Customer Reviews

Overcoming Childhood Sexual Trauma: A Guide to Breaking Through the Wall of Fear for Practitioners and Survivors

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is engaging from begining to end. Through the entire book chapter by chapter the reader will recognize the wisdom and insight that only a professional or a victim can bring to the subject. If you are an interested layman, professional or a victim, you will learn from the authors' perspectives on this cruel and unfortunately common phenomena of child sexual abuse. I highly recommend this book.

To Sheri Oz, MSc and Sarah-Jane Ogiers,
As a survivor in mid-treatment, I have read several books about this topic. My aim is to get all the help that I can in order to be a better parent and to provide my children with a good life WITHOUT THEM BECOMING SECOND GENERATION SURVIVORS.
I couldn't stop reading this book - your honesty and frankness, as well as your courage, both fascinated and encouraged me.
Thank you.
I hope that speakers of other languages will also be able to benefit from this book.

Sheri Oz and Sara-Jane Ogiers have written an important book. Their main contribution to the field, in my opinion, is that they enable the reader to get a sense of the actual experience of both client and therapist. Sara-Jane Ogiers has courageously, and generously, shared her beautifully written diaries. In this way, the reader can get a direct sense of both the psychological scars that can result from child sexual abuse, and the difficult work that is needed to recover. Sheri Oz has succeeded in conveying a real sense of what this work can be like for the therapist, in addition to providing a theoretical context highighting many aspects of the consequences and treatment of sexual abuse.
Y. Tauber, Clinical Psychologist

This book is remarkable for telling it like it really is..the therapists' ability to track the theraputic process, combined with the insights and understandings from the diaries of client make this book a personal and enlighting journey into the recovery process.I strongly recommend this book for therapists and for surviviors...it gives hope and shows the way.

I purchased this book after revelations by one of my children concerning sexual trauma. I was scared about reading this book, I did not want to read story after story about others traumas. The book is written in a gentle tone with very simple wording for a complex set of issues and circumstances. It was helpful for me personally and became a guide book for me as I dealt with my child's issues, fears and concerns and my own feelings of sadness, helplessness and failure. There are many survivor stories, but they are helpful and tactfully recounted. Most of us can relate to and empathize with these survivors.

I loved this book. I've read many trying to find someone who understands and can intelligently write on this subject. This book was incredibly helpful to me. I refer back to it often. It helped me to recognize myself in the words written and to see that maybe I'm not as crazy as I sometimes feel. The description and explanation of how it feels to live in two different worlds, the trauma world and the "real" world was very affirming. I knew I felt like I was on the other side of a glass wall watching life go by and feeling like I was by myself on the other side - the trauma side - with no way of getting out. I still haven't gotten to the other side but it was so helpful to read about someone else's experience of the same thing. Thank you for this book which now goes next to Herman's "Trauma and Recovery" as the books that have helped me most as I struggle to find a way to get through each day.

As a survivor myself, I can say that this book offers a good deal of affirmation and additional insight. The combination of viewpoints -- patient and therapist -- is most helpful, and the places where the authors really allow their personalities to shine through will warm your hearts. These are two Good Women (IMO). I wished that the personal style dominated more often, but in seeking to be a reference for practitioners as well as survivors, the book often takes quite an academic tone. There's an interesting tension between academia (replete with references), and self-help (the personal focus for the survivor). On the whole, I think it works.

There is one thing missing, however, and that is serious mention of mothers as sexual abusers (my reason for 4 stars instead of 5). In the book, the worst behavior of mothers is casting the blind eye at what dad is doing to little Wanda, but sometimes dad is the one casting the blind eye while mother playing doctor (or other things). I say this from personal experience. The avoidance of the idea of mother-daughter incest is due, I suppose, to the ultimate taboo that says mothers only go from a scale of 0 (blind) to 10 (warmly nurturing, apple pie and the flag). In fact, mothers can be right down there at -10, just like dads and uncles and grandpas can. And when a mother betrays your trust, it is really crazy-making.

I could tell you stories -- and I plan to, if I can ever get an agent and publish my memoir!