Customer Reviews

Making Sense of Suffering: The Healing Confrontation with Your Own Past

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

 

 

This book suggests a very interesting approach to undoing the damage of psychological trauma. Briefly, the approach is to start with any experience of intense or inappropriate anger and to try to "work backwards," like a detective, to discover if there are repressed emotions, from a prior traumatic event, that are being expressed transferentially in the current situation; and then (if repressed emitions are at the root) to shift attention to the past event. The method suggested for this progression is very efficient and direct. There is more to it than that, including a specific dialogue technique that is used once the transferential connection is uncovered, but that will give you the idea.

Aside from the method, the book has some wonderfully perceptive ideas, and great one-liners. In my view, the following line, which discusses what happens when a child has intense needs that remain unfulfilled, is worth the price of the book: "Eventually the child comes to fear its own needs."

I think this book can be of real benefit both to individuals who are trying to sort out their past, and to therapists who are open to better understanding trauma and approaches to working with trauma patients/clients (with "trauma" broadly defined and including verbal, physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, as well as physical or emotional abandonment, including that produced by parental narcisism). This book is written simply, and the writing style/structure is a bit uneven, but it would be a mistake to be disuaded by that.

Other books that I consider excellent for both individuals and therapists are: anything by Alice Miller (especially Prisoners of Childhood/Drama of the Gifted Child, the first half of For Your Own Good, and Banished Knowledge), Toxic Parents by Susan Forward, Betrayal Trauma by Jennifer Freyd, and the out-of-print Soul Murder by Morton Schatzman (books of the same title, but by different authors, are currently in print; but I recommend the one by Schatzman; try a library or interlibrary loan). These books all penetrate to the core issues.

I discovered this book many years ago while I was undergoing psychotherapy for depression and anorexia nervosa. Contrary to another reviewer, this book does not propose a therapy that is merely talking into a tape recorder.

With the aid of J Konrad Stettbacher's book you can learn how to help yourself become your own advocate and by doing so help your inner child recover from it's past injuries. It is not a cathartic method which simply represses those injuries all again. It is serious and hard work and ongoing.

Alice Miller distanced herself from this book because Stettbacher did not have certain qualifications which she felt he should have. I believe this to have been a mistake on her part. She has also made a mistake in asserting that autism is caused by bad parenting when it is, in fact, a neurological disorder ! Despite these mistakes, Alice Miller's books are invaluable, as is Stettbacher's 'Making Sense of Suffering', and I can neither discount nor forget the glowing foreword and afterword Miller gives his book. Nor can I forget the help I got and continue to get from this book.

Thanks to the customer reviewer who recommended this and several other books on relationships with parents. Regarding this title, I'm always suspicious when a theorist is very outspoken in his or her views but lists no research and no bibliography. I want to know how the views are supported, also how they fit into the history of ideas. Stettbacher lists no research of any kind and acknowledges no one in the evolution of his ideas. The book is supported fore and aft (foreward and afterward) by the famed Alice Miller. In turn Stettbacher titles his "Further Reading" section "Books by Alice Miller" and only lists titles by her.

Yes, Stettbacher has interesting ideas. No, he (and/or the translator) doesn't present these ideas very clearly, completely, or well. Be forewarned. They are very extreme and somewhat dogmatic ideas, in spite of Alice Miller's statement in the book's foreward, "Stettbacher is incorruptible in his judgments... [Stettbacher], unlike myself, dispenses with all polemic."

I believe that one must experience and grieve the pain of the past in order to heal and embrace life. However, Stettbacher's four-step method doesn't go far enough. You get to the pain, sure, but how do you get beyond it? He mentions that healing is a natural process. But he doesn't give enough ways to relax into that process and let it happen. Nor does he give enough ways to encourage it to happen. Say that you were born in a difficult medical situation and/or that your parents intentionally or unintentionally hurt you. What do you do now? It may be necessary to scream things like: "Life hurt me, and it's not fair. I need this. I don't need that." However, screaming like this isn't enough. If your birth and your parents let you down, how are you going to nurture yourself now as you grieve and on throughout life?

If you are well-read in recovery and therapy topics, including research about which types of therapy have been shown to be effective, by all means read this book. If you want to find introductory, balanced and sane support on a healing journey, look elsewhere.

Incidentally, John Bradshaw, who recommends Alice Miller highly, allowed his two-day seminar on healing your relationship with your mother to be taped and sold. Ditto for his similar seminar on healing your relationship with your father. If you want a great weekend retreat (make sure you check it out with your therapist first and/or arrange for backup support from a friend in case things get too heavy) choose one of these taped seminars and go for it.

Supplement your retreat with a copy of Bradshaw's book Homecoming. You'll get into the pain that Stettbacher is so adament about, but you'll also be a lot more likely to find a way beyond it. As imperfect a writer and speaker as Bradshaw is, he is more up front than Stettbacher about where his ideas come from. He is also more clear about what is backed by research and what is more in the line of "interesting, but anybody's guess".

