Word: bradshaw
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...resonant Texas twang, Bradshaw drawls out the conditions that cause anguish in thousands of people. "Isolation. Aloneness. Abandonment. Skin hunger." Each, he says, is a feeling of deprivation derived from our childhood that was never resolved and sets us up to become addicts -- just as he was. And though we are grownups, we are still walking around with that wounded little kid hiding inside, wailing its needs. But wait, he adds, there's hope. By focusing personal consciousness on the frightened inner child -- as infant, toddler and adolescent -- we can all begin the process of recovery. "The goal of this...
...Bradshaw's message is plumbed from the depths of his own troubled and lonely childhood, which was spent being shuttled between relatives in Houston. During his lectures, he spins out his story -- always with a smile -- recounting Southern-gothic tales of abuse, alcoholism and incest as examples of dysfunctional family behavior. There is Bradshaw's mother Norma, now 77, "a really good woman," he says, who became pregnant at 17 and married an alcoholic who abandoned her and their three children when Bradshaw, the middle child, was 10. She revered her own workaholic father as a saint, though Bradshaw...
...nice, Bradshaw was always told; act nice. He excelled in school; Mama's prized boy eventually entered a Basilian seminary in Canada and studied for degrees in theology and philosophy from the University of Toronto. For nine celibate years there, he says, "I married the Holy Mother." He left the order a day before his class was to be ordained. By that time, he was a compulsive drinker. Back in Houston, at age 30 and ill-prepared for life -- he had $400 and did not even know how to drive a car -- he taught high school until he was fired...
...this has given Bradshaw what he calls "a nice income that I'd never dreamed of having." He is redoing the Georgian-style home in an elegant Houston neighborhood that he bought from his wife Nancy after their divorce 2 1/2 years ago, filling it with antiques, Indian artifacts and a collection of wizard figurines; his inner child, he says, is "fascinated by wizards." Shopping has become something of an obsession, and his tastes run to the opulent: his bedroom has purple wallpaper and a sleigh bed draped with a purple sari. He now has a second home: a Swiss...
...Prosperity has its price: Bradshaw has critics as well as devotees. Old- guard A.A. members are appalled by the way he flouts its tradition of anonymity, using his experiences as a recovering alcoholic as a launching pad for his views. Others raise questions about how lasting and effective his brand of "quick fix" self-help can be, especially for people who may be seriously troubled by long-term emotional problems. Some psychotherapists consider Bradshaw's approach to self-improvement overly simplistic and wonder whether his emphasis on early-childhood experiences gives people a convenient excuse to avoid responsibility for their...