Many of us struggle with anxiety, loneliness, and feelings of inadequacy. We know that God created us in his image, but how can we be loving when we feel burned out? How can we be free when we struggle with addiction? Will we ever enjoy the complete healing God promises?

Changes That Heal by renowned psychologist Dr. Henry Cloud offers a down-to-earth plan to help us recover from the wounds of the past and grow more and more into the image of God.

Henry Cloud is a clinical psychologist. He reinforces his medical and psychological training with biblical principles. I enjoyed listening to his actual case histories. His case examples attack Pharisaical Christian attitudes and replaces them with changes in thoughts, actions and attitudes that "heal". He explains that holding on to blame stunts our growth and traps us in the past. He emphasizes taking personal responsibility for our own emotions, responses and actions which in fact leads to healing and maturity. Really liked this book. ( )

I don't even particularly remember reading this: I think it overlapped a lot with his book "Boundaries"? Maybe read that, instead. ( )

The easiest way for me to discuss my thoughts on this book would be to break it into two categories of pros and cons.

Pros:
I absolutely loved the first 1/4 of this book and thought it was extraordinarily insightful. I found myself highlighting and underlying so many great passages. I also enjoyed that Henry spoke so openly and honestly about the human nature within all of us and how it relates to our ability to live out the Christian expectations of us. So many Christian books try to deny the sinful nature instead of embracing and realizing that we all have one no matter how hard we try to be pure and holy. Henry even points out how dangerous this denial is and that it is impossible to find healing, peace, and grace if we are still in denial of our sins. For those reasons I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Cons:
The book spent a little too much time pinpointing symptoms or negative side effects from not establishing boundaries, relationships, or our own identity as adults. I know I have problems I know what most of my downfalls are, at least the ones I am most interested in fixing. I didn't care to spend so much time reading about what can happen to us if we don't resolve certain issues because I had already diagnosed myself with issues I didn't need the Christian take on the DSMV. I also felt that it got a little repetitive and could have been a much shorter book if he didn't spend so much time repeating himself or belaboring the point.

Overall I would recommend this book to anyone considering reading it, if it sounds like it could be of use or a good read for you I'm sure you will gain from it. Despite my cons list I do feel that I gained much from reading this book. ( )