Summary of Born Only Once by Conrad W. Baars, M.D.

This article provides a summary of Born Only Once by Conrad Baars, M.D., a book that is not just a “must read” for every Catholic therapist and therapy client, but for every Catholic.  Below, you will find the structure and a summary of the contents of the book.

Structure and Contents

Dedication

Baars’ dedicates the book to too many people to include in this summary, but here is a partial list of those to whom the book is dedicated.  He dedicates the book 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
• depressed
• wishes he were dead
• contemplates suicide or has attempted suicide
• always tired
• aches and pains or psychosomatic illness that doesn’t respond well to treatment

Preface

A short preface by his daughter, Dr. Suzanne Baars, who is carrying on her father’s work in Texas and is a mentor of mine.

Chapter 1: Are You an Affirmed Person?

Dr. Baars starts the chapter with letters he has received from unaffirmed persons to help the reader understand what it is like to be unaffirmed.  Then, he introduces the idea that emotional deprivation is behind one’s state of being unaffirmed and briefly describes four symptoms of a mental health condition that he calls emotional deprivation disorder.  Lastly, the author introduces the idea that one’s “biological birth is not enough” and that we need to experience a psychological birth through authentic affirmation in order to be able to find true happiness in this life.

Chapter 2: What is Affirmation?

In this chapter, Dr. Baars begins by providing a concrete example of an affirming incident between a visiting priest, a mother, and her son.  Then, he goes on to explain:

• how affirmation is being, not doing
• the reasons why he wrote the book
• the importance of being open to receiving affirmation or “the gift of yourself” from an affirming other
• that one’s affirmation, the firm sense of one’s own dignity, is dependent upon another who is: aware of, attentive, and present to your goodness and worth; is moved by and finds delight  in your goodness and worth; and allows his being moved to be revealed by the visible, sensible, physical changes that are part of his being moved
• how affirmation is a gift given freely with nothing expected in return
• the difference between communication and communion as pertains to affirmation
• that one must receive the gift of one’s self through affirmation before being able to receive the other: man and God

Chapter 3: The Opposite of Affirmation

Dr. Baars starts this chapter with four examples of unaffirming relationships between parent and child.  Then, he introduces what a denial is, that is, the denying of one’s goodness by another and explains how polarization is found in communities where denial is found.  The list and explanation of denials by Baars in this chapter are helpful for those of us who want to understand what not to do.

Chapter 4: Portrait of an Affirmed Person

The author starts this chapter with a story about Pope St. John XXIII to provide the reader with an example of an affirmed person.  Then, he describes the qualities of the affirmed and how these qualities can be blocked from their natural development in the unaffirmed.  The qualities of the affirmed, according to Baars, are: sensitivity, openness, a calm unhurried way of life, unselfishness, humility, and moral self restraint.

Chapter 5: The Futility of Self-Affirmation

In this chapter, Dr. Baars writes about the lives of Adolph Hitler and Marilyn Monroe to give the reader examples of persons who have tried to affirm themselves through their accomplishments, but have failed.  Baars continues by explaining how many types of self-affirmation are doomed to failure, but “the truly mature, affirmed person’s awareness of and respect for his own goodness and worth is a healthy form of self-affirmation, of unselfish love.”  Baars clearly differentiates between this healthy self-affirmation and Rollo May’s understanding of self-affirmation for those who are familiar with May’s work, pointing out “the fallacy of [May’s] theory of self-affirmation.”

Chapter 6: From Deprivation to Affirmation—What Can You Do for Yourself and Others?

Before writing about what the unaffirmed can do for themselves in this chapter, Dr. Baars is careful to first advise unaffirmed readers not to do anything right away, but to allow themselves to feel first, to be moved by what they have read before acting.  Then, and only then, Baars instructs the unaffirmed to concentrate on the following items:

1. Be yourself
2. Stop hiding or repressing your emotions
3. Do not hang on to your fears
4. Be assertive (Baars provides a diagram of “the non-assertive person’s vicious circle of feeling unloved” under this item as a nice visual aid)
5. Do not bend over backward to please everyone
6. Stop trying to make yourself seem more important by putting other people down or needlessly criticizing them
7. Be constantly on the lookout for what is good in other people
8. Stop thinking that you are no good
9. Don’t expect to find authentic affirmation in bed with just anyone
10. Stop trying to affirm yourself
11. Wait in patience, unhurriedly
12. Be gentle with yourself

Chapter 7: Affirmation—The Miracle of Our Age

In this chapter, Dr. Baars writes about the lives of affirmed and affirming individuals.  Their lives are an affirmation, what Baars calls “the miracle of our age”.  The individuals that Baars cites as being affirming in this chapter are God the Father, Jesus Christ, Pope St. John XXIII, Mahatma Gandhi, Kasturbai Gandhi (Mahatma’s wife) and St. Theresa of Calcutta.

Addendum I: On Assertion and Aggression

In this addendum, Dr. Baars challenges the idea that we have an aggressive drive while making the claim that we have an assertive drive.  He distinguishes between the affirmed person, who has the freedom to choose to either act aggressively or not and the unaffirmed person, who can sometimes act on their anger for what seems like no good reason, but who are maybe lashing out based on pent up frustration for having never been affirmed, that is, for having never received what was legitimately due to them.  He considers the latter assertive acts rather than aggressive ones.  Affirmation, Baars says, is the only thing that can prevent the “aggression” of the unaffirmed.

Addendum II: Affirmation and Happiness

Dr. Baars claims in this addendum that affirmation is the key to happiness and shows that this claim is consistent with the truths presented by Augustine, Aristotle, and Aquinas.

Acknowledgments

Here, Dr. Baars acknowledges the people influential in the writing of Born Only Once.  Most notably, he acknowledges his colleague Dr. Anna Terruwe from the Netherlends who taught him “many things which, although ignored by and large in medical school and psychiatric training, are indispensable to every person entrusted with the well-being of emotionally and spiritually troubled individuals.”

Postscript

In the postscript, Dr. Baars points out that the term “affirmation” has been misused by:

• some treatment or counseling centers with the word “affirmation” in their title
• some psychiatrists or psychologists who claim to offer affirmation therapy
• (before laws were passed to stop this practice) certain group sensitivity training sessions of the “touch, feel, and sex” variety advertised as “affirmation therapy”
• certain books on “affirmation” that don’t cite Drs. Conrad Baars or Anna Terruwe, who were the first to write on the matter using the term “affirmation”

Why the Book is Relevant to This Blog

I believe that this book holds the answers to what is going on with us and those around us.  It offers us a common language with which to express what we always knew, but never quite had the language to express.  Dr. Conrad Baars has passed away since writing this book.  There is a cause for his sainthood and I, and others, pray for him to intercede for us, and I think that when we do this, our prayers are answered.

The slogan of this blog is “Your Catholic Guide Through Life’s Trials.”  What Conrad Baars teaches in Born Only Once about how we need affirmation in order to be happy is an important guiding principle when trying to understand how to navigate through many of life’s trials.  When we receive the affirmation we need, many of life’s trials become more manageable or disappear altogether.  This is one way that the teachings of the book apply to this blog, but there are many more ways… too many to list here now.

Your Blog, Not Mine

I’d like to remind you that this blog is for you.  I invite you to tell me what your biggest problems are so that I can address them in future articles.  Please let me know your thoughts about this article in the comments below.  Did this article inspire you to purchase and read the book?  If so, why?  If not, why not?

Product Details

• Paperback: 82 pages
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock; 3 edition (March 30, 2016)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1498288154
• ISBN-13: 978-1498288156