Why People Don't Heal and How They Can

"When I really look at my self and others whose life is one train wreck after another, this book explained it perfectly. I now understand addictions, divorce and disagreeable people both outside my window and in my mirror. The negative comments about this book are from people who need their victim-hood to explain their bad behaviors/poor choices/bad luck etc. and are not ready to take responsibility for themselves and therefore, they bad mouth this book and other attempts to heal.
I have bought many copies of this book and given it to some folks that need it the most. To date, the ones that need this info the most throw the book at me. I should not be surprised but I will keep trying to help them heal.
Keep the faith!"
~ Written on 2008-08-05

"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."
~ Written on 2007-12-06

"glancing through this creepy book, I came to the chapter about a woman who broke her leg and wouldnt move for three months, enjoying being an invalid and weary of being a housekeeper and cook to her husband and children.
Her husband was furious and refused to cook or clean . he didnt want her to have time off to heal. he was even considering divorcing her but couldnt afford to.
Now let me say this. three months off your feet for a broken leg is a fair and reasonable amount of time.
you see I seriously broke my foot a few weeks ago and tore the ligaments/I had surgery to put a metal plate in because of the ligaments. My surgeon told me stay off your right leg- no weight for 2 months.
Does carolyn want this woman to be a cripple from not taking care of herself?
The husband was obviously selfish and didnt get that it was important for the wife to relax and heal.
Ms Myss called her a lazy queen and told him to take away her television set. He never called back.Probably because his wife divorced him for his meaness.
she had no business giving any advice,but her advice was punitive.
She should have consulted a doctor and asked about healing and bones.
She should have had empathy for the woman being overwelhmed with housework and having had to break her own leg to create space to relax.
She should have suggested he hire a cleaning service or do loving things so that she felt safe enough to come back on her job.
Frankly-this Myss woman is the worst ever.
Follow yourself not these Ego filled healers who think they know it all
"
~ Written on 2007-11-13

"I am so glad that others find Myss harsh and a not a true healer. It is funny ( not) how fake healers like herself put themselves in a position to be around those who feel wounded ( god I hate that word) and then destroy them a little more.
I suggest everyone avoid healers because going to them automatically puts one in the "damaged Victim catogory ) it is a horrible place to be. We all need to know we are valid and decent and heroic and have the right to weep or be human.
Going to these people , with their fancy seminars in out of the way places, just re-creates being one-down.
So we never get it all together. so what?
"
~ Written on 2007-11-12

"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." "
~ Written on 2007-05-26