Customer Reviews

Why People Don't Heal and How They Can

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

At first I was surprised by the amount of vitriol that this book elicited from some readers. Then I realized, of course - this information is going to be received as a breath of fresh air for those who are really willing to change themselves for the better, and with great angst by others.

That is exactly what this book is all about!

Caroline suggests we look carefully at our words and behavior and note the way we bond over our wounds. We speak "woundology". Wounds give us power over other people and a way to manipulate society. Healing is a very unpopular notion in this world.

Of course this can be regarded as "mean-spirited", but how in the world can we progress without facing the truth once in a while? There is absolutely nothing new in this material - it is just been presented in the context of modern thought - but if one reads any sacred text carefully the echoes of these ideas will be evident.

Caroline Myss is iconoclastic and funny, but she gets the point across. I recommend some of her audio tapes to really hear her in her element - with a live audience. Sure she "talks a lot" and especially as a man this sometimes drives me up the wall. But I think her message is one of gently attempting to point out our foibles for our own good.

After reading only a little more than half this book, I have already seen changes in my life. This is a must-read for anyone seeking to participate in repairing one's mind, body and spirit as a whole. While many of her concepts may seem a little unorthodox, she is right on target! Her down to earth advice on forgiveness and releasing the ill thoughts we have toward others will inspire you to look at your relationships in a totally different light. Her ideas on how we wear our past wounds like badges and how we can become a victim of our past, instead of getting on with our lives and realizing that we are far more than our wounds, more than our past failings, is truly inspirational. Not necessarily a religious book, she speaks of spirituality and incorporates the best of all religions. Since reading this book, I have turned to a daily practice of calming myself before sleep by listening to soft music, regulating my breathing and thinking about absolutely--nothing. I have experienced restful sleep, a more optimistic outlook during the workday, an increase in energy and have said silent prayers for strangers. I can't say enough about how positively this book has effected my life.

I read alot,I search alot,for healing,growth and methods that answer my questions on why am I still stuck in a pattern - how can I move to a higher place? This book explains very logically a non-logical reality,and gives one methods to USE! This book I found much more meaningful than her Anatomy of the Spirit. This book covers the exact same info but explains what to do with the chakras in ways that I can use. Thank you Caroline,this was honest and all that many other books promise. (The other best book I ever read was Reclaiming Your Life by Jean Jenson)

I found this book very off-putting. I'm glad to see I wasn't the only one who felt that way. I would welcome a good book about how to move through and past old wounds, but not a book like this, so scornful and insulting, making it sound like incest survivors go around parading their wounds in order to manipulate people (her very words, honestly). In my own experience, most survivors of childhood trauma try to deny, bury, and forget their wounds. It is only because wounds keep resurfacing and interfering with present happiness that people seek help. Yes one can get stuck ... but Myss isn't the person who can help them get unstuck, with her judgemental attitude. At least, I wasn't able to benefit from this book because her attitude really turned me off.

It's amazing how many people here are so quick to say that if you criticize her book, you are just "proving her point" and you "don't want to heal." Simply amazing. Most people do want to heal. People try many different techniques and paths to heal. There is no one answer, and Ms. Myss certainly has no copyright on healing.

Why People Don't Heal and How They Can (WPDH) is a (potentially) valuable and empowering piece of non-fiction literature in the field of self-health and healing. It sheds light on many truths gleaned by Caroline's personal and direct experience in working with thousands of people wanting (and not wanting) to heal physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually.

I threw the word "potentially" in there for sound reason. In my opinion the subject matter is such that many of the people who might be drawn to read a book with a title such as this are people struggling to "heal" (just as I have done when right in the "thick of it") and are looking further afield for more answers. If such people, whilst reading this book or after reaching the closing pages, still don't make the choice to surrender into "why they are not healing, and how they can" this book may feel like "salt on a wound", or "adding insult to injury". Many of the poor reviews WPDH appears to have received are likely to have been written by people in this very situation--so I encourage you to hear what they have to say with this perspective in mind.

