Review(s) for Losing Your Pounds of Pain

As always, Doreen Virtue's style of writing is very easy to read, but the subject matter itself is designed to encourage the reader to start thinking and involves some digging up of the past, so in that sense it might not be an easy read for all. Throughout the book, which is divided into two parts, 'Understanding Your Pounds of Pain' and 'Releasing Your Pounds of Pain', there are many case study examples. These illustrate the points that Virtue makes and has observed during her practise as a psychotherapist. Sexual abuse and the link that Virtue makes to subsequent over-eating is repeatedly referred to throughout. I feel that for those who have had this experience, the book could help the reader to gain more self-awareness and understanding in this area. I was a little disappointed that other forms of stress and abuse are mentioned to a lesser extent as I was expecting from the depiction on the book's cover notes. However, the general reader should still be able to glean some very useful points which may be applicable to many who are prone to over-eat at certain times in their life, whatever the root cause. On a couple of occasions, the case study examples acted as a trigger for a few realisations of my own and I found that it confirmed things I'd noticed about my own eating habits. The list of food cravings and what the body nutritionally needs I found to be particularly interesting in the latter section.

At the back of the book there is an extensive list of contact details for related organisations, all of them American though. Being a reader from the UK I thought it would have been useful to see more applicable listings, although website addresses are provided for a few organisations. Losing Your Pounds of Pain gives the reader who is prone to comfort eating to mask out pain, more of an understanding of that process. Armed with this knowledge choices do become clearer, and as self-awareness is raised, I can relate to Doreen Virtue's observation that once a source of pain is released, weight then begins to normalise.