Kira Love Counseling Services

Kira's Suggested Reading:

Understanding Various Aspects of Professional Misconduct and Sexual Misconduct

Annotations from Several Sources (TELL, Amazon, My Own)

 WARNING: As with all books on trauma and abuse, these may be triggering to the abuse survivor.

 

Carnes, P. J. (1997). The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships. Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications.

This book explores trauma bonds, i.e., powerful connections to abusive people created by a betrayal of trust. He discusses betrayal by seduction, betrayal by terror, betrayal by power, betrayal by spirit.  The author discusses how traumatic bonds are formed and strengthened, their devastating impact, and ways to dissolve them. This book grants understanding to the reader regarding how/why people become entrapped in abusive relationships (with a professional, a lover, a friend, a spouse, etc), and seem incapable and often unwilling to get out.

 

Evans, P. (1996). The verbally abusive relationship. Avon, MA: Adams Media Corporation.

“It’s not all in your head,” Evans writes. In this book she explores the damaging effects of verbal abuse, describes the different reality abusers live in (one of “power over”), as well as the characteristics and categories of verbal abuse and how to “respond with impact to verbal abuse.” This opens the eyes of both therapist and victim/survivor alike to the ways abusers think, their obsession with power over their victim and their extreme manipulation. It pulls the victim out of the abuser’s world of crazy and also helps therapists understand how the abuser gained so much control over the victim.

 

Flynn, K. A. (2003). The Sexual Abuse of Women by Members of the Clergy. Jefferson, North Carolina: Mcfarland & Co.

“This work is based on the author’s extensive study of 25 women from 11 states who were sexually abused by members of the clergy,” and contains copious amounts of quotes from the participants, describing their experiences of various aspects of the abuse. One of the goals was to make known “what it means to be sexually exploited by a trusted religious representative.” Some of the chapters include: Abuse of Power; Trauma; Method; PTSD Symptoms; Complex PTSD; The Clergy Factor.

 

Herman, J. (1992). Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence—From Domestic Abuse to Political Power. New York: Basic Books.

Arguably the best book ever written on trauma and recovery. Herman is a clinical professor of psychiatry and practicing therapist who draws on extensive research and her own clinical practice as she discusses the realities of surviving and healing from trauma. Her chapters include: Terror, Disconnection, Captivity, Child Abuse, A New Diagnosis, A Healing Relationship, Safety, Remembrance and Mourning, Reconnection, Commonality. This book should be mandatory reading for those specializing in the field of trauma and of professional misconduct because not only does Herman vividly capture the terror of abusive entrapment and the resultant complex PTSD symptomology, but she clearly emphasizes some of the most essential aspects for safety and effective subsequent therapy. Since abusers universally disempower and isolate their victims, the top two therapeutic interventions are empowering the victim and helping her to get reconnected in her life. Creating containment and safety are vital as well.

 

Lott, D. A. (2000). In session: The bond between women and their therapists. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company.

As a medical writer and journalist, Lott explores the dynamics that tie patients to their therapists and make them vulnerable.  She discusses a therapist’s power, boundaries, transference, gaslighting, the perfect mother, falling “in love” with one’s therapist, and “sexual transgressions in therapy.” A must read for anyone who has asked, “How could I have been so stupid?”

 

Penfold, P. S. (1998). Sexual Abuse by Health Professionals: A Personal Search for Meaning and Healing. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.

This book offers an amazing combination of the personal and the professional. Not only does Dr. Penfold have the courage to come forward and describe her abuse in great detail under her own name, she also provides a professional framework for this type of abuse, including an explanation of the problem, the process, and the effects of professional sexual exploitation.

 

Peterson, M. R. (1992). At personal risk: Boundary violations in professional-client relationships. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Peterson explores the ethical basis for boundaries, the ways in which our society elevates professionals to positions of power, and the psychological impact of violations on patients/clients. Peterson offers a good discussion regarding how the denial of the power and influence which reside with the professional can lead to boundary violations. She discusses four often hidden aspects involved in boundary violations: role reversals; secrets; double binds and indulgence of personal privilege. She summarizes the psychological wounds to victims and offers suggestions for healing.

 

Rutter, P. (1989) Sex in the forbidden zone: When men in power betray women’s trust. Los Angeles, CA: Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc.

This book has become a classic.  It combines a useful set of “war stories” with intelligent observations, analyses and thinking about the abuse of power by men, as well as how gender socialization disposes the woman to desire to help heal the wounded man/wounded healer believing she can get life from him, and the man to believe that healing resides within the woman and is obtained through physical oneness with her.