The above aside, in WPDH Myss takes a concise, detailed, and clear look at the very things that may be delaying or stalling your healing journey. She'll lead you into new perspectives and awarenesses around understanding what could be standing in your way and how to step around it. Of course, you'll have to be up for that challenge! My input here is to say that the rewards will make it all worth while (which of course, you already know).

WHO SHOULD READ THIS BOOK?
If you feel challenged by your wounds, your dis-ease, and the pain within; and you feel like you've been going round in circles or are facing a familiar and insurmountable "wall"; If you feel something akin to this and you have a humble and heartfelt desire to take a new and even more loving approach with yourself, please do buy and read this book. You'll be pleased you did.

If you read it and find anger, frustration, and annoyance emerging... I encourage you to stay with that feeling, own it, and let it tell you its story, without denying yourself the words of wisdom in WPDH that brought you into contract with these feelings. As one reviewer stated, "medicine doesn't always taste good", and WPDH is a powerful and effective dose of proverbial medicine for those with a receptive mind and heart.

In closing, I shall point out that this work is available in an audio format--great for those who like to listen rather than read. I have WPDH on CD and found it really useful listening to it in the car. This helped the rational (a.k.a. "resistant") mind to drop aside, allowing this information into those places it really needed to touch inside in order to be of use and value. I found that having it in audio format and listening to it in the car made it easy to revisit the material again and again-- reasserting exactly what I needed to hear whenever I felt I needed to uncover "why I am not healing right now, and how I can".

Enjoy. Be well.

- Jonathan Evatt
International lecturer, natural health expert, gourmet whole-food chief, and award-winning author of Peace, Power, and Presence: A guide to Self Empowerment, Inner Peace, and Spiritual Enlightenment
To see reviews on holistic books, super-foods, and other healthy-living products, check out my Amazon profile page.

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I am forced into the uncomfortable position of defending Ms Myss. No, I don't call her Dr. Myss, for reasons others have amply stated. Until I see her dissertation listed on Dissertation Abstracts International, she's no 'Ph.D.' to me! I also must admit that I have listened to a few of her audio programs, and while I agree with some of her ire directed toward the New Age quackery--love spells and candlelighting and stuff like that--she has come across as a bit arrogant and abrasive--two traits I myself share, so I know whereof I speak. She's kind of a jerk. But so's Dr. Phil. Is it because she's a *woman* we get so uptight that she's not 'nice' enough?

However. (Deep sigh). I don't know about many of the negative reviewers here, but I work in a field where I come in contact with a lot of people and as much as you might not want to hear it, woundology is real and is more damaging than you think. I know people who have literally reduced themselves to one-dimensional caricatures of what were once human beings: one of them has become almost the archetype Vietnam Vet; another is the sexual abuse victim; another, the bitter divorced man who hates women. We all have problems in life. We all have faced, if not in childhood than at some point, absolutely heartrending loss and bad things. All of us. I might not have had the same trauma as you, but I've had something rotten happen in my life. I ain't gonna play my damage is bigger than yours, and if anyone responds to this review by telling me I haven't 'suffered', well, let me just say, you have NOOOOO idea what you're talking about and leave it at that. Troubles, I gots plenty, as the song used to go.

It's the human condition. But to turn those bad things into the core of your identity, why, anyone can see that that's not healthy. Turning your trauma into Who You Are first of all constantly feeds that trauma. When that's your identity, every single day, every single time you refer to yourself as an incest survivor or war veteran or cancer survivor, you are revictimizing *yourself*, reaffirming that experience to be more powerful than *you*. Secondly, you get stuck in that identity. YOu can't grow if you remain so invested in one identity that you refuse to change.

What Myss said in this book that so offends people is by and large taken out of context. What she's trying to say, and I'll admit she doesn't say it as nicely as she could have, is that many times people have an ego-investment in keeping a hold on their wound. One might use it to manipulate others--feel sorry for me! My life has been so terrible!--or one might use one's wound to turn one's back on life and the causes of the problem by escaping into what we all must admit by now is the HUGE and apparently quite lucrative industry of therapy and support groups and self-help. One can bury oneself so deep in spiritual readings and support groups and this and that that one never actually gets to deal with the real life manifestations of the issue.

