Overview

The psychology of affirmation came into wide acceptance in the United States after the Second World War due to the tireless effort and charismatic personality of Dr. Conrad W. Baars. His translation and adaptation of the insights of Dr. Anna Terruwe of Holland opened whole new avenues of approach to the area of psychotherapy in the English-speaking world. More importantly he found that her techniques which applied the psychology of St. Thomas Aquinas to the healing of the person - body, mind, and spirit - worked. And thus, he pioneered the establishment of the firsts House of Affirmation in America in Whitinsville, Massachusetts and went on to publish two major works in the field: Healing the Unaffirmed (Alba House, 1976) and Psychic Wholeness and Healing (Alba House 1981). His autobiography details the steps which brought him to the practice of medicine, and ultimately psychiatry, highlighting his life as a young man at the outset of the Second World War in the Netherlands as a student, in flight as a member of the underground movement, his arrest an internment at Buchenwald under the Nazis where he worked as a nurse in the camp's hospital wards, to his liberation at the hands of the Allies on Wednesday, April 11, 1945. Life under such conditions taught him what books never could: that without God life has no value and less purpose. There is a spiritual dimension to man which must be respected, nurtured, and frequently healed before a person can function as a productive and happy human being. Readers will find his life story as inspiring as it is compelling.

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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 the Netherlands and France 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 Psychic Wholeness and Healing, and Healing the Unaffirmed. His autobiography, Doctor of the Heart, details much of his experience in Buchenwald.

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