Book Jewel of the Month: Healing from Incest (Henderson and Emerton): "a unique conversation"
What is a book jewel? A sometimes-overlooked book with remarkable insight and potential significance. Each month, we share near-daily, or as often as possible, reviews of the monthly book jewel - short, succinct reviews that can be read in 1-2 minutes with links to the reviewer by reviewers whose words are worthy of being heard and whose opinions are worthy of being considered. Sometimes a couple of minutes contains more impressive thought than ten times that many. We will let you decide that.
This month's book jewel is Healing from Incest by Geri Henderson and Seanne Emerton.
Description:
In speaking about Healing from Incest, Susan J. Lewis, Ph.D., J.D., Healing writes: “"Brave, profound, touching, healing. This well-written, honest book takes the reader inside the complexities of the therapeutic healing process from the patient and therapist's unique perspective. It is the story of hard work, hope, commitment and recovery!" Healing from Incest tells the journey of a victim-turned-survivor, working with her therapist to find healing. Readers are pulled into the therapeutic process as Henderson relates her conversations and feelings as a victim of child abuse and Emerton interprets those feelings and describes interventions. For those who recognize this as their own story, this frank and genuine narrative will be reassuring in its descriptions of one woman's journey toward hope and healing. About the front cover: kintsukuroi(n.) (v. phr.) "to repair with gold"; the art of repairing pottery with gold or silver lacquer and understanding that the piece is more beautiful for having been broken.
Amazon review by Janet S. Yoder -
"immediately alerts the reader that this will not be a particularly easy book to read"
The title, Healing from Incest, immediately alerts the reader that this will not be a particularly easy book to read. Likewise, the double authorship signals that this is not just a personal memoir of abuse nor a scholarly clinical study of an incest victim. Instead, this book offers a unique conversation between someone severely damaged by father-daughter incest and one of the many therapists with whom she has worked during her struggle to survive and find restoration. The therapist’s comments allow an unusual view of the struggles and hard choices such a clinician faces in trying to push a patient toward healing without causing the alienation that might come with too much expectation.
The incest survivor herself reveals that she was abused from toddler to mid-teenage with ever escalating violence to her body. As the oldest child in a very religious and patriarchal family, she internalized blame for this “bad” behavior and began to exhibit many of the symptoms one would expect: disassociation, lack of self-value, promiscuity, depression, and suicidal ideation. At times she needed to be hospitalized, and she frequently reached out for professional therapy. Through it all, she managed to earn advanced degrees, maintain close links to her primary family, and surround herself with loyal and supportive friends. She has survived but has not fully escaped from the damage done to her, both psychologically and physically.
One of the most remarkable elements of this story is the survivor’s strong spiritual faith. This is remarkable because her father himself was a Christian minister, and for years no one in her church family reached out to help her. However, she has managed to cling to a belief in a loving God in spite of such evil, and in her restructuring of her self, she gives the hopeful message that there can be a rebirth—a type of resurrection—for even the most damaged soul.
Perhaps because this is not a lengthy book and the text is divided between two very different persons, the reader will be left with unanswered questions. How could the mother not know what was happening when the father had a routine of regular visits to his daughter’s bedroom? Is there any certainty that the father never sexually abused others, especially after his primary target left home? These and many other questions are not answered, but the main purpose of the book is not to reveal all details. Rather, it is to tell a story of very painful struggle and survival and to show the care a therapist must exercise in helping such a fragile person work toward healing. It does both of these tasks very well.
Finalist, Book of the Year Award
Book Excellence Award
For more posts about Geri and Seanne and their book, click HERE.
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