Healing from Incest: Intimate Conversations with My Therapist

As a survivor of incest I was drawn to this book and appreciated the honesty with which Geri Henderson shared her healing journey with her therapist Seanne. As someone who also spent years in therapy scraping together my life, I appreciated the therapist's comments interspersed with Geri's story. To see the concerns of the therapist and how she approached the landmines encountered in the therapy sessions helped me gain a perspective on the angst I probably caused my therapists. I found Geri's optimism in the face of innumerable challenges encouraging, as she bravely came to terms with what happened in her past. My father also began his abuse early and it lasted until I was 15 - I had the same shame and guilt issues, was afraid to tell, and was terrified. The issues of being unable to set boundaries, shame, inability to say "no" to pressured sex, nightmares, memories, depression, suicide, and both good and bad/unethical therapists are familiar. I highly recommend this book to someone who is seeking healing from childhood abuse. Seanne points out that even one incident of inappropriate groping can affect a person negatively. If you are seeking healing this is a good book to read. The subject may be tough, but it is encouraging to know that healing or acceptance of challenges is possible for survivors. The cover photo of kintsukuroi, the repairing of a shattered pottery bowl with gold or silver and lacquer, making it more beautiful than before it was broken, is a good representation of the healing process. Incest, or any other type of abuse, when properly dealt with ends up bringing the survivor to a place of beauty that they could not have imagined. While I hope no one has to go through brokenness, I pray that those who survive find healing - and Geri gives hope to survivors that healing is possible.

Healing from Incest describes, via conversations with her therapist, Dr. Geri Henderson's journey from young incest victim to middle-aged survivor, a difficult road made all the more challenging by the lack of open dialogue and support available to her as she was growing up in an isolated island community in the mid 20th century. Henderson now provides that much needed dialogue for her readers, fellow victims and friends alike, detailing not only her experience but also the insights and suggestions of her qualified co-author, therapist Seanne Emerton. The honesty and even humor with which Henderson approaches this still most taboo of topics makes accompanying her on that journey if not an easy read, certainly an interesting and engaging one. The cover photo of the broken bowl repaired with gold--an unexplained reference to kintsukuroi, the Japanese "art of repairing pottery with gold," making it more beautiful and valuable, is an appropriate image and symbol for Henderson's experience, narrated so humanly here.

As another reviewer wrote, this is not an easy book to read. Geri eloquently and poignantly tells of her abuse by her father from the time she was a toddler. Interspersed with Geri's narrative are reflections by her therapist, Seanne, adding a depth of understanding one does not always perceive.As we read in the popular press of high-profile sexual abuses, the reader is struck by Geri's father's confession to her mother that he had "inappropriately touched" their daughter. It sounds so innocent and minor, doesn't it? Yet Geri, in spite of earning advanced degrees in English Literature and music, in spite of being a successful and highly regarded teacher, still feels the effects of her father's abuse.Kudos to Geri and to Seanne for producing this often painful-to-read collection of conversations and reflections. I have always admired Geri as a teacher and musician, and I am now in awe of inner strength, perseverance and tenacity.

Valuable, unique addition to the literature. This will be useful for survivor and therapist alike. Written with inordinate skill and breathtaking honesty, this book is a masterly treatise on one woman's healing journey and her therapist's skillful, careful choices in helping. Painful topic--wonderful addition.

Know the authors. Well written, documented, helpful! Thanks for writing this.

Well written book. Integrating comments of authors works well. Find this book would be of value to councilors, ministerial staff, people who have been sexually abused and any one who has a friend who was sexually abused.

Just ok. Not sure I would give to a client.