FAMILY TREE HEALING : HELPFUL BOOKS
I select here a few books I have found
insightful and useful for healing the different stages of spiritual growth. For
some I have written short reviews to present the content and clarify their
application.
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Living From the Heart Jesus Gave You
by James Friesen, James Wilder, and others.
This foundational book from Shepherd's House, CA, (available from
www.carepkg.org) presents a model for
healing that has worked successfully with severely abused and SRA victims. It
presents a "Life Model" based on joy ("someone is glad to be with me") and
returning to joy, and different stages of maturing toward the goal of living and
thriving from one's true heart (joy in God) as against coping with life out of
fear. Restoration for severely abused people requires more than truth. It needs
trustworthy relationships, spiritual bonding, to help one restore broken stages.
Jim Wilder has opened a website (www.lifemodel.org)
that gives resources and some of his research on joy and brain development, his
"neurotheology." His is a powerful approach for healing "initial faith" and
later stages.
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Internal Family Systems Therapy by Richard
Schwartz.
Schwartz originally used structural family therapy till he found that some
addicted people could improve relationships without freeing their addictions.
Through client feed-back he came to realize that each person had internal parts
(which he categorized as managers, exiles and fire-fighters) that also needed to
relate authentically, and later he discovered an internal "self" (compassionate
observer and guide, a spiritual center) that could help the "parts" de-polarize
and work in harmony. His website is:
www.selfleadership.org. His work is
a fine addition to the intergenerational approach of Murray Bowen and Ivan
Boszormenyi-Nagy that I consider in the "familial faith" stage.
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Healing Life's Deepest Hurts by Edward M.
Smith.
This little book introduces Theophostic ("God's Light") Ministry (see
www.theophostic.com). Ed Smith, a
Baptist pastoral counselor for many years, was getting "burned out" helping
people get a little better after years of counseling. He asked God why those
Jesus touched got healed and those he counseled merely improved. He was led to
see the reason for the pain was not the abuse but the "lie" the person took in
with it. He was led to let the pain take the person to the root source, ask God
to reveal the lie and while the person experienced the darkness with that lie,
ask God to reveal the truth. To his amazement, God did reveal truth, and with
successive revelations the person got fully free. This powerful ministry, begun
in the early 1990s, has spread around the world with some 1000 new people a
month. A new book, A Catholic's Guide to Theophostic Prayer Ministry, by
Father David Tickerhoof, TOR, relates theophostic ministry to the Catholic
tradition. This ministry is powerful to help people move from "familial" to
"individuating" faith.
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Feelings Buried Alive Never Die by Karol K.
Truman.
Our illnesses and pains reflect an inner attitude or belief that if changed can
bring healing or relief. What Karol Truman found was that our own spirit
(especially if directed by God's spirit) can identify that negative belief and
bring forgiveness and love if we direct it to do so. She developed a "Script" to
guide our spirit to bring this shift and release the effects of this negative
attitude up to the present. Her book has 44 pp. of physical ailments and the
attitudes behind them and changes needed. Her approach has helped many, and it
clarifies what changes occur with what I have called "individuating faith."
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Loving What Is
by Byron Katie.
Katie was caught in a pattern of rage and depression that brought her to a
clinic. While there, she woke with an inner awareness and laughter that her own
resistance to reality was behind her ills. In the peace that followed, and the
people that came to her for help, she developed a series of four questions to
help people get to the bottom of their opposition to reality and find the gift
in "What Is." (see her website:
www.thework.com) As she says, "To fight
reality is like trying to make a cat bark!" This also is a help for moving into
"individuating faith."
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Leadership and Self-Deception by the Arbinger Institute.
The Arbinger Institute provides consultants for management teams, parenting, and
other organizational leadership with great success. This foundational book is a
narrative, teaching a new manager that being "out of the box" (that is, true to
oneself as caring for others as persons) is key to developing a cooperative,
creative team. Being "in the box" (that is, driven by quotas, desire for
business success, etc. which treats others as objects of one's goals) effects
either conformity or latent resentment that ultimately undermines the team. This
is a practical and powerful help to what I call "communitarian faith," which
illustrates the effectiveness of caring relationships in business or family.
Their website (www.arbinger.org) gives
many other resources.
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Companions of the Cross by Father Bob Bedard.
Father Bedard, a Canadian diocesan priest, was put in charge of a dying parish
after giving a series of talks on parish renewal. He was led to "give God
permission" to work in the parish and have the parishioners do the same. He only
initiated projects (like prison ministry, evangelization) that emerged from the
community. He lost members but gained ten-fold what he lost. His parish drew new
members and he was allowed to begin a federation of priests that grew at a
steady pace and now serves parishes in the United States and Canada. His website
is: www.companionscross.ca. His
approach to "listening to God" and acting is a fine model for "communitarian"
and "mission" faith.
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God's Ecstasy
by Beatrice Bruteau.
With degrees in mathematics and philosophy and being a co-founder of a network
of contemplatives, Bruteau is a rare combination of science and spirituality. In
this book she takes the reader through reflections from astronomy, physics,
chemistry, biology, economics and politics to show the differentiation and
creative union at different levels that, for the believer, reveals divine
trinitarian relations as its ground. Bruteau's work expands one's vision of
family to all creation as in our "mission stage."