DOCTOR OF THE HEART
An Autobiography

The psychology of affirmation came into wide acceptance in the United States after the Second World War due to the tireless effort and charismatic personality of Dr. Conrad W. Baars. His translation and adaptation of the insights of Dr. Anna Terruwe of Holland opened whole new avenues of approach to the area of psychotherapy in the English speaking world. More importantly, he found that her techniques which applied the psychology of St. Thomas Aquinas to the healing of the whole person — body, mind and spirit — worked. And thus he pioneered the establishment of the first House of Affirmation in America in Whitinsville, Massachusetts and went on to publish two major works in the field: Healing the Unaffirmed (Alba House, 1976) and Psychic Wholeness and Healing (Alba House, 1981). His autobiography details the steps which brought him to the practice of medicine and ultimately psychiatry, highlighting his life as a young man at the outset of the Second World War in the Netherlands as a student, in flight as a member of the underground movement, his arrest and internment at Buchenwald under the Nazis where he worked as a nurse in the camp’s hospital wards, to his liberation at the hands of the Allies on Wednesday, April 11, 1945. Life under such conditions taught him what books never could: that without God life has no value and less purpose. There is a spiritual dimension to man which must be respected, nurtured and frequently healed before a person can function as a productive and happy human being. Readers will find his life story as inspiring as it is compelling.