That is not to say that therapy is not useful. It is immensely useful for some (never had much use for it myself, but I've seen it really help a number of people), but the point is therapy works in your head. Unfortunately, sooner or later, one has to get out of one's head and into the real world, and maybe come face to face with the abuser, or the doctor with the bad news, or the broken family, or whatever was the proximal cause of the wound. Sooner or later, you have to deal with external reality. It's unpleasant to realize how one may have let a persona rule one's identity, or how it's made one do unskillful or hurtful things to others, but it's part of the process of waking up.

My drill sergeant had an old saying that came to mind as I was reading the more foaming-at-the-mouth of these reviews. He'd say, "Throw a shoe into a pack of dogs, and the one that yelps is the one that got hit."

I found this book not only enlightening but very practical.There's some overlap with "Anatomy of the Spirit," but justenough to summarize her ideas about the chakras for those who haven't read that book. In addition, she offers not only a good analysis of why some people don't heal (usually it's not so much "don't" or "can't," as "I'll lose too much by healing"), but also helpful suggestions on how to get beyond focussing on your wounds and begin the process of healing. Her suggested "sacramental" rituals may not be for everyone; but for those of us raised in a religion (such as Catholicism) that places considerable emphasis on ritual, they can be very helpful as a way of enlisting one's emotional and "tribal" responses in the service of healing. This is a very positive, helpful guide for anyone who's ever wondered "Now that I've identified what my wounds mean, what next?".

Therapy had me think about and relive the painful experiences that I have had over and over again. Instead of helping me get better, it just kept the trauma fresh every day.

Dr. Myss' book shows you that you can break free from past trauma and not have it continue to consume your body's physical energy. This leaves you available to live and enjoy your life today with enthusiasm and vitality. I find it continually inspiring. Definitely worth the money.

Another book that supports these theories is "Working on Yourself Doesn't Work" by Ariel & Shya Kane. They also stress that living and being here in the present moment is more important and makes you more alive than constantly looking to your past for problems.

the underpinning of caroline myss's growing opus is that we will not heal until we start to take responsibility for our actions and emotional lives. I don't think anyone would argue with that, but it's hard to see her other points as anything but a passive aggressive reaction to other people's hardships. it seems like she has become frustrated with so many people expecting her to solve their problems. her two many theses, that we need to stop seeing ourselves as victims and, more recently, that we are all instances of various archetypes, seem like fanciful, mystical-ized version of two basic complaints that someone who spends a lot of time on lecture tours might have: "you people need to stop whining! don't you realize you're all the same anyway?"

Caroline Myss has done little more than take these two observations, along with the other, not terribly stunning realization that a lot of people profit off their misfortune, and dressed it up in a lot of spiritual hocus pocus. then she uses these ideas as a vehicle for self-promotion and as an excuse to insult people, using the fact that this information is "divinely inspired" as an excuse.

maybe some people do respond negatively to her accusations because they cling to their wounds, but others may do so for a simpler reason: because her point of view is deeply insulting.

Myss talks a lot about self-respect, but what does that mean coming from someone who claims to have used her psychic powers to diagnose thousands of illnesses, but who offers no documented evidence to support that claim? from someone who makes a living from the unhappiness of others while accusing them of profiting off their own wounds? who puts Ph.D after her name, when her degree was conferred by a non-accredited correspondence school?

the one good thing I have to say about Caroline Myss is that her work is intelligent and will get you thinking about your emotions in new ways. but it's hard to see her as anything other than a charlatan and a profiteer, at least until she comes forward with some hard evidence to support her supposed mystical abilities. incidentally, the prognostication that she begins the audio version of this book with (that being a medical intuitive will not be an unusual occupation in ten years) has clearly not come to pass.

The first time I read about Dr. Myss' theories, I went "Aha! This makes sense!" According to Dr. Myss, the reason people often don't get well is because the energy they need to focus on healing, gets used up dwelling on the past. The author, a medical intuitive, believes that if people would reclaim thier soul from the entanglement of past issues, they would have the capacity to generate more personal healing power. Makes perfect sense to me. If you are struggling with an illness and want some guidance in how to reconnect with your precious energy sources, read "Why People Don't Heal."