Getting Our Bodies Back

Rating:
Summary: Body Psychotherapy in the 1990's
Review: An excellent example of how body psychotherapy has develloped during the 1990's. The book is agreable to read, full of interesting ideas and examples, and the author obviously knows what is happening, not only in her field but in neighbouring disciplines.

Rating:
Summary: A little gem...
Review: I don't know if it's simply because I read it at the right moment in my life, but this book had and is still having a profound effect on me. A magical effect on me. Reading it feels like being home and every discovery it leads me to is so intense that I cannot read more than a few pages at a time.

An alternative title for this book could be "Recovering our Aliveness". Recovering our desire to expand our chest and welcome every single oxygen molecules that keep us alive. Recovering our ability to feel. Happiness isn't in the content of our life, but in the very process of being alive. Why are we so afraid of it ? Why do we distract ourselves with addictive thoughts and body movements? Christine Caldwell guides you in your search for an answer, and offers concrete tools to finally walk hand-in-hand with your life force.

I send her my gratefulness.

Rating:
Summary: Promising but short on delivery.
Review: R. D. Laing's recognition of a "schizoid personality," or a disembodied self, in his seminal work "The Divided Self," promised a new approach to the integration of body and mind in the whole and healthy human being. Caldwell builds on this idea, using the body as a starting point for diagnosing addictions and suggesting treatments. But the book soon becomes predictable. The addictions are frequently the result of an abusive parent (isn't this theme getting a bit threadworn by now?) and the treatments are more commonsensical than insightful (meditation, exercise, re-prioritizing life's demands). Moreover, the material echoes much similar popular wisdom on the subject. Readers of John Bradshaw, Sam Keene, Deepak Chopra are likely to find this book somewhat repetitious and familiar. And though user-friendly, the writing style rarely attains the sustained rhetorical power of the former works.

Rating:
Summary: Promising but short on delivery.
Review: R. D. Laing's recognition of a "schizoid personality," or a disembodied self, in his seminal work "The Divided Self," promised a new approach to the integration of body and mind in the whole and healthy human being. Caldwell builds on this idea, using the body as a starting point for diagnosing addictions and suggesting treatments. But the book soon becomes predictable. The addictions are frequently the result of an abusive parent (isn't this theme getting a bit threadworn by now?) and the treatments are more commonsensical than insightful (meditation, exercise, re-prioritizing life's demands). Moreover, the material echoes much similar popular wisdom on the subject. Readers of John Bradshaw, Sam Keene, Deepak Chopra are likely to find this book somewhat repetitious and familiar. And though user-friendly, the writing style rarely attains the sustained rhetorical power of the former works.

Rating:
Summary: Getting our bodies back
Review: This book by Dr. Caldwell is one of greatest books I have ever read. Although easy for any reader this book is a page turner that captivates the mind as well as the imagination. I can honnestly say that this book is among the very few that I have pulled off the shelf and read more than once, and would recomend it to anyone.