Alice Miller goofed up on this one, and realized it only years later. However, she has now totally repudiated Stettbacher's approach.

Extract from a letter disavowing Miller's connection with Stettbacher's work:

10.9.1996 Alice Miller - Communication To My Readers

I should like to inform my readers that I no longer, in any way, support or recommend the therapy developed and practised by Mr. J. Konrad Stettbacher. The reasons for this are the following: When I gave this form of therapy my support, I was proceeding on the justified assumption that, like myself, Mr. Stettbacher was a fully trained psychoanalyst and was in possession of a normal licence to practise psychotherapy. Only in 1994 did I learn that he had no formal qualifications in psychology and that, while years before he had indeed been granted a provisional licence to practise, this licence was conditional upon the fulfilment of a number of essential requirements, notably that within a period of five years Stettbacher must provide proof of having undergone the necessary basic professional training (not merely further training).

As Stettbacher failed to conform to this requirement, his provisional licence was withdrawn, and as of June 1995 he has been formally prohibited from conducting a psychotherapeutic practice in Berne, Switzerland, his place of residence.

For the full text of the letter, see http://home.att.net/~jspeyrer/miller1.htm

At the end, no matter what anybody says to you, you will need to be your own judge.
Likewise at the end of your life you will know how well you were able to live it, what you've got, what you gave, what you learned, what you were able to do.

Life is not easy. To state anything else would be a lie. However, life doesn't need to be a constant suffering. In this thin book (135 pages) Stettbacher outlines four steps to follow if you are interested to heal your old psychological wounds and create a better life for yourself, a life with more joy and meaning. Let's not fool ourselves, it is not an easy task and the process is slow.

The suggested four steps are no hocus pocus. First clear perception of what is, next clarification of what you feel, third step is understanding why, what, when, where, the connections, roots, causes and finally your demand, your real need. At times it is easier to say what you don't want, rather than specify your own demand, dare to voice it and to stand by it.

In my opinion this book might assist you best if you are already aware of your primal patterns, the ways in which you tend to sabotage yourself and your happiness. True healing requires a relationship of trust. Such human relation (with one or several human beings) is often necessary. Any promise that you can do it all on your own would be most likely false.

This is not a book about screaming out your guts. The book suggests a way (one of many) how you can grow in awareness. If this approach suits you is impossible to say in advance. No therapist will cure every single patient.

Personally I feel comfortable to leave the criticism delivered by Alice Miller aside. Healing happens if there is a sufficient genuine human interest and healthy involvement. That can't be taught at school. What can be taught is some theory and issues about healthy boundaries, importance of transferrence and countertranferrence, certain technique.
I understood from Miller's own book that she originally experienced a personal gain from Stettbacher's work. If she later decided not to endorse it because of professional reasons that is understandable. Nevertheless, I do not feel that position changes what happened to her once before, neither will it affect or change the message you get directly from this book.

Another reviwer asked: "You get to the pain, sure, but how do you get beyond it?"

My answer to that is by feeling your pain. No book can help you with that. It takes your own willingness to know yourself, for better for worse and your courage to leave the safe but limiting position of a victim of circumstances and take responsibility for your own life. For that step this book can offer you some useful ideas. The rest will be up to you.

This is only one of many possible therapeutic approaches. What works for you only you can decide.

This little volume is the companion to any of Alice Miller's books. Specially the 1994 edition of "The Drama of the Gifted child" and "For Your Own Good" by the same author. This book doesn't go to the heart, It takes to your heart to the hidden you. This book doesn't talk about recovery, it is recovery. This book is often avoided by Americans because it takes into your pain and then takes you out. Most Americans don't like pain, but unless the cycle is broken by acknowledging your own truth, your pain will be with you to the grave. See Page 30 for the way out of the pain cycle.

Great book. Also try Alice Miller's writings, i.e. Thou Shalt Not Be Aware, etc.

I highly discourage anyone from reading this book, since the approach for curing it proposes simply will not work. How is an emotionally disturbed traumatized person supposed to get better by talking to himself about his past and recording this talk on a tape recorder? Where are the crucial dimensions of an emphatic therapist and his guidance? A traumatized person needs a safe environment where (s)he can express her/his feelings, since expression of true feelings is curative (see e.g. Pennebaker " Emotion, Disclosure & Health). I have read dozens of books on the brain and emotions and on psychology in general - this is the worst one. Certain sections sound as if they had been copied almost word by word from Arthur Janov. No studies of therapeutic outcome whatsover have been done on Stettbacher's method. To the contrary several studies on other therapies have shown that they do work (e.g. Janov's Primal Therapy (website).ch or bevavioural therapy) and that they have desirable effects on brain function, like reducing EEG beta waves indicative of anxiety or reducing hyperactivity in the caudate nucleus linked with obsessive compulsive disorder.