What do you think?
Rate this book
You Can Help: A Guide for Family & Friends of Survivors of Sexual Abuse and Assault
You Can Help offers concrete tools to family and friends who wish to participate in the healing process of someone who has been sexually victimized. In Part One, the author chronicles her own journey to recovery while providing pragmatic advice and essential data from numerous experts in the field. Each chapter is followed by “Five Practical Tips.”
Part Two is comprised of inspirational stories by 19 other survivors of both abuse and assault (8 men and 11 women) who share what was most helpful and hurtful in their own recoveries. Besides empowering family and friends, You Can Help is a valuable asset for arming survivors in their battle against shame and is an important educational resource for professionals who work with trauma.
You Can Help enables readers to:
(1) BREAK THE SILENCE (silence is the biggest obstacle to recovery)
(2) LEARN about the complex consequences of sexual trauma, including PTSD
(3) ASSIST SURVIVORS in regaining trust, confidence, and joy...
Part Two is comprised of inspirational stories by 19 other survivors of both abuse and assault (8 men and 11 women) who share what was most helpful and hurtful in their own recoveries. Besides empowering family and friends, You Can Help is a valuable asset for arming survivors in their battle against shame and is an important educational resource for professionals who work with trauma.
You Can Help enables readers to:
(1) BREAK THE SILENCE (silence is the biggest obstacle to recovery)
(2) LEARN about the complex consequences of sexual trauma, including PTSD
(3) ASSIST SURVIVORS in regaining trust, confidence, and joy...
143 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 14, 2016
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 21, 2022
I saw this book recommended several times by various experts in an online discussion about resources for partners/friends/families of survivors. Interestingly, it is a self-published book by someone who is herself a survivor. The first half of the book is suggestions for how to be supportive of the survivor, while the second half is personal stories - I only read the first half, to get advice for myself, because there was a person I'd had concerns about, thinking they must be an abuse survivor or their behavior wouldn't have been so troubling and hurtful.
It's nice that such a book exists, but it did tend to somewhat gloss over the possibility of situations where a survivor's behavior can be hurtful to those who care about them, and it was focused more on just ways to help without being pushy. (If a survivor isn't ready to seek therapy on his own, being pushy about it will not help.) A caveat - one of the chapters talked about the positive power of praising the survivor, giving them compliments and so on. In my experience, the person I had concerns about did not like compliments - compliments just made them suspicious and uncomfortable. So I think some of the advice might not always apply in all situations, since everyone is different and processes trauma differently, but still, an encouraging read to get the sense that one isn't completely powerless to help.
It's nice that such a book exists, but it did tend to somewhat gloss over the possibility of situations where a survivor's behavior can be hurtful to those who care about them, and it was focused more on just ways to help without being pushy. (If a survivor isn't ready to seek therapy on his own, being pushy about it will not help.) A caveat - one of the chapters talked about the positive power of praising the survivor, giving them compliments and so on. In my experience, the person I had concerns about did not like compliments - compliments just made them suspicious and uncomfortable. So I think some of the advice might not always apply in all situations, since everyone is different and processes trauma differently, but still, an encouraging read to get the sense that one isn't completely powerless to help.
December 19, 2017
This is an excellent, compelling and compassionate look at how we can help our friends or family who have been sexually abused. The author, and the survivors' first hand accounts, do not dwell in the suffering but describe what worked for them as their families struggled to address the painful reality of sexual abuse and move toward healing.
"To those family and friends who have been negligent or worse, delinquent in your responses thus far, all is not lost. However, you need to be willing to repair the past if you seek to lovingly participate in the present. That means taking responsibility for misguided deeds and making amends. This is especially important if you have doubted the veracity of your loved one’s story."
"To those family and friends who have been negligent or worse, delinquent in your responses thus far, all is not lost. However, you need to be willing to repair the past if you seek to lovingly participate in the present. That means taking responsibility for misguided deeds and making amends. This is especially important if you have doubted the veracity of your loved one’s story."
October 1, 2021
Informative
The first part of the book with advice was perfect and helped out to understand the process. The second part of stories was great to understand some aspect of how the trauma is processed and recovery effort.
The first part of the book with advice was perfect and helped out to understand the process. The second part of stories was great to understand some aspect of how the trauma is processed and recovery effort.
May 28, 2017
A great book for family and friends who want to help a survivor of sexual abuse and assault. It is written so well and is a really easy read.
Want to Read
October 28, 2018FAKESPOT REVIEW GRADE: D
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews