Customer Reviews

The Rape Recovery Handbook: Step-by-Step Help for Survivors of Sexual Assault

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I am working through this book. I have finished the first chapter that contained exercises. The exercises are not easy, but once you've written everything down you feel a bit better about things.

I am using this book in conjunction with therapy, and highly recommend that you have a therapist or someone you can talk to while you work through this book.

So I did the exercises one night, and then went to therapy the next morning. I read everything to my therapist and I felt really good. But after therapy suddenly I felt emotionally, physically, and mentally exhausted. I couldn't do anything the rest of the day.

You will feel a lot of emotions come up while you do the exercises...from anger, to sadness, to fear, etc. That is why I recommend having somebody you can talk to. These emotions can be hard to sit with on your own.

I hope this review was helpful, because it wasn't like I wanted everyone on the internet knowing what happened to me.

jamesgirl

This book offers constructive things a person can do to heal. Helps you understand your emotions, accept them and do things to increase your positive feelings about yourself after such a traumatic experience. It was so valuable to me--much more understanding words than most therapists provide. Helps you get out negative emotions. Fabulously written by a person who understands. Must have

For my research paper, I the topic was the "Effects of Rape". I was off to a rough start, but after reading this book I finished my paper immediately. As a rape victim I HIGHLY recommend this book as a guide to a healthy recovery. It's not your fault...

This book is a simplified summary of current understandings of PTSD and rape. It explains rape trauma in succinct terms, and describes the phases of recovery, normalizing the survivor's experiences with issues like panic, flashbacks, and depression. It is NOT, nor represents itself to be, a workbook or guide through self-help. As a "handbook," it is a clearly-worded reference for a survivor wishing to locate information that explores and explains trauma symptomology; a "handbook," however, is NOT a guide or workbook, and I disagree with its connotation of offering "step-by-step help." The Rape Recovery Handbook should be read by survivors as part of recovery, as long as she (and the book is intended for the female survivor) understands that it is not an in-depth therapeutic manual. Thus, this book would be most helpful when used as preparatory reading for subsequent work using a workbook or therapeutic guide through recovery.

I ordered this book for working with clients that are survivors of sexual abuse and rape. It has worked well with each one and have recommended it to several colleagues. Wonderful resource of how to work through the issue of assault and the emotions that go along with it. Rather enjoyed having the solution focus perspective when working with clients that are trying to overcome abuse, assaults, and rapes.

I think this is for someone who is further along in the healing process. I found this book to be more hurtful than helpful.

I found the author's suggestions helpful in recovering from my rape. Of course nothing can substitute for counseling, but the author did a good job of not being patronizing.

I bought this book after my adult daughter was raped. I bought it to give to her before returning to school, where the crime was committed. But I looked at it first. I could have read the whole book in one afternoon but from what I read it is an important tool in the process of coming to terms with the humiliating crime of rape.
We still live in a male-oriented world after all the strides we've tried to take as women. That being said, rape is not taken as seriously as it should be by the whole legal and medical systems. There is much work to be done for future generations of women. As a woman, mother and parent I am outraged by the lack of seriousness taken by the "authorities" but without this becoming a diatribe let me just say that this book will begin to help heal the broken spirit of the victims of rape. Whether you are the victim or a loved one who is trying to help, this book will begin a dialoge at the very least.

Bonnie S.

Her book is really the equivalent of 5 pamphlets on rape(and I mean that in the most literal way)..then there is the perturbing epilogue..titled "It Almost Happened to Me"

Her epilogue:

""One Sunday morning while I was working on this book, a man slipped into my home. I had just come back from the gym, taken off my coat, and turned to shut the door -- only to find a man standing in my hallway. He asked, "Can I come in?" He had a childish face, a timid demeanor, and from the religious pamphlets he was carrying, he appeared to be a missionary of some kind.
But I sensed danger. I slammed the door and yelled at him to go away. I had to yell several times. He finally left. I was calling the police when I looked outside a window and saw him running from one neighbor's backyard to another, peering over their fences. Then, for some reason, he ran away.
I alerted a few neighbors and then I went to church and the grocery store. As usual, I left my backdoor open to carry in my groceries. Within minutes, the man who had come to my door earlier that morning walked into my kitchen. The minute I saw him there, I started to scream loudly and repeatedly. I didn't decide to scream. The screams just started coming out, each one louder than the last. He turned around and left. Even after he fled, I kept on screaming. I couldn't make myself stop, even though I had to call the police.
That evening I tried to continue working on this book, but I couldn't stop shaking. That lasted for some days. For several weeks, I had nausea, nightmares, flashbacks, backaches and was "hyper"--my whole body was on emergency alert.""




Do those words REALLY sound like the words of a Stanford grad?? She sounds either paranoid or like a drama queen. What a coinkidink a potential rapist comes to her house...while she was writing this book!! Seriously, think about that.
She also claims to have been mugged, which is what she based her 1996 book "I Can't Get Over it" on. Then this happens? I don't believe it.
I will be checking her credentials. If she was misleading about her education, I will demand my money back.

EDIT:
I have been in contact with the publishing company of the book and they will be refunding my money and looking into her supposed credentials. Kudos to them.

It is interesting though that I get so many thumbs down for typing up her patronizing epiloque. My guess would be the ones that gave the thumbs down havent been raped, because rape victims should be offended by her minimizing of actual rapes.
I'm sorry, but she did NOT go to Stanford..absolute fraud

2 nonfraudulent books that are truly helpful:

Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
&
The PTSD Workbook: Simple, Effective Techniques for Overcoming Traumatic Stress Symptoms

This book is well worth the cost. It is full of useful information to help cope with such a traumatic event.