 

Salter, A. C. (1995). Transforming Trauma: A Guide to Understanding and Treating Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

This book describes how trauma affects the worldviews of victims as well as the steps of therapy for adult survivors. Salter analyzes the differences between the footprints left in the minds of the victims by sadistic and non-sadistic abusers. The Chapters include: What Do We Know About Sex Offenders and What Does it Mean?; The Deviant Cycle; Footprints on the Heart; Sex Offenders in the Head. This book contains many detailed quotes from sexual offenders and therefore offers a doorway into their heads to see how they think about abuse and their victims, and how they strategize for abuse and groom their victims. Clergy and therapists’ sex with parishioners and clients is often likened to childhood incest and the destruction in the life of a survivor resembles that of a childhood sexual abuse survivor. Because of this, this book is extremely applicable for both client survivor and subsequent therapist.

 

Schoener, G. R. Et al. (1990). Psychotherapists’ Sexual Involvement with Clients: Intervention and Prevention. Minneapolis: Walk-In Counseling Center.

After two decades, this is still the reigning “bible” of anyone who wants to understand the complexities and range of emotional and sexual abuse by psychotherapists.  It is more than 800 pages long and is available through Amazon.

 

Simon, G. K. (1996). In Sheep’s Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People. Little Rock, AK: A. J. Christopher & Co.

Each chapter describes a characteristic of the aggressive, or covert-aggressive manipulative personality: Unbridled Quest for Power; Deception and Seduction; Fighting Dirty; Impaired Conscience. Two especially helpful chapters are Recognizing the Tactics of Manipulation and Control; and Redefining the Terms of Engagement.

 

Helpful Articles

Why Did You Keep Going for so Long?
Issues for Survivors of Long-Term, Sexually Abusive “Helping” Relationships
By Susan Penfold, M.D.

Discusses ways in which people generally deny and/or reinterpret a survivor’s abuse so that those who come in contact with the survivor can maintain their BJW (belief in a just world). Details the experience of a victim of PSM (Professional Sexual Misconduct). Describes various concepts that seek to explain the dynamics in PSM, such as Marilyn Peterson’s four factors of boundary violations, Herman’s traumatic transference, traumatic bonding and Shengold’s “soul murder.” A must for subsequent therapists working with PSM clients.
http://www.therapyabuse.org/papersPenfold.htm

Countertransference and Special Concerns of Subsequent Treating Therapists of Patients Sexually Exploited by a Previous Therapist
By Linda Mabus Jorgenson, MA, JD
Discusses reactions subsequent therapists often have, such as: disbelief, identification with the perpetrator, blame, inaction, outrage, distancing from the perp, compensating behavior, and action. Suggests ways in which subsequent therapists can find a “middle ground” in their responses to survivors of PSM. Good for survivors to read and to pass on to their subsequent therapists who are unacquainted with, or short on knowledge of the field of PSM.

http://www.therapyabuse.org/paperscountertransference.htm

Sexual Abuse in the Therapeutic Setting: What Do Victims Really Want?
By Janet W. Wohlberg
Briefly debunks the idea of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) as a diagnosis post-PSM (unless pre-existing symptoms can be verified), due to the nature of the abuse and severity of the trauma which “so corrupts a personality.” Discusses grooming, the “slide down the slipper slope” of boundary violations. Describes possible “driving factors” of the abuser, as well as steps toward healing (reinterpretation of the abusive therapy and reassessment of the abuser are of primary importance). Ends with a look at what victims want from subsequent therapists and from the field.

www.therapyabuse.org/paperswhatwant.htm

 

Subsequent Treatment (brief one page essay)
By Wendy Needham
Discusses how to assess your subsequent therapist.
http://www.therapyabuse.org/TP_substrtmnt.htm

The following is a very helpful article, but I’m not finding the weblink. Contact Therapist Exploitation Link Line (TELL) at therapyabuse.org

Treatment Subsequent to Abuse by a Mental Health Professional: The Victim’s Perspective of What Works and What Doesn’t
By Jan W. Wohlberg (one of the founders of TELL)

She discusses “therapist shopping” that a victim often goes through post PSM (Professional Sexual Misconduct). She stresses the importance of getting a “knowledgeable” subsequent therapist, one who understands PSM. She describes needs the survivor has in a subsequent therapist, such as: having her “ambivalence” toward the perpetrator acknowledged, her inability to trust accepted, an awareness and preparedness for “boundary testing and maintenance,” helping the victim “overcome powerlessness and isolation,” understanding the victim’s “hypervigilance” and what the subsequent therapist should do when/if the victim wants to take action in filing a complaint or a civil suit, etc.
Contact TELL for the link at therapyabuse.org