Free eBooks The Courage To Heal: A Guide For Women Survivors Of Child Sexual Abuse, 20th Anniversary Edition Available To Downloads
Come to terms with your past while moving powerfully into the futureThe Courage to Heal is an inspiring, comprehensive guide that offers hope and a map of the healing journey to every woman who was sexually abused as a child—and to those who care about her. Although the effects of child sexual abuse are long-term and severe, healing is possible.Weaving together personal experience with professional knowledge, the authors provide clear explanations, practical suggestions, and support throughout the healing process. Readers will feel recognized and encouraged by hundreds of moving first-person stories drawn from interviews and the authors' extensive work with survivors, both nationally and internationally.This completely revised and updated 20th anniversary edition continues to provide the compassionate wisdom the book has been famous for, as well as many new features:Contemporary research on trauma and the brainAn overview of powerful new healing tools such as imagery, meditation, and body-centered practicesAdditional stories that reflect an even greater diversity of survivor experiencesThe reassuring accounts of survivors who have been healing for more than twenty yearsThe most comprehensive, up-to-date resource guide in the fieldInsights from the authors' decades of experienceCherished by survivors, and recommended by therapists and institutions everywhere, The Courage to Heal has often been called the bible of healing from child sexual abuse. This new edition will continue to serve as the healing beacon it has always been.
Paperback: 640 pages
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; 4 Rev Exp edition (November 4, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0061284335
ISBN-13: 978-0061284335
Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 1 x 9.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (359 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #10,244 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #8 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Sociology > Abuse #17 in Books > Parenting & Relationships > Family Relationships > Abuse > Child Abuse #30 in Books > Self-Help > Abuse
This book has gone a long way in helping me to begin the long journey to coming to terms with the sexual abuse I suffered as a pre-teen. For most of my adult life, I've been reluctant to attribute any of my problems (such as depression, self hatred, unhealthy sexual relationships with men, a general disgust about myself, etc.) to being molested by my stepfather. Within the past couple of years, however, I've begun to examine my feelings about it more and more. I bought this book rather hesitantly, but ended up reading the first few chapters in tears as I read so many of my own feelings and experiences echoed by the other abuse survivors. I had thought that I was all alone and that there was something intrinsically wrong with me for feeling the way I did about myself, and it was an overwhelming relief to find others who feel the same after having similar childhood experiences. The reviews offered here referring to the "memory" issue misrepresent the focus and intent of the book. These readers seem to want to keep abuse survivors quiet to save the "sanctity" of the family. So many of us have done this for years; sacrificing of our emotional well being. They belittle the profound hurt and damage caused not only by the abuse, but by the silence as well. At the very least, this book has helped me to feel human and has given me hope that I may one day feel whole. I highly recommend this book as an invaluable resource.Addedum: It has been 7 years since I wrote the above review... I had forgotten I had written it until I ran across it in 's profile section. After reading a couple of the negative reviews below, I feel compelled to add something regarding the "repressed memory" issue.
I have just read the 20th anniversary edition of Courage to Heal. As a therapist working the field of mental health for 40 years with a specialty in working with abuse survivors and their PARTNERS, I was stunned to see that the book, while purporting to be an update of the 1988 edition is essentially the same as what was written in 1988 despite the fact that over the past 25 years we have made enormous gains in understanding and treating abuse/trauma from a research and clinical treatment perspective. The general message of the book is that the healing process will be most likely a long process, and focuses on "healing" processes such as writing in a journal, meditation, accepting the abuse as a reality and a brief mention of the value of medication to assist in managing painful and often, at least temporarily, seemingly uncontrollable painful thoughts and emotions. While posing as new, updated knowledge about the healing process about healing from trauma, I was absolutely stunned to discover that there was not one word about the extraordinary new understandings about the effects of abuse/trauma seen later in adult life and methodologies for treating abuse related symptoms. Each of these new therapeutic methods has been extensively researched and shown to lead to extraordinarily more effective methods for treating the after effects of trauma/abuse, shortening the recovery period and producing enduring positive effects. Everything from PTSD symptoms, negative cognitive processes (negative self-thoughts), the effects of distorted memory, the dissociative states as well as many other issues that profoundly impact upon the survivors themselves and their PARTNERS and are the real targets of the healing process received only the barest of recognition and explanation.
The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, 20th Anniversary Edition The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse The Courage to Heal Workbook: A Guide for Women and Men Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse Counselling Skills for Working with Trauma: Healing From Child Sexual Abuse, Sexual Violence and Domestic Abuse (Essential Skills for Counselling) The Sexual Healing Journey: A Guide for Survivors of Sexual Abuse, 3rd Edition Daddy Did Wrong: A Story of Sexual Abuse (Child Abuse Series Book 1) Childhood Sexual Abuse: Developmental Effects Across The Lifespan (Child Abuse) Recovering from Sexual Abuse, Addictions, and Compulsive Behaviors: “Numb” Survivors Locked In: One Girl's EXPLOSIVE TRUE STORY of Child Abuse (Child Abuse True Stories) Dear Daddy: The child abuse true story that will break your heart (Child Abuse True Stories) Daddy's Wicked Parties: The Most Shocking True Story of Child Abuse Ever Told (Skylark Child Abuse True Stories Book 2) Cornered: The Painful True Story of My Child Abuse Hell (Child Abuse True Stories) Dirty Little Dog: A Horrifying True Story of Child Abuse, and the Little Girl Who Couldn't Tell a Soul. (Skylark Child Abuse True Stories Book 1) STARSTRUCK: The most SHOCKING child abuse true story you'll EVER read! (Child Abuse True Stories) Surviving Child Sexual Abuse: A Handbook For Helping Women Challenge Their Past Elder Abuse Prevention and Intervention: A Guide to Dealing With Nursing Home Abuse and Other Elderly Abuse Issues Healing Tasks: Psychotherapy with Adult Survivors of Child Abuse (Gestalt Institute of Cleveland Publication) Sexual Abuse and the Sexual Offender: Common Man or Monster? (Forensic Psychotherapy Monograph Series) Two Old Women, 10th Anniversary Edition: An Alaskan Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival The Survivor's Guide to Sex: How to Have an Empowered Sex Life After Child Sexual Abuse
