Rating: 
Summary: A welcomed guide through the wild
Review: Nouwen offers a deep challenge to those who would minister the Love of Christ in this world. Using his characteristically insightful prose Nouwen articulates the post-modern dilema (he calls post-modernity the dilema of "nuclear man"). From there he proceeds to challenge traditional models of ministry, preaching and healing. Nouwen, I would argue through his own expierence, teaches those who would minister to lead others towards the healing love of Christ. He creatively suggests that ministers should change hats, leading people to freedom by articulating empathetically their own woundedness. In essence he is both challenging and inviting the Church to be a fellow wounded traveler in and through the darkness of our wounded world. It is a brilliant work that rewards re-reading.
Rating:
Summary: A welcomed guide through the wild
Review: Nouwen offers a deep challenge to those who would minister the Love of Christ in this world. Using his characteristically insightful prose Nouwen articulates the post-modern dilema (he calls post-modernity the dilema of "nuclear man"). From there he proceeds to challenge traditional models of ministry, preaching and healing. Nouwen, I would argue through his own expierence, teaches those who would minister to lead others towards the healing love of Christ. He creatively suggests that ministers should change hats, leading people to freedom by articulating empathetically their own woundedness. In essence he is both challenging and inviting the Church to be a fellow wounded traveler in and through the darkness of our wounded world. It is a brilliant work that rewards re-reading.
Rating:
Summary: A necessary commentary on the life of a healer
Review: Nouwen, in this classic work, explains how in one's weakness, one can still participate in the healing of others. A major theme of most of his books, Nouwen stresses that only in one's brokenness before God and humankind can people really transform community. Admittedly, the philosophy of the wounded healer offered at the beginning and end of the book gets a little thick, but both portions offer excellent insights that make it a great read. The great benefit of the book is the clear examples offered in the middle of the text. Examples of people dealing with terminal patients and the like really clarifie the condition that Nouwen addresses. A must-read for people in the helping professions and anyone else looking to impact people!
Rating: 
Summary: Wounded healer for a wounded Church
Review: The wounded review:
Writing this review was as hard as delivering Henri J.M. Nouwen, it took me agony and three days. It coincided with my devastation due the atrocities taking place in Jesus birth place, and in his holy mystical body. I am writing a recap on six reviews, each of which captured a side of the book and the psyche of its wounded author, beloved late Fr. Nouwen.Doctor, heal thyself (Luke 4:23)
It seems this echoed in Henri's mind when at Cambridge, MA, he started writing the book. As Cry-the-Name (rev 6) rightly mentioned, Prof. Nouwen was in the Ivy ivory tower of Harvard, but he possibly referred to a real experience in: Ministry to a hopeless Man, while he served as a minister in or around Utrecht in his late twenties. Again the title may have been
in his conscience in Topeka or South Bend, a psychology teacher could not have missed similarity of Franz Jung life to his own, and an allegation of his attraction to Freud. There are striking parallels in their down to earth, human side with all the strengths and frailties accompanying their common human condition.( pl. look up: Claire Dunes: Franz Jung, Son of Carl Jung) The cult of wounded healers:
St. Paul, the arch-wounded healer, told us about "a thorn was given me in the Flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me"
Fr. Nouwen's wound was in his psyche and masterfully does Philip Yancey describe it in his article, in Christianity today, 1966:"The Holy Inefficiency Of Henri Nouwen" and I know real ministers like him (read John Watson's: The Glorified Cross; Coptic Church review, vol. 1&2 2002) Different sides for Healers wounds:
I will quote Michael Ford's Biography of Henri Nouwen, since it shows how all six reviewers observed the healer and his wounds from different prespectives: "Nouwen was a prophet to millions of people who heard him speak and read his books, but he also was wounded in so many ways. His life was one of paradox and pain. Nouwen, for example knew some 1,500 people he counted as personal friends, yet he constantly struggled with intense feelings of loneliness." Nuclear Man's ways of liberation:
Since both Nouwen and Merton have also similar features; both lived in post second World war Europe, got good European education amended with exposure to great American Academia, they are both Nuclear men, global believers, imitating Christ in different ways. According to J. Donders; they were invoked to their vocation in different ways, and encountered their spiritual adventure in kids like awe. both torn apart, but stayed whole. Their mind and milieu are alike although their wounds were different. Wounded Quotations For the wounded Church:
