Mother-Daughter Incest: A Guide for Helping Professionals

By Beverly A. Ogilvie

Provide more effective services for the victims of this underreported, rarely investigated form of sexual abuse!

Until recently, mother-child incest was considered to be virtually nonexistent. The majority of the sexual abuse literature focused on male-perpetrated abuse or father-daughter incest. Mother-Daughter Incest: A Guide for Helping Professionals fills that gap in the literature, making an important contribution to knowledge and therapeutic practice by adding the voices of these survivors to the dialogue.

This important new book describes the phenomenon and aftermath of mother-daughter incest, focusing on the victim's perception of and reaction to her experience. This book's unique approach integrates psychological theory and practical interventions with the words of the survivors themselves. Their revealing and moving first-person testimonies keenly articulate daughters' reactions to sexual abuse at the hands of their mothers, their past and present relationships with their mothers, and their perceptions of the impact of their mothers' abuse on their lives.

This vital book explores: the unique dynamics, psychological impact, and sequelae of this type of incest factors that contribute to the underreporting and underinvestigation of mother-daughter incest the significance of the mother-daughter bond, plus cultural definitions and expectations of motherhoodkey factors in society's denial of the existence of this kind of abuse the stigmatization that survivors must endure if they reveal their experiences to others psychological theorydevelopmental, object-relations, self-in-relation (relational), and attachmentand what they tell us about mother-daughter relationships common themes encountered in therapy with survivorsacute shame, helplessness, isolation, betrayal and grief, identity issues, impaired sexual development, difficulty coping, and parenting concernsand how to address them ways in which survivors attempt to regulate their internal emotional states strategies for helping a survivor to take charge of her life the ways in which survivors are likely to relate to their therapists and how survivors may expect therapists and other helping professionals to perceive them transferential-countertransferential dynamics between client and therapist and their effect on the process and outcomes of therapyand nine strategies for minimizing countertransference

There is no other resource like Mother-Daughter Incest: A Guide for Helping Professionals. Whether you are a therapist, social worker, medical or mental health professional or a student in any of those fields, this book will inform and educate you in ways that you'll be thankful for if you ever have a client who is a survivor of this kind of abuse.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0789009161
• ISBN13: 9780789009166
• Release Date: July 2004
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Good, but def for professionals

This book was very good if you are planning to treat victims of Mother-Daughter Incest as a professional, like the title says. Many chapters deal with things like transferance or other issues that might arise in therapy. Those things are covered very well, and in highly educated language. However, if you are looking for basics about the subject of mother-daughter incest, are a survivor yourself, or have a friend/relative who is this probably isn't the book for you. If you're looking for something like that I would reccomend "The Last Secret"

A definite must read

This book is great for anyone who was sexually abused by a woman. The author gives accurate information and statistics that shocked me. I thought it was so uncommon/unheard of to be abused by your mother until I picked up this book. The first few chapters are very hard to understand because the author uses big words. But keep reading! Each chapter has personal stories from people who went thru this kind of abuse and explains why women abuse in this way. It gives wonderful advice on how to get over sexual abuse. I found this book to be the only helpful book on this topic. It's a must read.