I’ll be fifty years old in the year 2000 and I’m still wondering what I’m going to be when I grow up. In The Art of Becoming Human, psychiatrist Mary E. Mercer, with her professional experience alone spanning my lifetime, warmly reassures me that I am indeed growing up and that I’m going to be human. Apparently though, that’s no mean feat but rather, awe-inspiring and something of which to be proud.

I really loved this book because it starts before we’re born and then tells the story of our life and how we lived to where we are now and explains where we might still be stuck. I kept chanting, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” as I read. Personally disappointed when I read to where I am today because the rest of the book would not be about Me yet, I still eagerly read the ending to see what I’d be doing, feeling and thinking ten, twenty and thirty years from now. That ending was just as satisfying as the beginning and middle because my heart-of-hearts recognized the beginning and middle to be true so recognized the ending will be also.

This is a life-affirming book, beautifully written. It’s titled The Art of Becoming Human because Dr. Mercer wanted to show the beauty, the “art” of living and try to connect that to the science of human growth. Perhaps afraid her rendition of the science would be too boring, the book is liberally sprinkled with quotes and rather long passages from the likes of Shakespeare, Goethe, Keats, Emerson, and Rilke to underscore the science, along the way. I skipped over at least seventy-five percent of the quotes, not because they weren’t relevant, but because they got in the way of her beautiful writing and the telling of My story.

This is a very personal book, My story. But because it’s actually about everyone and is not really at all personal, I find I feel jealous of other potential readers. I highly recommend this book but when you read it, please don’t tell me!
 

Margo McPhillips is a current client of mental health services, an avid reader and participant in MHN’s support forums, works for a large civil engineering firm in Baltimore, Maryland, and enjoys volunteering for local public library systems. Happily married for nearly 10 years to a computer design engineer with three grown sons, she and her husband enjoy camping and race horse handicapping.

Categories: ClientReviews, SelfHelp

Keywords: inner child, self-actualization