Description
“I couldn’t talk to anyone about it, … no one would believe me.” Approximately one in five women has been sexually abused as a child. For too long, survivors of child sexual abuse have lived in a suffocating darkness of silence. Now at last we are hearing their stories.
Maxine Hancock and Karen Mains have listened to and studied cases of hundreds of women around the world who have been wounded by childhood abuse. Weaving together these personal stories with current research, the authors discuss what constitutes child sexual abuse, the physical and emotional problems that often haunt women in their adult lives, and offer spiritual and emotional encouragement for the journey towards healing.
With updated statistics and resources, this book will prove to be an invaluable tool for survivors of abuse, as well as friends, lay counselors, and others who compassionately seek to understand and support women.
Maxine Hancock, Ph.D. , is Associate Professor of Inter-Disciplinary Studies and Spiritual Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, and speaks widely on topics of concern to women. “This book is my gift to my sisters and those who lovingly support their journey into healing.” Her other books include Creative, Confident Children and Living on Less and Liking It More .
Karen Burton Mains is a writer and conference speaker, involved in radio and television broadcasting through The Chapel Ministries. She has authored and coauthored over twenty books for adults and children, including Open Heart, Open Home, and the children’s trilogy Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance and Tales of the Restoration.
Bradley P. Hayton –
If you are working with those sexually abused as children, Hancock and Mains’ book is a must. It is a book for both adult victims and therapists alike. The book is really about adults who have suffered as children, especially women. It is not about children; it contains almost no information about the father that commits the abuse, though it does have one chapter on the mother of the abused child. As Mary Pride in her Child Abuse Industry suggests about child abuse statistics in general, their statistics are vague and misleading throughout. Sometimes they say 1 in 5 females have been sexually abused, sometimes 1 in 3, and at another time 1 in 2. They suggest in another place that 25% of sexually abused women become lesbian, which means that 10% of women are lesbian. Amazing, eh? We are almost all victims, or at least we know that many of our neighbors are abusers, and we had better report them or go to jail ourselves.Hancock and Mains do an excellent job integrating the Christian faith with the healing of child sexual abuse. Inner healing teaching is always in the background of all their suggestions. They bring in the themes of claiming the past as one’s own, sharing with one’s husband, writing a journal, prayer therapy, the experience of both God’s and one’s own forgiveness, as well as forgiving the offender, the imagery of forgiveness, Bible study, and placing oneself into the events of Scripture using imagery. They talk about destroying negative habits as well as combating negative self-statements. The book is an excellent guide to Christian counselors, and is filled with real life stories and quotes organized around the central themes of sexual abuse.The book does have some contradictions. After saying that most sexual abuse comes from conservative families, almost every example is from broken families, step-fathers, live-in boyfriends, and the like. Rather than blaming conservative Christianity the way the secularists would have it, the authors would do well to read Pride’s book on the subject. The authors also compare abusers to alcoholics, saying “Once an offender, always an offender.” Scripture doesn’t look at people this way. Thieves are people who currently steal, not people who stole in the past and have repented from their ways; adulterers are those who commit adultery, rather than those who have repented from their ways. The authors would not like this comparison, however. They believe child sexual abuse is a psychological problem, rather than a moral problem. As almost every other sin in society, low self-esteem is the culprit. Oh, if only Satan would have believed more in himself! – or Adam and Eve, for that matter. The authors go so far as to say that one can be a good Christian and still commit incest. Apparently, rapists can be good Christians too. I guess that must also hold true to practicing adulterers, murderers, homosexuals, schismatics, and others who continually engage in moral sin. The authors need to reread 1 John, James, and Ephesians 5:5-8.Note: this review is on the first edition.
Michael Allison –
I first learned of this book several years ago, while counseling a number of people who had been sexually abused as children. It helped me to understand what the victims went through and how it negatively impacted their lives, even years later. I have given out over 100 copies of this book, and in each case, it has helped people to come to grips with that part of their past. I would especially recommend this book for any victim of abuse. The healing provided here is far more helpful than drugs.