The Primal Wound: A Transpersonal View of Trauma, Addiction, and Growth (Philosophy of Psychology (Dis))

Excellent, excellent, excellent! A must for any psychotherapist who wants to understand the motivating dread that lurks behind all guilt, shame, and feelings of unworthiness. They describe the nonbeing state and its origins, making it easy to see why they call this state something that is more fearful than the threat of physical death. Also give a comprehensive (but entertainingly done) review of theoretical therapeutic literature that allows readers to integrate this book's psychosynthesis orientation with past theories of object relations, narcissism, attachment theory, etc. I've been a psychologist for over 40 years and this book has given my clients and me a new way of conceptualizing and getting free of existential fears of nonbeing. I can't praise it highly enough. Very well written as well, keeping a potentially difficult subject clear and entertaining. Highest marks! Thank you to the authors.

If you have lived your life in the adult world for any period of time, it's time you read this book. Take a look at your emotions and relationships from a new perspective! This book gives us insight into why we behave the way we do, and then suggests ways to integrate ourselves into a broader perspective that allows us to change those things that are making us unhappy.I sent this book to relatives in the US and abroad, and I know that it is providing us all with great information to help us heal our lives and move beyond real unhappiness and discontent.It's a psychology book, and is not a quick read. But it makes a lot of sense and pushes you along. The references to other work are helpful and useful as well.Good reading!

I am re-reading this book. I was impressed when I read it five years ago; but having progressed in my doctoral education, I find it more cogent than before. It addresses issues and conditions that are, sadly, widespread in modern and post-modern societies. A must for any psychologically-minded and compassionate person. This is a well-written, scholarly work: it is not a casual, pop psychological read; but neither is my experience of it that it is stilted, jargon-dense and opaque.

If you have suffered trauma and/or abandonment in the past and now have self-destructive patterns of behavior such as addictions or compulsions, this book is a must read. The book is well organized, written in everyday language, and is presented in easy-to-understand building blocks. A main concept is essentially how a non-empathic parent causes a child to split their sense of self into "good" and "bad" to hide the bad part and preserve the good part. Both become repressed, severely limiting the child's consciousness and numbing their life-experience. What is repressed shows up as addictions. The "healing" part of the book covers psychosynthesis, and re-uniting and accepting both the good and bad senses of self that were repressed; this targets the underlying cause for addictions. It also addresses healing the feelings for the parent/adult who caused the trauma through basically the same process -- the child had separated their feelings of parent into good and bad (e.g. idealization and rage); to heal, both sides must be acknowledged and accepted.

Good information but a bit dated and hard read. Compares favourably to others of this era

This book explains the importance of being treated as valuable. When there is a lack of being valued it creates wounds and protective patterns develop. The words in this book are important today, as many individuals and groups of people speak out against oppression. Instead of living in a forced persona, this book invites us to heal and evolve into all possibilities of who we could be.

Really great insights into healing the broken parts of us all. Speaks to and through various schools of psychology. Really great book.

This is an excellent text book on the subject matter. Written more for clinicians; however, I found it absorbing and quite educational.

The Primal Wound looks at how childhood wounds carry forwards to influence our adult behaviours. It explores our deepest dynamics with ourselves and with the exterior other. The content is taken from the Psychosynthesis model and framework which looks at many deeper issues; showing us how we form different parts of our personality (adapted parts) to survive. It also looks at how these adapted parts called Sub-personalities play out to the world. This book is very insightful and an intelligent look at our human Psyche. The theme is identifying / recognising our individual primal wound and with these insights working towards healing the wounds to free up our potential.

Valuable insight for work with substance misuse

Amazing insights, a complex read but a must have if you are interested in the mind and psychosynthesis

Always reliable . Thank you! Great book

Great book, well written and valuable material, highly recommended