and cites examples of people and their experiences in this context.

Out of all the abandonment topic books I have read, this one really hit home for me. It was filled with good hearty data: scientific info, real studies, personal stories, easy to understand examples & advice. Most of what I had read in previous books was too vague, too preachy, too religious or too 'not me at all'. I gained much insight from this one book & ended up buying a few books this author has written. All helped put my lil mid-life crisis into better perspective for me. Yeah! Now let's all be nice.

It really does hurt, antidepressants do help, but somehow the pain is always there. You might need to read this wonderful book to understand why you are hurting. Susan Anderson did an exceptional job with this book. It seemed as if she was actually standing next to me in my last 2+ years of HELL. If you think there is no hope, please take the chance and read this book. Good Luck

Susan is an abandonment "survivor" as well as a therapist her insights are key to the success of this book. The message is clear, and the excersies helpful. The reader reachs a fullness and happiness within their lives by reaching out to the key player, themselves.

I have read many books over the last year to heal my emotional wounds. This book picks up where all the others left off. The material is helpful, eye opening and the awareness level of the reader is blown wide open.

My reaction was "WOW!" she is speaking to me.