"Christianity is not just challenged to ask itself to a modern age, but is also challenged to ask itself whether its unarticulated suppositions can still form the basis for its redemptive pretensions"( Nuclear Man)
"I am afraid that in a few decades (3?) the Church will be accused of having failed in its most basic task: to offer men creative ways to communicate with the source of human life." (Ministry for a rootless generation)
" In this analysis it has became clear that Christian leadership is accomplished only through service" (ministry to a hopeless man)
The announcement of the wounded healer: "The master is coming-not tomorrow, but today, not next year, but this year, not after all our misery is passed, but in the middle of it, not in another place but right here where we are standing"( Ministry by a lonely minister)
Rating:
Summary: A testament to the power of finding strength in weakness
Review: This powerfully written, yet simple book changed my life! In "The Wounded Healer," Nouwen addresses one of the main challenges of the human condition- our weaknesses. These wounds, as Nouwen refers to them, are so often viewed as sources of shame and guilt for us. He reminds us all, however, that these wounds, can be transformed into strengths, if we will allow them to be. By accepting that we are human and addressing our human weaknesses, we can then turn them into helpful resources to extend the gift of emotional healing to others. Because, in order to reach people, we need a point of connection. We can all relate to experiences of emotional woundedness, and within appropriate relational boundaries, they can become instruments of healing. Nouwen shares several stories, and conversations that he had with persons going through various experiences of emotional woundedness. One of the most poignant of these was a visit he made to a man who was about to go in for surgery to have a leg amputated. By offering himself as a compassionate listener, he was able to help the man find peace in the midst of a devastating loss. A point of clarification that Nouwen makes well is that becoming a wounded healer does not mean that we dump all of our problems on people, or seek to wear them like badges. Instead, by being aware of our woundedness, and facing it, we can become more sensitized to the needs of the people around us- after all we are all subject to human imperfection. If you are ready to find hope and a renewed perspective on helping others- read this book! I would highly recommend "The Wounded Healer" to all persons in caring professions, as well as anyone who just want to find peace in the midst of human challenges.
Rating:
Summary: A testament to the power of finding strength in weakness
Review: This powerfully written, yet simple book changed my life! In "The Wounded Healer," Nouwen addresses one of the main challenges of the human condition- our weaknesses. These wounds, as Nouwen refers to them, are so often viewed as sources of shame and guilt for us. He reminds us all, however, that these wounds, can be transformed into strengths, if we will allow them to be. By accepting that we are human and addressing our human weaknesses, we can then turn them into helpful resources to extend the gift of emotional healing to others. Because, in order to reach people, we need a point of connection. We can all relate to experiences of emotional woundedness, and within appropriate relational boundaries, they can become instruments of healing. Nouwen shares several stories, and conversations that he had with persons going through various experiences of emotional woundedness. One of the most poignant of these was a visit he made to a man who was about to go in for surgery to have a leg amputated. By offering himself as a compassionate listener, he was able to help the man find peace in the midst of a devastating loss. A point of clarification that Nouwen makes well is that becoming a wounded healer does not mean that we dump all of our problems on people, or seek to wear them like badges. Instead, by being aware of our woundedness, and facing it, we can become more sensitized to the needs of the people around us- after all we are all subject to human imperfection. If you are ready to find hope and a renewed perspective on helping others- read this book! I would highly recommend "The Wounded Healer" to all persons in caring professions, as well as anyone who just want to find peace in the midst of human challenges.
Rating:
Summary: A paradigm for ministry in the modern world
Review: What does it mean to be a minister (a healer, if you will) in the world of today, to a rootless generation, to people who suffer loneliness and alienation? Henri Nouwen proposed that the wounds of the "wounded healer" can be a source of healing for others. Although this is a short book, it is very profound, and I'm not sure I totally grasped everything Nouwen was trying to say. He moves from the very practical third chapter (a case study of a one-on-one encounter between a clinical pastoral trainee and a lonely dying patient) to the rather esoteric fourth chapter (focusing on the wounded healer) which could have used more practical illustrations. This is a book that probably needs to be read several times, but it can be extremely valuable for the minister, and for everyone else.
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