John Bradshaw: Reclaiming and Empowering Your Inner Child with Homecoming

City2Swamp: This was the first book I read on my journey in personal development. That was almost 25 years ago. I was at my lowest point. Battling depression, social anxiety and the heavy belief that I am defective due to childhood trauma and so many family dysfunctions. I was emotionally flat-lined. My heart felt heavy, yet hollow. I pretended to be happy on the outside, but on the inside I was dead.

Reading this book unlocked so many things for me and helped me begin to heal.

I have recommended this book many times over. Today I am an accomplished speaker, author and coach who has transformed the lives of many and I feel like I'm just getting started with serving humanity in a greater capacity. This book was my beginning point. And I am forever grateful for the healing that has taken place. It truly is a journey!! You never wake up and think, "Well, I'm all done healing and learning!"

But, with tools like this book, you can heal and actually feel happiness and joy.

Thank you John Bradshaw!

United States on Nov 09, 2023

Joyce Halvorson: Easy to read

Canada on Nov 01, 2023

Thomas Copin: MUST READ!

United States on Oct 06, 2023

Amazon Customer: John Bradshaw always brings it home!

Canada on Sep 30, 2023

Claire: Not sure really? Need to probably give it more of a go, but more the type of book I read snippets of and then put aside to study later. Was recommended by Patrick Teahan who has a utube site which very accurately describes results and triggers from childhood trauma. I find his content more helpful than this book. A good introduction to inner child work but need to go beyond this now after just a lot of healing done on my own. Acknowledges higher power quote respectfully but still has that psychology/Buddhist/meditation twist to it maybe not so helpful to Christian readers but no doubt will depend on the reader and their particular set of trauma and what they bring to it. An introduction to inner child work that from the reviews has obviously help ed many though.

United Kingdom on Dec 09, 2022

cindylovesbooks: In the Prologue, Bradshaw has this note...

* In this book, “he” and “his” refers to human beings of either sex. I have chosen to do this for grammatical consistency—no insensitivity is intended.

(Bradshaw, John. Homecoming (p. 16). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition)

Now, John Bradshaw is an educated man, but in this statement, it appears he is incapable of seeing outside the box of he/she, his/her, himself/herself, etc. pronouns. Has he not learned the terms, they, their, themselves, etc? This is nonsense - it's patriarchal in nature, and excludes over half the world's population.

This may seem like an over-the-top statement to someone who hasn't had to read texts most of their lives, where humans are referred to as man, he, him, his... If you're a girl, or a woman, this subliminal exclusion can have devastating effects. In fact, effects that Bradshaw is trying to deal with in this potentially great book. But, instead, Bradshaw, as part of that patriarchy, becomes *part* of the problem.

It's time for a thorough edit. Of course, 'he' is still used where it refers to an actual male, but, 'they' should be used to refer to a...

Australia on Oct 06, 2022

Customer0xF5: John Bradshaw wrote this book as a great source of information and as a workbook, which makes it enormously valuable.
The first part describes how childhood is a crucial time for the development of basic behaviour patterns, character traits, and habits. Bad experiences and learning deficits in childhood lead to suppressed emotions, repressed anger, anxiety, insecurity, a lack of social skills, faulty anger management, compulsive behaviour, addictions, and more. As a result, many adults are actually adult children. A questionaire at the end of chapter one helps to determine if you need to do some work.
In Part two John Bradshaw distinguishes five stages of child development.
- Infant, age 0 - 9 months
- Toddler, age 9 months - 3 years
- Preschool, age 3 - 6 years
- School-Age, 6 years to puberty
- Adolescence, age 13 - 26 years
Each stage begins with a tailor-made questionaire, which he calls Index of Suspicion. Then normal development during the stage is explained, and in contrast, he illustrates specific growth disorders and other problematic factors or events. After that he recommends that you write down as much information as possible about your family...

Germany on Jul 14, 2020

paula klein: I will re-read and refer to this book many times I'm sure. For those of you who want to see the patterns and understand what factors went into creating who you are (at the subconsious level driving your life & personality), there is absolutely no better book. When you have these unidentified subconscious drivers at work, no amount of mantras or "positive thinking" is going to suddenly reverse your direction. You must first understand what's going on.

After reading this and thinking through things, I did feel like I'd been hit by a train for about 2 weeks time. I saw the gravity in the situations of my upbringing and understood more about why I've been attracted to certain "types" of people in my life - whether that's a romantic relationship or otherwise. You will see the pervasiveness of certain personalities in your life all the way around and in what way it is that you are striving to perform "in order to be loved..." Make no mistake, it can be a depressing process while you see the incidents of your life replay in front you, analyze and rethink "friendships" for what they really are.

Being able to uncover the underlying blueprints of your own operations and...

United States on Apr 20, 2013

Applestolic: Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child

I cannot think of another published work that deals effectively with healing the wounded inner child, like this book. Methodical and delibrate, Bradshaw explores territory unknown to our present conscious, but quite familiar to our subconscious. The earliest of memories, whether peripheral, non-descript "gut" feelings or vivid, clear, sensory-engaged recollections, can be stirred up with the meditations and mental exercises outlined by Bradshaw.

Those that are considering purchasing this book, and are reading the reviews to help your decision process, probably already discussed this with a trained spiritual counselor to truly do the work necessary, to undo years of damage in early childhood that somehow manifested itself into inappropriate social behaviors (misplaced anger or rage, attention-seeking, sexualized friendships, marital infidelity, covert sex, pornography), defense mechanisms (disassociation, projection, passing blame or guilt) and addictions (chemical, sexual dependencies). Emotional wounds sustained at such an innocent age really cannot be healed properly until an emotionally healthy parent,...

United States on May 02, 2007