Changes That Heal by Henry Cloud
Week 6: Chapter 5 — Sorting Out Good and Bad: The Problem of Splitting
Read Chapter 5 of Changes That Heal. Key Scriptures: Romans 3:23; Romans 7:18–19; 1 John 1:8–10.
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Cloud's third task of growth addresses one of the most common — and most damaging — distortions of human perception: the tendency to see people (including ourselves and God) as either all good or all bad, with no room for the complicated truth.
Discussion Questions
7 questions1.Cloud calls this pattern 'splitting' — the inability to hold the good and the bad together in the same person or situation. In your own experience, what does splitting look and feel like? Can you think of a time you put someone on a pedestal and then completely devalued them when they disappointed you?
2.The author argues that splitting is a developmental failure — something that normal human growth is supposed to resolve by integrating our experience of the 'good mother' and the 'bad mother' into one whole, realistic person. Why is this integration so spiritually and relationally important?
3.Cloud shows how splitting distorts our image of God — some people relate to an 'all-good' God who never disciplines and others to an 'all-bad' God who never comforts. Which distortion is more common in your own spiritual experience, and how has it affected your prayer life and trust in God?
a.Have you ever been surprised or wounded by a God who seemed suddenly harsh after seeming endlessly soft?
b.Have you ever been unable to receive comfort because you were convinced God was fundamentally disappointed in you?
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