This book takes an innovative approach to using narrative therapy in counselling people who have been subject to childhood sexual abuse. Reclaiming Lives from Sexual Violence presents an illustrative case study of the authors, Tim the therapist in consultation with Dale the client, who was sexually abused as a child by a clergy member. The book is unique in documenting their therapeutic work using transcripts taken directly from their sessions together. This narrative approach invites the reader to consider different ways of engaging in therapy in order to challenge the dominant social discourses around masculinity and shame. Looking at shame from a position of value awareness rather than a deficit perspective, this book extends counselling to consider the individual experience as political and one that must be shared outside the one-to-one therapy environment. This will be an essential resource for beginning or established therapists and practitioners working with clients who have been victims of sexual violence.

Go beyond surviving to reclaim your sexual self. If you have experienced sexual abuse, assault, harassment, or rape, you may feel disconnected from your sexual self—even if you’ve overcome the initial trauma of your experience. You are a survivor; but surviving is just the beginning. This book explores what comes next. Written by a psychotherapist and grounded in cutting-edge research, Reclaiming Pleasure picks up where other sexual trauma recovery books leave off. It offers practical tools to help you cultivate a sense of safety, security and trust in order to reclaim the vitality, pleasure and great sex you deserve. The book will also serve as your compass on a journey toward the rediscovery of desire, letting you explore what you want from others and for yourself. This groundbreaking book will help you: Understand the lasting mental, physical, sexual, and relational impacts of sexual trauma Move beyond feelings of shame Reclaim pleasure and reignite passion in your life Surviving is merely the first step in the process of recovery from sexual trauma. With this sex-positive and empowering guide, you are invited to take your recovery to the next level. You’ll feel emboldened by the desire for better sex, healthier relationships, and a more connected, pleasurable life.

It is estimated that at least one in four or five women and one out of ten men was sexually abused as a child by a family member. Most of those people continue to suffer in adulthood because of undeserved guilt, anxiety, and shame. Reclaiming Our Lives, written by a survivor of abuse and a psychotherapist specializing in the treatment of adult survivors of abuse, uses interviews with survivors and a healing approach to track the adult problems and what to do about them. Issues of trust, power, control, sexuality, and intimacy are examined in detail. The book concludes with an alphabet of survival tactics and a fourteen-step guide for growth for the survivor.

The damage you suffered may have been done in one terrible moment or over time. But the healing and the restoration will unfold at your pace, at a human pace. It unfolds as part of your story, and it unfolds over time. As a vulnerable child, instead of being protected, helped, and comforted, you were physically, emotionally, and/or ...

This powerful client workbook is written in an encouraging and easy-to-understand style specifically for women who have been sexually assaulted and have developed chronic symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Clients learn how cognitive-behavioral therapy has helped other victims and how it can work for them. This book explains how to distinguish PTSD symptoms from other disorders and teaches powerful techniques for overcoming these symptoms. In writing this book, the authors aim to address two goals. First, they want to present information about PTSD and related problems in language understandable to nonprofessionals. This information will include a review of the studies on posttrauma problems and on the effectiveness of different treatments. They also describe why some survivors develop PTSD and others do not. The second goal of the book is to provide a detailed client workbook for the treatment of trauma-related problems, especially PTSD, to assist clients working with a therapist. The authors are aware of the fact that people have different problems and different needs. What works for one person may not work for another. Therefore, they describe several different treatment techniques. The book is organized around the different cognitive-behavioral techniques that have been studied and proven effective with women sufferers of PTSD following an assault. Throughout the book, the authors focus mainly on women who have been sexually assaulted and as a result developed chronic symptoms of PTSD, which have disturbed their daily functioning and cause them emotional distress. Most of the examples they use to demonstrate the cognitive-behavioral techniques are drawn from their experience in treating rape survivors. However, the cognitive-behavioral procedures outlined here have been as successful in helping women who have been sexually abused in childhood and adult female survivors of nonsexual assaults, like aggravated assault and robbery. Other survivors of traumas such as natural disasters and car accidents were also helped by this cognitive-behavioral approach.

An inspiring true story about a brave young woman who pushes herself out of her comfort zone when she agrees to join a sailing expedition from Gibraltar to Thailand, with no experience.A health crisis, serious mechanical failures, and a category five cyclone - everything begins to go terrifyingly wrong, triggering the deeply buried trauma of a sexual assault.As she quickly adapts to life at sea, she begins to reclaim the power that was stolen from her and to break the silence.Those who dream of adventure will enjoy every discovery in this story. If you have an instinct to run and a longing to return to a place of safety, you will find this book a gentle, supportive and loving call to action reflecting on what 'home' really means.

“Peters takes readers on her own personal journey from trauma to reconnecting with her body, emotions, and eventually her own desire and sexuality.” —Xanet Pailet, bestselling author of Living an Orgasmic Life We know, increasingly, how common and devastating sexual violence is for women, but we don’t always talk about how survivors can recover from the trauma and return to desire, sexuality, trust, and pleasure. Want is the story of how Julie Peters did just that—and how you can, too. In the years after the assault, Julie was in what she calls the fog of trauma: the colorless, tasteless experience of barely getting through the day. No one—not counsellors, support groups, or other survivors—could give her any advice about how to find the desire that could bring her back to joy, intimacy, and connection. She had to make it up on her own. In Want, Julie tells the story of getting from the devastation of trauma to living a full life in eight sometimes challenging, often bumbling, and occasionally delightful steps. Your loved ones may not know how to support you, but they can learn more about your experiences and how to walk alongside you through this book, just as you can learn how to recover from the trauma you’ve experienced. Want offers a window into one person’s experience of recovery—plus the happy ending we all need to know is possible after trauma. “With unwavering honesty, penetrating insight, warmth, humor, and aplomb, she lays out strategies for a tangible, nourishing, and vitally ferocious self-love.” —Jeremy Radin, poet, author of Dear Sal