Safe People: How to Find Relationships That Are Good for You and Avoid Those That Aren't Author: Henry Cloud | Language: English | ISBN:
B002AKPG34 | Format: PDF
Safe People: How to Find Relationships That Are Good for You and Avoid Those That Aren't Description
Safe People answers questions about painful relationships with a voice of encouragement and hope. Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend offer solid guidance for making safe choices in relationships. They help identify the nurturing people we all need in our lives, as well as ones we need to learn to avoid.
- File Size: 821 KB
- Print Length: 199 pages
- Simultaneous Device Usage: Up to 5 simultaneous devices, per publisher limits
- Publisher: Zondervan (May 26, 2009)
- Sold by: HarperCollins Publishing
- Language: English
- ASIN: B002AKPG34
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #15,817 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #2
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in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Protestantism > Self Help - #5
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"Safe People" deals with the problem of character discernment, or evaluating who is good for us and who isn't. According to the authors, Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend, "safe people are individuals who draw us closer to being the people God intended us to be." Cloud and Townsend "believe the Bible contains the keys to understanding how to tell safe people from unsafe ones. It also teaches how to become safe people for others. In this age of broken relationships, these scriptural principles are both timeless and timely."
The authors devote Chapters 1 through 4 to examining and discussing who unsafe people are and the identifying traits of unsafe people. Chapters 5 through 8 examine the origin of the problem: why one might choose unsafe people to be in relationship with and how to repair this problem. The rest of the book is devoted to learning more about what safe people are and why we need them. The authors offer practical help on successfully meeting and relating to safe people. Overall, the book is designed to help one look both outside and inside oneself. As the authors cite from Matthew 7:5, "First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."
Cloud and Townsend raise a valuable point in that people tend to look for people to be in relationship with who are "spiritual," "godly, "ambitious," "fund to be with," and so on, and yet, these are not the issues that cause relationships to break apart.
While I am a fan of Drs. Cloud & Townsend's writings, and frequently recommend their other books, especially "Boundaries", in my ministry for Adult Children of controlling or abusive birth-families (Luke 17:3 Ministries) , I was very disappointed in "Safe People". The first time I read it, I found the first half of the book to be of value, but the second half seemed confusing, weak, and difficult to understand. I have since read it twice more and it hasn't gotten any better. "Unsafe people" as defined by the authors are basically those who are selfish or narcissistic. But this is definitely not a book for those who are dealing with REALLY unsafe people- abusers (physical, emotional, verbal, etc.), liars, control freaks, manipulators, treacherous or destructive people, etc.
The book starts out great, listing for us the personal and interpersonal traits of unsafe people, such as being defensive instead of open to feedback, only apologizing instead of changing their behavior, demanding trust instead of earning it, resisting freedom instead of encouraging it, staying in parent/child roles instead of relating as equals, being a negative rather than a positive influence on us, and being unstable over time instead of being consistent.
The book then goes on to analyze what it is about us that attracts and is attracted to, unsafe people. It also describes the characteristics of safe people and tells us why we need safe people. So far so good. But then we start to lose it.
There is a chapter on "False Solutions" to our problem of becoming involved with unsafe people- they include "Doing the same", "Doing the opposite", "Doing Too Much", "Doing Nothing", "Doing for Others", "Doing Without", etc.
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