Making Peace With Your Past: The Six Essential Steps to Enjoying a Great Future [Hardcover]

Philip Goldberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 3, 2000

Do You: Harbor guilt or grudges from past relationships? Feel plagued by thoughts of regret? Think "Oh, no, not again!" when personal problems arise? Wonder why life hasn't turned out the way you wanted? Feel anxious or depressed about your future? Seem to be less happy as time goes by?

If you answered yes to even one of these questions, this book can help you make peace with your past -- here and now.

The past lives on in everything we think, feel, say, and do. Medical studies show that adults who've had adverse or traumatic past experiences are much more vulnerable to life-threatening illnesses such as cancer and heart disease. Now, world-renowned psychiatrist Dr. Harold Bloomfield, bestselling author of Making Peace with Your Parents and Making Peace with Yourself, offers practical, scientifically proven techniques that can help you heal the wounds of the past; transform feelings of pain, shame, and blame into high self-worth; and reawaken to the magic and joy of being alive.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With this intelligent, sensitive work, Bloomfield (Making Peace with Your Parents; Making Peace with Yourself) adds another surefire success to the lengthy list of well-regarded psychology books that he's authored or coauthored. Embracing the view that unprocessed experience causes human suffering, he offers readers a program for examining their pasts that's been successful in his practice with individuals and in his seminars. While some case studies are included, Bloomfield's warmth and wide-ranging advice would be enough to fill this book, unlike many self-help books that rely on anecdotes to enliven them. While Bloomfield offers no quick fixes for emotional pain, he advocates a thorough and kindly, if unflinching, analysis of its causes. He firmly believes that finding inner peace gives one the mooring and strength to explore issues of shame, regret, grief, love and sex, and to view past history in a new light. His techniques for self-exploration include using imagery and meditation (an early proponent of Transcendental Meditation, Bloomfield also wrote the classic TM: Discovering Your Inner Energy and Overcoming Stress), and writing one's life story (he supplies helpful questions to get readers started). He also encourages spiritual pursuits, joining 12-step and other groups, if needed, as well as herbal remedies and other alternative measures. For the conscientious reader, Bloomfield's advice will help in dealing with psychological pain. (July)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Bloomfield has become a renowned psychospiritual educator and champion of emotional literacy over the course of his 30-year career. His best sellers include Making Peace with Your Parents, Making Peace with Yourself, How To Heal Depression, and TM: Discovering Inner Energy and Overcoming Stress. Although he uses New Age vocabulary and makes references to Transcendental Meditation, overall Bloomfield clearly addresses the syndrome Freud called "repetition compulsion"Dhumans' tendency to re-create what they have not worked through. This is one of the few times in self-help literature that an author has tackled the underlying issues (e.g., shame, blame, guilt, regret, grief, and the past) that can prevent healing. With revealing exercises, Bloomfield shows readers how to rediscover "the passion to live [their] highest destiny." Recommended for all public libraries.DSusan E. Burdick, Lower Merion Sch. Dist., Ardmore, P.-- highest destiny." Recommended for all public libraries.DSusan E. Burdick, Lower Merion Sch. Dist., Ardmore, PA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harper; 1 edition (May 3, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060195282
• ISBN-13: 978-0060195281
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #359,473 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars HELPFUL! COMFORTING! I LOVE THIS BOOK!, August 27, 2000

By 

E. NEWMAN (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Making Peace With Your Past: The Six Essential Steps to Enjoying a Great Future (Hardcover)

MAKING PEACE WITH YOUR PAST is the best book I've yet read of the "self-help" variety. Reading the book has helped me move into a calmer, more open and happy place in my life, and I continue to reread it whenever ancient, and not-so ancient history, in the form of regret, grief or hurt, visits me. The exercises in the book make sense and WORK. The writing style is welcoming, nonjudgemental, and understanding. Whatever negative experiences you've gone through in your life, from childhood through the recent past or present, there is help for you here. Bloomfield and co-author Philip Goldberg have given a great gift to anyone seeking the calm and happiness which may have been, until now, elusive. I never write reviews on Amazon, but I am too impressed by the results of this book to keep quiet. Simply put: the book works.

57 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars News Flash - about the author, January 24, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Making Peace With Your Past: The Six Essential Steps to Enjoying a Great Future (Hardcover)

www.signonsandiego.com
Psychiatrist pleads guilty, may avoid jail
By Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
January 24, 2002
VISTA - A Del Mar psychiatrist and best-selling author admitted yesterday he illegally drugged women in his home and office, but he probably will not be sent to jail as punishment, lawyers said.

Harold Bloomfield, 57, pleaded guilty to two felony counts of illegally furnishing drugs yesterday, defense attorney Bob Grimes said.

"This is the first time he's been to court since his release on bail," Grimes said in an interview. "He wanted to admit what he did and help with the healing process with the victims. He didn't want the victims to go to court and be cross-examined."

Prosecutor Richard Madruga said the two women whose drinks Bloomfield admitted drugging said they don't oppose a sentence without jail time.

"They want to see that the community is protected, that he not practice medicine, that he not be able to prescribe medications and that he get help for drug dependency, and counseling," Madruga said.

Such conditions are likely when Superior Court Judge Frederick Maguire sentences Bloomfield at a hearing scheduled for March 22, Madruga said.

As part of a plea agreement, prosecutors dropped three drug-related felony charges and a misdemeanor charge of sexual battery.

In court papers, detectives said a glass of lemonade Bloomfield gave a woman in July contained Ecstasy and methamphetamine.

The woman said Bloomfield met her in his Del Mar home for a therapy session wearing only a pair of blue boxer shorts printed with martini glasses, according to court records.

She felt strange after drinking the lemonade, and Bloomfield offered to examine her breasts after she complained of pain from recent surgery, according to the documents.

When asked about that, Bloomfield blamed his daughter for the drugs in the drink, detectives said. The daughter denied any involvement.

Then, in December, a woman who visited Bloomfield's home said he undressed her and fondled her after giving her a funny-tasting green smoothie.

At the time of Bloomfield's arrest Dec. 19, prosecutors said they were investigating reports from other women who said he drugged and then sexually assaulted them.

Madruga said yesterday that additional charges are not supported by evidence in the case.

Bloomfield was released the week following his arrest after posting $500,000 bail.

He and his wife, with whom he wrote several books, are divorcing.

He was once a frequent guest on television talk shows, including "The Oprah Winfrey Show," on which he last appeared in 1993.

Defense attorney Grimes said Bloomfield descended into drug use during a bout of depression about four years ago. It worsened after he emerged from plastic surgery with chronic pain, for which he took larger and larger quantities of painkillers.

"Ultimately he started on his own, medicating himself by smoking marijuana and ultimately using Ecstasy," Grimes said.

As a condition of his release from jail, Bloomfield agreed not to practice medicine.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bloomfield helped me, May 27, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Making Peace With Your Past: The Six Essential Steps to Enjoying a Great Future (Hardcover)

Having resented my parents all my life, after reading this book I now understand why they treated me the way they did and why they reacted with such anger. Now that my father is deceased I can no longer tell him I love him and forgive him for what he did. This book helped me make peace with myself and my past. Dr. Bloomfield is a master at healing people and having them achieve peace within themselves.