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Title: The Abandoned Child Within: On Losing and Regaining Self-Worth by Kathrin Asper, Sharon E. Rooks ISBN: 0-88064-204-1 Publisher: Fromm Intl Pub. Date: 01 August, 1993 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $32.00

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (4 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: Reunion
Comment: I found this book on a remainders bookshelf, by "chance". It came to me at a time when I was beginning a long descent into the darkness of childhood memories, and I knew at the bottom I would find myself, the abandoned child. This book became one of my most important guides and comforters on that journey, describing what psychological abandonment feels like, how it happens to a child, the devastation it wreaks, hope for reunion with that lost child within, hope for healing. I cannot recommend it highly enough. If you're a Four in the typology of the Ennegram, you will love this book!

Rating: 2
Summary: Flamboyant
Comment: This book is ambitious and the subject is very topical. However, the exposition is markedly lacking in scientific rigour. Narcissism seems to include virtually every neurotic symptom and the theoretical assumptions are questionable. For instance, Asper argues that typical of the narcissists is that they don't remember their childhood. Hence, one must insist that they try to remember. This is very questionable, as patients easily can fabricate memories. For example, one patient finally remembered that her mother said to the little girl that she should "dig her own grave every day" and that she should allow no rewards for herself and only think of others. One wonders whether this is not a fabricated image of the "archetypal witch". But what is most disturbing about the book is the extreme reduction of the myths and fairytales she retells. They are reduced to neurotical etiologies of a disturbed ego. However, the individuals in the fairytale are really abstractions, that is, they are "archetypes". What's more, the story concerns not neurotical symptoms but are in fact expressions of the hardships and problems that we all encounter during life's course. Her reductive interpretations are detrimental to the healing element of the myth. In reality, the fairytale and myth try to occasion a transcending of the trivial little ego-world so that we can see the whole perspective. But in Asper's understanding, it's the other way round. It concerns nothing but this little ego-world. Thereby the fairytales are trivialized. Nevertheless, the book contains much information about this particular type of neurosis so it is definitely not useless.

Mats W

Rating: 5
Summary: A superb contribution to psychological studies
Comment: In The Abandoned Child Within: On Losing And Regaining Self-worth, psychotherapist and analyst Kathrin Asper presents an impressive and cogent examination of the "wounded inner child" present in every adult who has experienced physical or emotional abandonment. Asper also presents an effective therapeutic approach for overcoming the devastating consequences of such early wounds to the psyche with their consequent symptoms of impaired self-esteem, depression, disproportionate rage, and inarticulate needs. The Abandoned Child Within is a superb contribution to psychological studies.