Customer Reviews

Resilient Adults: Overcoming a Cruel Past

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As a forty-eight year old womens' health professional who struggled with an abusive childhood and recently left an abusive marriage of 27 years, I found great validation and hope in this book. Ms. O'Connell Higgins protrays the resilient who successfully avoided repeating the terror of their upbringing. Yet her focus on faith and her description of "the Sea Beyond the Sirens" are invaluable supports to anyone- young or old- who has decided to rid themself of the deamons of abuse.

Finally, the descrptions the resilient and their role as "helpers" explains the activites of many who struggle to survive. They give back the fruits of their labors to others who are in need of example and assistance.

Most importantly, her work incorporates the notion that no person abused should be viewed only as a victim. The survivor status may not come to all, but is always available to those who have the desire to change.

The hope this book inspires makes it an excellent text for anyone who is involved in treating the traumatized or who is personnaly at any stage of abuse recovery.

Recommended reading for young adult survivors and their therapists. Forty persons who have overcome severe childhood abuse whom today live succesfully in long term, committed relationships and hold respected positions in their career fields are the subjects of the author's research.

This is one of the best books I have ever read. It moved me and inspired me. The author uses real examples of people she knows/has worked with. It is a fairly easy read and I have already suggested that it be a recommend/required reading for my Master's program courses.

This book by psychologist Gina O'Connell Higgins is one of the best book on resilience available. As a clinical social worker and marriage and family therapist, this is the book I most often provide to my clients who have struggled with a history of childhood abuse. I try to help people view themselves as survivors rather than as victims and this book is a wonderful resource for that mindset.

Higgins has studies what resilient adults have in common. "They are above average to superior in IQ; possess exceptional talents, including creativity and other inner resources (and have developed many of these); have obtained higher economic levels than their family of origin; demonstrate high levels of ego development; have sustained empathically close relational ties in childhood, adolescence and adulthood (including those they formed with parental 'surrogates'); frequently have highly psychologically compromised siblings; and maintain strong political and social activism.. More dynamically, they remain fiercely committed to reflection, new perspectives, and ongoing therapy." (p. 20)

I find this book fascinating and highly readable for the lay-person and the professional. It is of profound and tragic interest that the author came from an abusive past. She went on to become a psychologist while her brother committed suicide. This book will give the reader unusual insight into the courage and unique adaptivity of the resilient adult.

I read this book on advice from a professor whose work is referenced in the book. But it was far from an academic experience, despite the quality of the research that went into creating it. As an adult in my 40s who had a childhood disrupted by poverty, my mother's mental illness, and both of my parents' devotion to a cultish religious community I had adopted the survival strategies of wariness and withdrawl described by the author and her study participants. It was comforting to see that the path I followed to educational, employment, and relationship success was similar to those described in the book. It was eye opening to learn I still have the opportunity to take another step on this journey, and to reclaim a sense that I am as entitled as anyone else to enjoy my life and to be supported, instead of always needing to give and being closed to accepting care from others. If you've had a similarly challenging childhood, you are likely to learn many affirming and valuable lessons from reading this book.

Accurate, Helpful, Reassuring