Review by Family Resource Centre staff, Jessica:

This book is one-of-a-kind, and hopefully the first of many future books examining abandonment and separation as a legitimate source of grief and trauma. Susan Anderson is spot-on in describing how and why abandonment by another person (whether through an unexpected break-up or an intentional "up-and-leave" disappearance of a loved one) can bring about the same sensation of loss associated with grieving death. Anderson further explores how the grief of abandonment carries with it its own unique set of challenges, including stigma from society (e.g. "Wow, it's been a year and he's still not over his divorce.. like really?"), a sensation of betrayal and all the anxiety and shame that produces, and the punishing cycles of non-acceptance (e.g. "One day they'll realize they made a mistake and come back.."). I've read many a self-help book and this was the first I felt touched on a topic that was so specific and relevant to my own experience, and likely the experiences of many others.

As Anderson breaks down her S.W.I.R.L. stages of recovery, she introduces many visualization techniques. At first these may come off as a little bit unusual or over-imaginative. She introduces the common theme of the inner child, but then pushes that boundary further to having the reader visualize entire conversations between your inner child, outer child, and adult self. There are various case studies in the book showing examples of others who used these techniques to address and manage their emotions. There is an all-or-nothing approach here: if you choose not to do these exercises, you won't benefit from it whatsoever and the merit of this book ends at defining abandonment loss. But, if you choose to give her methods a go, you may be surprised. The tactic of separating our instinctive feelings, impulsive reactions, and mature reasoning into three distinct 'characters' makes it easier to depersonalize our emotions and referee conflicting feelings.

Here is the low-down:

Your older adult self is who you ideally (cognitively) would like to be, for example,, 'I want to be a responsible worker and I need to maintain a regular work schedule to keep my income going.'

The rebellious outer child represents your instinctive impulses and reactions, for example, 'I'm tired today, I want to call in sick. Serves they right at work, see how they do without me.'

Your inner child is your vulnerable childhood self, that represents the core unfiltered emotion that you experience, 'The people at work don't talk to me. I don't like being there. I want to stay home."

When you're able to sort through the different conflicting feelings from different lenses, you can come to realize how we get stuck in a rut. The adult self needs to be able to identify what the inner child needs, and keep the rebellious child under control. Those who suffer from abandonment issues often have a whole lot of vulnerability, relying on other people to provide structure, guidance, comfort or distraction. With these exercises,you protect and validate yourself, rather than needing this protection to come from the outside. This is an interesting technique to battle the mindset of codependency, because there is no need for 'another' to complete you -- you already have 3 versions of yourself to contend with! Hearing their conversation allows for your thoughts to be processed, with each side having to give an explanation and coming to a resolution. This is not a technique I would necessarily use all the time, but I find it helpful in situations where you may feel conflicted about a situation or a person, and you want to get to the bottom of why your reasoning pulls you one way, while your emotions pull you another way.

Overall I enjoyed Susan Anderson's book about abandonment, and I hope many more follow her footsteps in exploring this topic. I do believe the visualization exercises demand a lot of creative imagination, which might prove to be difficult for some who are working on this book alone. Perhaps one could bring the exercises to a therapist so that the techniques can become part of your guided therapy sessions. ( )