The Journey from Abandonment to Healing

Rating:
Summary: Quality help for abandonment recovery!
Review: Dr. Susan Anderson has masterfully articulated the experience of abandonment as only a survivor of abandonment could know. She is a survivor herself. Her book, The Journey From Abandonment To Healing, keeps a gentle, respectful tone towards the survivor, and is easy to understand throughout.

This book clearly articulates what I struggled to put into words about the abandonment symptoms I was experiencing. Abandonment is defined as an involuntary separation. Some symptoms include loss of control of the situation, separation anxiety and yearning for the lost love, hoping for the possibility of the lost love's return and the desparation caused by this desire.

The book also covers in great detail the physiology behind emotional withdrawal symptoms of abandonment, including the loss of opioids (hormones) which is similar to heroin withdrawal; the significance of extreme changes in appetite patterns; Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; memory loss; the desire to self-medicate to endure the loss; and how society acknowledges those grieving over a death but not over a lost love.

Finally, Dr. Anderson gives some effective exercises in overcoming the crippling symptoms of abandonment. The exercises are not "pat" answers as found in some mainstream books and magazines. These are extensive, healing exercises requiring vulnerable, self-introspection.

I hope this helps someone else out there, too. It sure saved my sanity and all for the modest price of a book -- not an expensive block of therapy sessions!

Rating:
Summary: A manual for my break-up crisis
Review: I bought this book after a painful break-up. I did not care for this book. It's sort of long and basically did nothing to help me.

Rating:
Summary: excellent book
Review: I bought this book after reading about it a few times on the web expecting a typical self help relationship book, I was really suprised by what I found. This book is an extrememly helpful guide not only for navigating the waters of a break up, but most i9mportantly using the break up to enhance you life and to come out of it more grown. I can't recommend this book enough for those that are willing to put in the work that this book asks. But that is the clincher of the process that this book presents, it is work. This book doesn't offer a quick fix or a band-aid for the pain of abandonment. It does offer something infinitely more important-a vessel in which to really find yourself, and resucue yourself from the distress and abandonment that we all have within ourselves.

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Summary: A must read for anyone with a broken heart
Review: I wanted to take the time out to write a review of this book as I have benefitted from it from two points of view. I have been a psychotherapist for twenty years and as such have come face to face with the pain of abandonment in many forms. The loss of love through betrayal, death, changed family circumstances, ill health, divorce, etc. It is often the root cause of much of the pain that people present to my office with.
As well, being a person in this world, I too have been abandoned and despite the knowledge I hold as a mental health professional, experienced the full impact of that wrenching, soul-destroying, desperate fear and sadness.
As I reflected on my own loss, I found Susan's book uniquely helpful. It was especially useful to learn about the science of abandonment. It helped me to feel as if I was not loosing my mind and that despite all the information I held as a therapist, as a biological being, some of my experiences were natural and primal and although extremely painful...they were understandable. It gave me a real sense of hope and possibility.
Consequently, I have shared this book with many of my patients. Almost universally they have found it both comforting and helpful as a realistic tool toward healing and change. It is a book that I would not be without in the library of references I use to help others.
There will be times when someone is unable to fully utilize this book. When their fear of being hurt again is so intense that they hold on to the pain of abandonment as a way of never connecting again. A book that truly helps to transform is not embraced by anyone who unconsciously holds on to a wish to remain unchanged.
So, as a practitioner and a survivor, I could not recommend this book more highly!!

Rating:
Summary: Full of pain, try this book for relief
Review: It really does hurt, antidepressants do help, but somehow the pain is always there. You might need to read this wonderful book to understand why you are hurting. Susan Anderson did an exceptional job with this book. It seemed as if she was actually standing next to me in my last 2+ years of HELL. If you think there is no hope, please take the chance and read this book. Good Luck

Rating:
Summary: Full of pain, try this book for relief
Review: It really does hurt, antidepressants do help, but somehow the pain is always there. You might need to read this wonderful book to understand why you are hurting. Susan Anderson did an exceptional job with this book. It seemed as if she was actually standing next to me in my last 2+ years of HELL. If you think there is no hope, please take the chance and read this book. Good Luck

Rating:
Summary: An exceptional book about the physiology of abandonment
Review: This book truly changed my life... I can't begin to say how profound this book is in terms of dealing with loss, abandonment and the feelings which are felt during the recovery process. I have been caught in a cycle of grief over a lost relationship FOR YEARS and nothing helped me as this book has. I think adolescents should be encouraged to read this book in school before they begin to enter into relationships. It is critical that we teach our young that if you do not love and honor yourself, you will always be yearning and needing too much from others.

Rating:
Summary: An exceptional book about the physiology of abandonment
Review: This is a well researched book about how experiences from infancy through childhood are manifested in the brain and affect us as adults. Susan discusses 5 stages in the recovery of abandonment which I can identify with. Her advice in dealing with abandonment is exactly what I have concluded through my own experiences. It's nice to read a book that I can connect to so well. Having read this book, I can better understand the trauma I experienced as a child. It also gives me more hope that someday I will overcome the trauma that I've felt and be able to have meaningful relationships without fearing abandonment. It's an easy book to read and doesn't necessarily make you feel bad by bringing up bad feelings. It simply tries to address the issues surrounding abandonment and cites examples of people and their experiences in this context.

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Summary: EXTRAORDINARILY GENEROUS AND HELPFUL
Review: This is the first review I have written on Amazon.com, and I am writing it because I want to urge anyone profoundly heartbroken, devastated, and utterly unsure of how to survive, READ THIS BOOK. There are numerous breakup recovery books out there -- I've read scores of them -- but this is the first one I have found that is actually addressing _profound_ heartbreak, the kind of devastation that is simply not amenable to logic, conscious affirmations, and rational decisions to cope.

If you've tried bravery, common-sense, and straight-out endurance, try reading this book instead - because incredibly, Susan Anderson managed to not only help you understand what you're going through -- she also comes up with five amazingly original exercises that can actually HELP you endure the unendurable. I know. I've been using them. I cannot say enough about this book.

Anderson doesn't ever water down the agony -- twenty-five years of work with heartbroken patients has made her very aware of the intricacies of abandonment grief. But despite this realistic knowledge of the pain, she offers hope -- not the glib, "You'll recover eventually!" hope of most breakup-recovery books, but a nuanced, particular hope specific to each grief stage, and always attentive to the suffering you are undergoing at each moment. An incredible, generous and loving book.