Treating the Adult Survivor of Childhood Sexual Abuse: A Psychoanalytic Perspective

By Mary Gail Frawley and Jody Messler Davies

Book Overview

Entering the tumultuous, dissociated world of the adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse presents an intimidating challenge for clinicians. But as the authors of this innovative book argue, therapists must be willing and able to work within the powerful and rapidly shifting relational paradigms of transference and countertransference commonly found in treatment of these patients. Such dual roles enacted in treatment include the unseeing, uninvolved parent and the unseen, neglected child; the sadistic abuser and the helpless, enraged victim; the idealized rescuer and the entitled child; and the seducer and the seduced.This is the first model for treatment of adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse that takes advantage of a relational approach and that integrates psychoanalytic thinking with the latest findings from the literature on psychological trauma and sexual abuse. Diverging from a more classical perspective, the authors view dissociation as the means by which a person adapts to and expresses traumatogenic material and by which such patients defend against traumatic memories, affects, and fantasy elaborations emerging into consciousness. The authors also detail how dissociation helps organize the patient's personality and presentation of self.Richly illustrated case examples bring to life the authors' treatment model and show how clinicians can work through the relational paradigms between patient and therapist and, ultimately, reach the core of the patient's deeply buried experiences of self and other.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 046506633X
• ISBN13: 9780465066339
• Release Date: March 1994
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.27 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.3" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Practical, thought-provoking, deep

As a psychology intern from a psychodynamic background working with numerous childhood sexual abuse (CSA) survivors, I found this book extremely helpful and inspiring. The conceptualizations about working with CSA survivors and the integration with trauma research are solid and insightful. The case material is effective in clarifying the concepts and bringing to life the importance of this healing process and the meaning to be found in it. In addition, I found the broader perspective on modern, relational psychoanalytic psychotherapy clear and rich. It helped reconnect me with the value of this approach and with the complexity of the therapeutic interaction. I imagine this book would be too technical for most therapy clients/patients as it was a demanding, dense read for me after several years of coursework and experience, but who am I to say?

Very helpful for someone who is in therapy!

I am currently in therapy and this book has been a God send! It has made my experiences in therapy much more meaningful. Also has made my therapy process easier to handle during all those difficult times. Great book to have if you currently going through your own CSA therapy!

you can't miss it

Excellent book.Every worker in mental health should read it.It offers a deep, wise and well informed psychoanalytic approach to the issue of abuse. I feel I'm a better person and psychoanalyst after reading it.

best book on subject

Although this book is written for therapists and analysts -- not their clients -- I found it invaluable. Reading it as an accompaniment to my ongoing therapy helped me to listen better to myself and to my therapist, and to understand the many obscure and puzzling episodes and interactions that were taking place during sessions and outside of them. The authors are clearly experts in their field. Their book contextualized and provided insight into both my own history of childhood sexual abuse and the twists and turns of the therapeutic process in general. Despite its sometimes highly technical language for which I had to consult a dictionary, this book is the most focused and helpful work on the subject that I have read. I'm very grateful to its authors for writing it and recommend it without reservation.

Make room on your bookshelf for this

As a therapist who works with survivors of childhood sexual abuse, I am always searching for books which provide new perspectives and formulations on the topic of sexual abuse. The book by Jody Messler Davies & Mary Gail Frawley provided a cogent argument for the importance of a psychoanalytically informed framework in treating adult survivors. The authors do an excellent analysis of the bodies of literature from the fields of psychoanalytic thought and trauma based research/therapy. The reader is then shown perhaps previously unnoticed connections between the two bodies of literature. There are numerous case examples throughout the book to illustrate the various concepts that are discussed.I gave this book five stars, because any book which causes an individual to reexamine their theoretical orientation/mode of conducting therapy, should definitely be sitting on their bookshelf at home.