The Needs of the Heart

by Chip Dodd

Without knowing and expressing our needs, relationship with God and others suffers. As a complement to The Voice of the Heart, Chip Dodd invites readers to explore the needs we are created to have so that we can live fully. In 2001, The Voice of the Heart began a steady journey into the lives of those looking for more. Since its initial release, The Voice of the Heart has been handed from one friend to another; it has helped thousands of people begin to speak the truth of their story and to live more fully from the heart.

98 pages, Paperback

Published July 11, 2016

About the author

Chip Dodd is a teacher, trainer, author, and counselor, who has been working in the field of recovery and redemption for over 25 years. It is the territory in which people can return to living the way we are created to live-where we can move from survival to living, from isolation to loving, and from controlling to leading. After receiving his PhD in counseling from the University of North Texas, he founded a treatment center, The Center for Professional Excellence (CPE) in Nashville, dedicated to helping people be who they are made to be, so they can do what they are made to do.

Reviews

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A succinct, yet fairly concise, look at the needs of humans. So much more than the need for food or sleep or other physical needs. This book is worth hanging on to for a quick refresher on a particular need you may have at points in life.

[Mark Warnock · Rating 4 out of 5]

This thin book carries insights far weightier than its size would indicate. One of Dodd's key theses is that a fully human life entails embracing our neediness and the pain and suffering that life brings--not to revel in it or out of spartan self-denial, but to lean into the good things that our pain might point toward. Grief honors the value of the one lost, for example.

Embracing our needs is the theme of this book, and his framing is insightful and valuable. As in The Voice of the Heart, I found myself craving illustrations, which are disappointingly absent. Instead he uses description and analogy. Nevertheless, the short chapters invite reflection and introspection, both of which have already been personally fruitful for me.

Having finished, I intend to live with the book for a few weeks, returning to underlined passages to reflect a little deeper.

[Meg · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are dependent beings, made to need. If we deny this basic humanness, we cause more pain and destruction to ourselves and others. Seeking the impairments of these needs derives from a shame which in turn may have been communicated in childhood. For example, a basic need is touch. Touch fosters intimacy, care, etc. If that need was perverted in childhood, it can create a distrust of connection that is trustworthy and cause us to attempt to get that need met in a way that will “hide shame, reinforce denial, and protect the heart from risks... that aim to dodge the vulnerability that our need exposes”... think pornography for example, which momentarily satiates the body, but leaves the heart untouched and blocks the place where the need can deliver its healing.

[Christina Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very easy read!

[Debra Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Needs of the heart

One of the most insightful books I’ve ever read, very well written and worth your time, highly recommend ! Take advantage of Chip Dodd acquired wisdom

[Luke Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reads a bit like an extended appendix. Good content and easy to get through and use for reference.

[Drew Worsham · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that every heart needs.

[Jay · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although content is great, the book was poorly edited, littered with enough grammatical issues to make it tough to focus on the amazing content, and appears to have been quickly strung together. If you had to choose a Dodd book to read, Voice of the Heart is the better book, not only in literary focus, but Needs of the Heart seems to bounce around the mind with limited fluidity.

[Brooke West · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good content, fairly quick read. Overall it reads similarly to how Dr. Dodd speaks --hard to follow linearly but full of some really beautiful and deep truths. I anticipate revisiting this book after it's had a bit of time to settle in me.

As a previous reviewer mentioned, there are some grammar errors. If you're not familiar with The Voice of the Heart, start there -- don't read this one first.