Maloof, George

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The Linacre QuarterlyVolume 49 | Number 1 Article 92-1-1982[Book Review of ] Feeling and Healing Your Emotions,by Conrad BaarsGeorge MaloofFollow this and additional works at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnqPart of the Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons, and the Medicine and Health SciencesCommonsRecommended CitationMaloof, George (1982) "[Book Review of] Feeling and Healing Your Emotions, by Conrad Baars," The Linacre Quarterly: Vol. 49: No. 1,Article 9.Available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnq/vol49/iss1/9/ , Book Reviews Feeling and Healing Your Emotions Conrad Baars Logos International, 201 Church SI ., Plainfield N. J. 07060, 1979.277 pp., $7.95. Feeling and Healing Your Emotions is another in a series of books by the late Conrad Baars attempting to popularize psychiatry from a Christian perspective based on an interpretation of Aquinas by a Dutch psychiatrist, Anna Terruwe, and Dr. Baars. Other books by the author , including Born Only Once and Healing the Unaffirmed, provide a prelude to the primary importance given to the emotions in this book. Although the author professes to be a Christian psychiatrist, he maintains that the human will is not free in certain circumstances. By not acknowledging that the primary reason for t he fall of man was his will, he does not appreciate the primary act ion of t he will in man's e motio nal life. Thereby, emotions are considered not only to origi nate on their own but also are pitted against each other without the influence of one's w ill. Not only is a child's behavior devoid of will but an adult masturbato r also "does not even know that hi s will had been inoperative in t h e repressive process." De nying th e influence of t he w ill in emotional lire, or as often giving lip se rvice to it, leads to var ious shorts ighted views. The author assumes t hat a person fearing a sniper in the jungle "know(s) exactly w hat he is afraid of, and yet ( is) not ab le to e liminate it at wi ll. " However, the predicted breaking point may relate mOI'e to gu il t feelings for possibl e past murderous inclinations not acknowledged. There is little appreciation of how ma n inflic ts su ffering on himself by his ev il incl inations which are not accepted as his own. Dr. Baars is more concerned with te lling his patie nts their guil t fee li ngs have no foundat ion than with looking beyond the alleged crime fo r t he rea l act for w h ich th e person does not readi ly accept respon-sibi li ty and which man ifests itse lf in a subtle for m . Alt hough Dr. Baars cl eanses psychiatry of certa in terminology like the id, ego and superego, he does not recognize the major philosophical position of Freudian psyc hology and a ll subseque nt mode rn psychology , psychic detel·minism. In fact, Dr. Baars fa ll s prey to this determini sm - " ... proo f of th e fact t hat the person 's will has bee n eliminated from dea ling with the repressed emotions. That pe rson is incapable of utili z ing hi s free wi ll in th e area of repression." He is also caught up in t h e diagnostic process wh ich he stra ins so to simpli fy for the lay man that he fai ls to recogni ze t h e basic un-Christ ian motives fo r using psychi atric la bels. They h ave a lways been used to write off certai n ind ividuals as hopeless cases no t worthy of o ne's atte ntion. Dr. Baars continues his tradition by so branding psyc hopathic perso nality disorders. F ailing to see t hat a released thi e f may steal again to return to hi s customary home in ja il , Dr. Baars can o ffer as an ex planation only the patronizi ng hope that " a brain defect will be discovered soon." Freud main ta ined a similar hope for those brand ed psychotic. Whereas t he ea rl y environment, i.e ., pare nts, cause neuroses in the t radition al psychiatric view espoused by Dr. Baars, the "psychopaths a re born that way. FO I' som e yet unknown reason there is a co nstitutionally determined lack o f control of the emotional life by the intell ect ." Dr. Baars has carved out a spec ial ni ch e 1'01' him-self in the so-ca ll ed n euroti c disorde l's ex pa nding the obsessive-compu lsive to February, 1982 81 include anxiety, depressive and phobic neuroses while relegating dull-witted hysterical neurotics to the psychoanalysts. Besides treating his and Terruwe's own discove l'y , the "deprivation neurotic" who was deprived of love when young and cowers in order to gain love as an adult, Dr. Baars is generous in reclassifying cer-tain individuals preoccupied with theil' bodily processes and homosexuals as neurotic in order to bring them under his special purview. A truly Christian heal-ing approach, on the contrary, welcomes all without pinning perjorative labels on people. The diagnostic process is little more than a scapegoating process which always limits true understanding. Given Dr. Baars's special focus on the emotion of anger, his attributing his survival in a concentration camp to an unabated constant anger at his captors, and his oft-repeated Biblical dictum "Be angry and sin not," might we not expect more of an ex planation of why a particular woman patient repeat-edly made him angry than diabolical possession? Why could not Dr. Baars practice what he preaches in th is instance? In spite of his frequent advice to others to con-sult professional psychiatric help , he consulted a priest in this case and all con-cerned seemed satisfied with the explanation that anger in this situation was an evil spirit which was su bsequently exorcised. By focusing on the individual treated instead of the relationship between the counselor and client or between the client and his family and friends, the diag-nostic label isolates the person from his social relations or allows him to use them as scapegoats much the same as the person 's emotions have been isolated from the will and intellect which al'e scapegoated. A long self-report of an avowed obses-sive-compulsive attributes