Born Only Once, Third Edition: The Miracle of Affirmation

By Conrad W. Baars

This timeless classic, Born Only Once, describes the emotional turmoil of many persons and offers hope for healing through the author's compassionate understanding of their deepest wounds. Psychiatrist Conrad Baars discusses this inner unrest in terms of the fundamental human need for unconditional love, or affirmation. When children have been denied the gift of themselves through affirmation to a greater or lesser degree, they continue to look for this unconditional love, and later as adults suffer from deep feelings of inferiority, inadequacy, uncertainty, and insecurity, as well as having difficulty relating to others.

Baars describes how authentic affirmation strengthens a person to feel secure and happy in himself, able to confront the world and to relate to others with confidence. Affirmation is what unaffirmed persons and those with Emotional Deprivation Disorder need to feel at peace, strong, and secure in their own identity. Baars lists many things that unaffirmed persons can do to help themselves, but it is hoped that the reader will be moved to lead an authentically affirming life by being open to the goodness of persons, things, nature, ideas, etc. This simple way of being, of openness to being moved, can bring peace and resolve difficulties.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: Mar 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781498288163

Conrad W. Baars

Conrad W. Baars, MD (1919-1981) was a Dutch-born American citizen who practiced psychiatry in the United States from 1946 until his death. Educated at Oxford University and the University of Amsterdam Medical School, Dr. Baars served in the anti-Nazi underground in Belgium, France, and the Netherlands during World War II. Captured by the Nazis, he spent one and a half years in Buchenwald concentration camp. He emigrated to the United States following the war, and discovered Dutch psychiatrist Dr. Anna A. Terruwe's work on energy and frustration neuroses in the mid-1950's. He further developed and promoted this work throughout the rest of his psychiatric career. His books include Born Only Once, Feeling and Healing Your Emotions, and I Will Give Them a New Heart: Reflections on the Priesthood and the Renewal of the Church. Drs. Baars and Terruwe coauthored Healing the Unaffirmed. His autobiography, Doctor of the Heart, details much of his experience in Buchenwald.Drs. Baars and Terruwe coauthored Healing the Unaffirmed. His autobiography, Doctor of the Heart, details much of his experience in Buchenwald.

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BORN ONLY ONCE

The Miracle of Affirmation

Third Edition

Conrad W. Baars, M.D.

Edited and Revised by

Suzanne M. Baars, M.A.

Bonnie N. Shayne, M.A.

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BORN ONLY ONCE

The Miracle of Affirmation

Copyright © 2016 Suzanne Baars. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Wipf & Stock

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199

W.

8

th Ave., Suite

3

Eugene, OR

97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-4982-8815-6

hardcover isbn: 978-1-4982-8817-0

ebook isbn: 978-1-4982-8816-3

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

This book is dedicated

to each person

who feels

unloved

unwanted

lonely

unable to make friends

and

to relate to others

who feels inferior

inadequate

insecure

uncertain of himself

without identity

This book is dedicated

to each person

who feels

insignificant and

worthless

like a child

at the mercy of grown-ups

afraid to assert himself

afraid of the world

who feels depressed

and wishes he were dead

or contemplates suicide

or has attempted suicide

who always feels tired

and whose pains and aches

or psychosomatic illness

do not respond adequately

to treatment

This book is dedicated to

the millions of people who

never find true happiness and joy,

even though not mentally ill,

nor suffering from any of the neuroses

discovered by Sigmund Freud to be

due to repression of

emotions and feelings

. . . and in spite of

a successful career

riches

fame

power over others

a life of doing for others

or of abandonment to sensuality, sexuality.

This book is dedicated to the millions

who have been deprived of their second birth

—their psychic birth—

by significant, affirming others—

parents, relatives, teachers or friends—

and therefore,

because of circumstances beyond their control

have been deprived of the joy of

AFFIRMATION

Note: In this book un-affirmed or non-affirmed stands for totally not, partially, or inadequately affirmed. Affirmed means totally, fairly adequately, or largely affirmed.

Table of Contents

PREFACE

Chapter 1: ARE YOU AN AFFIRMED PERSON?

Chapter 2: WHAT IS AFFIRMATION?

