The book “The child in you must find home” has long been on my wish list and I have often been in bookstores before it. Now I got it as a present recently and am really enthusiastic. In the following I would like to introduce the book to you and at the end you will find my opinion.
summary
General Information
The book “The child in you must find a home” was written by the psychologist Stefanie Stahl. It has the subtitle “The key to solving (almost) all problems”.
The book was published in 2015 by Kailash Verlag. For a long time it was on the top of the bestseller lists. On Amazon the book costs 14,99€, the Kindle version costs 11,99€.
In addition, there is also a workbook which promises to help in three steps to a “strong self”. This is available on Amazon for 12,00€.
On the book cover an empty nest is recognizable, which symbolizes childhood for me personally and thus also the inner child, which is thematized in the book.
In the flap text I learn that negative and positive experiences from childhood live out on our self-confidence and basic trust, but also on our relationship life. In the book the author wants to help free the “sun child” with its joy of life by uncovering negative beliefs of the “shadow child”. Thereby a happy life with fulfilled relationships should be possible.
The Author
Author Stefanie Stahl is a psychologist and bestselling author. On her website www.stefaniestahl.de I can read that she was born in Hamburg in 1963. Today she works in her own practice as a psychotherapist in Trier. On Wikipedia you can still read that since 2014 she also worked as a “psychological expert in court”. In addition, she holds various seminars on attachment anxiety and self-esteem.
Stefanie Stahl has been writing since 2003. In the meantime she has published various books, including “So bin ich eben!” and “Jeder ist beziehungsfähig”.
On the author’s website I can read further that she likes to think about psychological contexts, that she likes to read specialist literature and to be inspired by conversations with clients.
You can learn even more about Stefanie Stahl and her own thoughts on various topics in the video “10 questions for psychologist and bestselling author Stefanie Stahl”, which I link below.
The content
The content is divided into three large sections, each of which has its own subcategory. In the first section different psychological assumptions and basics are explained. In the next section the author describes the “shadow child” and in the end it is about the “sun child”.
In the section I have called Basic Assumptions and Basics, Stefanie Stahl writes about various models of personality. She discusses the thoughts of Sigmund Freud and Friedemann Schulz von Thun. Then she explains the terms “shadow child” and “sun child”, which mean the injured part and the cheerful part of our inner child. The author also describes how the inner child develops.
She then briefly describes what these insights mean for parents when dealing with their own children and why it is important to heal their inner child. She also explains the four basic psychological needs for attachment, car and security, pleasure satisfaction, as well as self-esteem and recognition.
Then I can read how our childhood experiences affect our behaviour, how they shape us. I learn what childhood experiences have to do with my empathy as a mother, what the influence of genetics is and how important a realistic picture of my parents is.
Stefanie Stahl also describes how our inner beliefs and thus our own experiences also influence our perception.
After that, it’s about the shadow child. She writes how we recognize that our shadow child is involved and how his beliefs affect us. She also describes what effect these beliefs have on our self-esteem.
The author then explains various exercises to discover one’s own shadow child and to get as concrete a picture of him/her as possible. It is about which beliefs it has, how I can get out of negative feelings and how I can succeed in feeling more.
After these exercises I can read various protective strategies that the shadow child uses. The author describes here e.g. striving for perfection, striving for harmony, helper syndrome and control striving. After the actual description of the strategies Stefanie Stahl also writes what positive aspects of this strategy are (“appreciation of this strategy”) and what I can do as a first step to get out of this strategy (“first aid”).
Then it is about the healing of the shadow child, where the author describes various exercises that bring us closer to our shadow child and how we can comfort and understand him.
After the section about the shadow child it is now about the sun child. Here, too, the first step is to get to know and anchor one’s own Sun Child with his/her strengths, resources and values.
While Stefanie Stahl has described various protective strategies for the shadow child, which she uses, she explains the appropriate counterpart for the sun child in the form of a “treasure tragedy”. It’s about how we can lay down our protective tragies in the long run in order to feel freer, more empathetic and better overall. Also the own demarcation and perception of the own needs is brought up for discussion here.
Finally, I find an exercise on how to integrate my shadow and sun child. For this the strategy “walking along the 8” is used. The author also describes how beautiful and important self-acceptance is. Her last sentence is “You are what you are, and that’s all you are, and you’re good like that”, which once again sums up the core message of the book.
At the front of the cover I still find an exemplary representation of the shadow child, how it could look like, who I got to know it with the help of the exercises from the book. At the back of the cover there is a corresponding representation of the Sun Child.
My opinion
Overall, the book “The child in you must find a home – the key to solving (almost) all problems” is highly recommended. The author describes understandably why it is so important to get to know our own inner child, to heal the shadow child and to free the sun child.
For this she writes various strategies that the shadow child uses to protect us. I think it’s nice that she also always shows which positive aspect the respective protection strategy has. At the same time, it shows ways in which I can move from the protection strategy to the treasure strategy that takes me further in life.
The basics for the work with the inner child described before and in between are described conclusively.
I find the book very coherent and Stefanie Stahl’s writing style is pleasant to read. The structure of the book is conclusive and comprehensible. The exemplary inner illustrations of the Shadow Child and the Sun Child are good to illustrate the exercises described in the book.
I also find the other exercises very helpful and useful. They can also be used again at any time, are easy to understand and do not last very long, so they can also be integrated into everyday life.
For me the book “Das Kind in dir muss Heimat finden” by Stefanie Stahl is therefore an important reading for all those who want to deal with their own inner child.