all his problems to an overbearing mother. His sexual fantasies allowed to run their course in Dr. Baars 's emotion-acknowledging therapy are dismissed by Dr. Baars who compassionately replies that it is "sad you had to suffer unnecessarily." What about the father in this man 's life and how was Dr. Baars related to the father image? There is no mention of father by this cured man "who facets) anger with a fierce will." While Dr. Baars repeatedly claims will power is insufficient and even counterproductive in feeling and healing emotions, his star case has managed to face his emotion of anger "with a fierce will." In this review which so far has been a diatribe against psychiatric determinism and diagnostic labeling, there is a need for a more positive balance at this time. The author's practical advice is usually wise, qualifying him as the effective psychiatrist he claims to be. His advice to acknowledge and resolve anger so as to avoid physical symptoms, depression or bitterness is valuable, especially comple-mented with the Christian message of forgiveness which allows one to forget the insults and not suffer adverse effects from such insults and a vengeful response to them, acknowledged or not. His warning to parents not to spoil their children and thereby deprive them of the development of the emotional life of desire and joy gives sound reason for this common sense approach. His recommendation to give thanks and praise to God for the beauties of nature, if not for the insults suffered by man, is a welcome acknowledgment of the spiritual dimension of hum an heal-ing. His criticisms of sex education as isolating genital behavior from its meaning-ful context, assertiveness train ing as forcing emotional expression prematurely , T-groups as exploiting the need for expression of the pleasure emotions indiscrim-inately, a re perceptive and pointed. He is not as familiar with the growing appreci-ation of coupl es in the Marriage Encounter movement with the benefits of natural fami ly planning. Nor does he apprec ia te that the success of self-he lp groups like Alcoholics Anonymous and Recovery Incorporated is due largely to their rejec-tion of professional help and reli ance 011 will power rather than in spite of them, given the detel-ministic , atheistic, a nd perjorative biases of the mental health pro-fessions . A return to a more critical appraisal will concl ude this review. Dr. Baars has had the apparent misfortune to spawn affirmation agencies, all of which he 82 Linacre Quarterly , emphatically unaffirms, or rather, disclaims as truly affirming agencies. Why no avowed professional followers of Dr. Baars are worthy of his affirmation, and, on the contrary, have prompted legal action on his part against such pseudo-affirming disciples, is tragic. Those in desperate need who read this book are likely to be referred to his other books or self-help tapes. The suicidal person is quickly requested to buy Healing the Unaffirmed. How many people on the verge of suicide will respond to such counsel? Those troubled with the suggestion they acknowledge sexual expression and that it is "not bad to feel this emotion" will also have to invest more money to find out how to do this with a clear conscience by buying more books and tapes of Dr. Baars. One of many contradictions in the book is the author's early admission of the greater impact of the pleasurable emotions, particularly those associated with the generative function, followed later by attributing the predominance of genital pleasure solely to pedagogic preoccupation with it. The postscript especially ranks as one of the most self-affirming pieces one may ever find in print with direct solicitation for his profes-sional services provided one sends a self-addressed stamped envelope - a long envelope - to the identified address. Baars's conviction that he has helped many people is not so much a credit to the soundness of his theories of mental and emotional health as to the magnificent capacity of man to rise above his suffering, whether caused by himself or another. He wills to be affirmed as a child of God Who loves him unconditionally whereas no one else, not even Dr. Baars, can. Such a love Dr. Baars insists is necessary for a person to be a healthy person who can bear the cross Christ gives rather than one self-made. One's promised happiness in this and everlast ing life will then be fulfilled. - George Maloof, M.D. Ethics Teaching and Higher Education Daniel Callahan and Sissela Bok, Editors The Hastings Center Series in Ethics, Plenum Press, N. Y., 1980, 315 pp., $19.50. This scholarly volume contains much of the research on teaching ethics in higher education in the United States which the Hastings Center produced with the help of grants from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Carnegie Founda-tion of New York. Although 11 of the 12 chapters are individually authored, their work reflects two years of intensive study by a pilot group of about 20 persons who met frequently and made use of some 30 papers and independent studies comm issioned for this project. Such a professional and thorough analY3is of an issue of increasing importance - integrating ethics into American higher education and allowing ethics to inte-grate higher education - cannot be ignored by anyone interested in higher educa-tion. Much of the book's content will reinforce what readers already know, for example, the increasing interest in college courses in app lied ethics, the intriguing efforts of contemporary psychology to uncover the process of moral develop-ment, and the wide variety of approaches to ethics as a discipline, to methodol-ogies for teaching ethics, and various ways of evaluating eth ics courses. February, 1982 83 

[Book Review of] \u3cem\u3eFeeling and Healing Your Emotions,\u3c/em\u3e by Conrad Baars

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[Book Review of] \u3cem\u3eFeeling and Healing Your Emotions,\u3c/em\u3e by Conrad Baars

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