Chapter 3: THE OPPOSITE OF AFFIRMATION

Chapter 4: PORTRAIT OF AN AFFIRMED PERSON

Chapter 5: THE FUTILITY OF SELF-AFFIRMATION

Chapter 6: FROM DEPRIVATION TO AFFIRMATION—WHAT CAN YOU DO FOR YOURSELF AND OTHERS?

Chapter 7: AFFIRMATION—THE MIRACLE OF OUR AGE

Addendum I: ON ASSERTION AND AGGRESSION

Addendum II: AFFIRMATION AND HAPPINESS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

POSTSCRIPT

PREFACE

It is a well-known observation that human beings strive for what they perceive to be good for them, even if it is not. Our society seems to embody this facet of humanity insofar as the desire of so many parents is to give their children what they themselves never enjoyed. However, it is ironic that despite selfless intentions, the resulting increase in unhappiness, loneliness and selfishness speaks volumes regarding the wisdom of providing more material things for one’s children rather than giving oneself.

This timeless class, Born Only Once, was inspired by a desire to make its audience aware of the syndrome of Emotional Deprivation Disorder [formerly called deprivation neurosis], so widespread in our utilitarian, self-seeking culture, where the most needy and most innocent of its victims are given poor substitutes for authentic, affirming love. Although written decades ago, Born Only Once presents a truth about the human person regarding his or her fundamental psychic need for affirming love, in order to develop into a mature and happy adult. Born Only Once explains how affirmation is a way of being and living, which brings one real joy, fulfillment and peace. As such, it is the true antidote to the many ills in our society, inasmuch as real affirmation brings peace rather than promoting the endless pursuit of whatever one may perceive to be happiness.

In an effort to make this syndrome accepted in the current psychiatric literature, the original term deprivation neurosis has been renamed Emotional Deprivation Disorder. Despite the usefulness of the term neurosis, not long after the initial publication of this book, the psychiatric profession (the American Psychiatric Association) did away with the term neurosis and substituted disorder in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

I sincerely hope that the republication of this physically small but philosophically profound book will continue to provide a path to greater understanding and healing for the many persons who so desperately desire wholeness. I am confident that my father, Dr. Conrad Baars, would support the work that is being done to further the well-being and happiness of the human person.

Suzanne Baars, M.A.

http://www.BaarsInstitute.com

Editor’s Note: Wherever possible changes have been made to reflect inclusive language, except when to do so would interfere with the flow of the text.

Chapter I

ARE YOU AN AFFIRMED PERSON?

Dear Doctor,

I feel very depressed and lonely. I am afraid to be with people. I care to talk only to one individual at a time and then only when I think he or she will understand me. Everybody has always said that I am a good priest, but I feel I can’t be a priest anymore. I feel like a helpless child and don’t know where to turn for help. I am confused and filled with hostilities like a teenager. I am afraid, though, of acting like one because of what I might do and for fear of what people might think of me. I don’t feel that anybody understands me, not even my psychiatrist. He advised me to take a leave of absence from the active ministry, and to get a job in order to work on my self-image." But how can I help myself? I feel devoid of any inner strength. I am exhausted and depleted of all strength I may ever have had.

Can you help me?"

This letter, one of hundreds received during my years in private psychiatric practice, is typical of the way unaffirmed people feel.

A woman from Missouri was only half way through the chapter, The Frustration Neurosis in Loving and Curing the Neurotic¹ when she wrote me,

"I felt that you had to be inside me somehow, or picked my brain before you wrote that chapter. The things you say your patients relate to you are the very same things I have said to someone I have been able to trust. Five or six years ago I wrote the following:

‘They expected me to be a little girl—I was never a baby.

They expected me to be a teen-ager—I was never a little girl.

They expected me to be a woman—I was never a teen-ager.

They expected me to be a wife—I was never a woman.

They expected me to be a mother—I was never a wife.

—I was never born!’ "

And a third person, already in treatment, expressed in poetic language her isolation and loneliness, her sense of abandonment, and search for identity:²

"Lord, where they live, I cannot stay

and where I live, their world comes to an end;

a little blossom only makes me feel so sad,

Smaller than ever seems my

Reviews for Born Only Once, Third Edition

[Alicia Bradshaw · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This helps in increasing awareness of why many of us still feel empty, however the solutions are easier said than done. Healthy emotional connections between parents and child so incredibly key to finding one’s own internal gps.