Review of How to Be an Adult by David Richo
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David Richo’s book, How to Be an Adult is a rich handbook for understanding what healthy adult thoughts, behaviors and feelings are.
He frames his book as, “The Heroic Journey of Human Transformation.”
Richo talks about the need to “let go of the illusion that we are in control or need to be in control in order to survive.” He counters this with the reality that we are not in control and need to deal with what happens by taking responsibility for ourselves and our actions.
He goes on to give the reader a breakdown of the healing process to get to the better life we all want to live. This section starts with “Acceptance”. Acceptance is the first step in healing and the part that our adult ego needs to embrace. The adult ego comes from Transactional Analysis theory that is the part of us that thinks, makes decisions and is evaluating our thoughts and choices. This model also has the child ego, the child part, in us that wants to not feel pain and avoids the acceptance that is needed.
He states it like this:
I accept
Loss
Rejection
My Mistakes
Illness
Natural Disaster
and I integrate it by:
Grieving
Grieving and taking in information
(making) Amends
Seeking Healing Techniques
Rebuilding
or I interrupt it by:
Denying, Blaming, Regretting
Losing Self-Esteem or Avenging Myself on another
Shifting responsibility or covering up or having remorse without amends
Denying or despairing
Playing the victim role
He views life as a hero’s journey and calls it the spiritual path we can take to learn and heal ourselves. We are on a journey to discover who we truly are and to make our way back home with our hard-fought wisdom and knowledge. He cites Ulysses:
“Like Ulysses, we left the familiar comforts of Ithaca thinking our journey was to Troy, only to find that the struggle there simply a ploy to bring us back home as seasoned, wise and truly regal.”
In this journey toward wholeness, he states: “Our problem is not as children our needs were unmet, but that as adults they are still unmourned!”
So, part of the process to become whole and adult we need do the grief work to release the pain, mourn our losses and move towards compassion for ourselves and others.
He goes on, “Grief work applies to everything we lose or leave.” So, grief can be expressed about moving from a long-time house even if the move is to a better house. We suffer losses each day. A large part of what old people express anger over is how their world has changed. The anger is what we hear but beneath it is grief about how much they have lost of their past lives as things continue to change.
“The healthy adult allows hurtful events from his past to become neutral facts by fully grieving the pain and so letting go of them. In this way, one retains the memories but drops the charged, obsessive thoughts of hurt that keep one attached to the drama of it all and vitiate healthy relating. No matter how fully our grief is processed, however, new levels of realization about the loss continually appear. In this sense, grief is truly a lifelong process.”
The book continues with many excellent chapters addressing how to build and maintain healthy boundaries, identify co-dependent behaviors and many other areas of interest to the reader on their own personal healing journey.
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