Baffled by Love: Stories of the Lasting Impact of Childhood Trauma Inflicted by Loved Ones

by Laurie Kahn

For three decades, Laurie Kahn has treated clients who were abused as children people who were injured by someone whom they believed to be trustworthy, someone who professed to love them. Their abusers a father, stepfather, priest, coach, babysitter, aunt, neighbor often were people who inhabited their daily lives. Love is why they come to therapy. Love is what they want, and love is what they say is not going well for them.
Kahn, too, had to learn to navigate a wilderness in order to find the good kind of love after a rocky childhood. In Baffled by Love, she includes strands from her own story, along with those of her clients, creating a narrative full of resonance, meaning, and shared humanity."

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Memoir, Relationships, Mental Health, Health

272 pages, Paperback

Published June 6, 2017

About the author

Laurie Kahn MA, LCPC, MFA is a pioneer in the field of trauma treatment. For more than 30 years, Laurie has specialized in the treatment of survivors of childhood abuse. In 1980, she founded Womencare Counseling and Training Center. Since then, her ideas and expertise have served both people who have experienced childhood abuse, as well as hundreds of clinicians who have graduated from her Trauma Consultation Training Program (Chicago’s largest postgraduate training program for mental health practitioners who work with traumatic stress disorders.)

Laurie’s most salient contribution to the field is the concept of child abuse as specifically a traumatic experience of love. She introduced this concept in 2006 in an article in the Journal of Trauma Practice. She is a frequent presenter at workshops, panels, pre-institutes and conferences, including the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS), International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD), and the Institute on Violence, Abuse and Trauma (IVAT).

She has organized and chaired several conferences, including “Disorders of Love” in collaboration with Carol Gilligan and "Trauma and Recovery" with Judith Lewis Herman. In 1996, Laurie was honored to speak at the First African Conference on Post Traumatic Stress in South Africa, just after the formation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Laurie's personal essays have been published in anthologies, and her articles and book reviews in professional journals.

In 2010, Laurie completed an MFA in Creative Nonfiction at Goucher College. In Baffled by Love, she uses her passion for storytelling to share her understanding of child abuse as a traumatic experience of love, and how its damage can be repaired.

Reviews

[Jodi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating perspective. This book is a much-needed reminder for all of us to extend grace to those around us, for we cannot know the brokenness that others may be experiencing. Healing is real, and love is the only true remedy.

[M.C. Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’ been s a long time since a non-fiction book captured my entire attention so deeply. Around me, there is silence. I look at the book covers which I just closed, and the outside silence almost scratched my ears. And inside… inside there’s a storm.

The book in front of my eyes had given birth to vivid feelings in me. I’ve just read a book about LOVE. But…

Not the type of fairy tale love where they lived happily ever after. It’s a book about corrupt models of love, a book about how love can be killed.

The weight of the author’s words immersed my mind and heart into a new world. An unfamiliar world. Unfortunately… a real world. About the cruel reality. Filled with frustrations. Able to stop your breath while reading. Making you wonder how can a human being exist on such a low spiritual level. A level filled with traumas, twisted relations and hard to bear feelings.

It is the world of childhood abuse.

“Love is why they come to therapy. Love is what they want, and love, they report, is not going well.” The book contains true stories which, Laurie Kahn, the author, detailed perfectly. Not only because, as a therapist, she had access at her client’s traumas. But also because she’s intertwining her own stories about love gone wrong.

If you want to read a great book about the earthen reality, I strongly recommend you let this author whisper to your heart. She tells about all those people who should have loved and protected her clients… a father, stepfather, priest, coach, babysitter, aunt, neighbor… Who are in fact, those who frightened and abused them.

“At times, we are all baffled by love.”

If I could give more than a five-star review, believe me, I would.

[Stephanie Barko · Rating 5 out of 5]

These stories were written for lay people and for therapists--for lay people to be able to better lead their own lives and for helping professionals to consider framing child abuse as traumatic attachment. The author, who runs Womencare Counseling Center near Chicago, effectively weaves her own experience of childhood trauma in as one of the stories.

I am not a therapist and cannot say whether the book adds to the previously published body of work on trauma. However, I can say that the stories are a compelling and thoughtful exploration of what some of us have lived through to become the broken or whole adults we are today. The stories made me both grateful for the childhood that I had and compassionate for the isolation I endured as a kid.

These stories will continue the author's lifelong intention to make a difference in the world.

Recommended for Boomers, Millennials, mothers and expectant mothers.

[Micki Peluso · Rating 5 out of 5]

BAFFLED BY LOVE

Stories of the Lasting Impact of Childhood Trauma Inflicted by Loved Ones

By LAURIE KAHN

“Love is why they come to therapy

Love is what they want

And love is what they say is not going well for them”

The basis of this outstanding non-fiction is love. It is the core of the book; the beginning, middle and end of the story. It’s also destructive by causing deep-seated pain and suffering to children and adults of all ages. The author, 'a pioneer in the field of trauma for 30 years' writes . . . "therapy, at its best, is a story about the repair of love—the restoration of the capacity to love and be loved.” Laurie Kahn's patients, men and women of all ages, come from various occupations and situations. Each has a different trauma, needing the healing medicine of love. And each relates their childhood trauma in myriad ways.

According to author/psychotherapist, Laurie Kahn, these ‘walking wounded’ come to her looking for answers to questions many cannot even grasp. In most cases the abuses are not the violent attacks of rape (with some exception), but rather the seductive, manipulative abuse by parents, family members, priests, babysitters, a coach, teacher or friendly neighbor—the very people who should love and protect them. And in their sick or demented way many do love their victims. As difficult as recovery from violent sexual abuse is, recovering from abuse inflicted by and with love can be as bad, or worse and take longer recovery. Laurie Kahn’s clients come to her to tell their individual stories.

What I find most remarkable is that Laurie slips in flashes of her own childhood traumas throughout the book as well . . . to the reader, never her clients. As a victim of childhood abuse, I find this both fascinating and incredible. As a therapist of great repute, Laurie leads her victims to self-discovery and wellness, even those who may need years of therapy. As a victim herself, who better can understand the destruction this type of abuse causes? Surely it lies as deeply in her subconscious mind as her clients, which as this book shows, can be an asset for both client and therapist.

One client, Kristy, (all client names are changed) comes to see her but is so skittish that she cannot be spoken to or speak herself. Instead, she makes two yellow paper flowers and lays them side by side. This is her ‘code,’ her way of trying to open up to Laurie.

Jessica, at eighteen, tries to report her abuse to her friend’s mother, but becomes mute and faints. Later, at the hospital, a therapist treating her falls in love with and has sex with her. He meant well, though breaking the code of ethics, and married her. Jessica comes to Laurie, realizes she was used again and discovers she now has choices she can make.

Another client, Dan, must be handled with utmost care, as Dan’s emotions are mixed up and intertwined, causing him to make a play for his therapist. Laurie uses her special skills to direct his feelings in a healthy way.

Baffled by Love is an extraordinary book, in that it’s made up of true stories about real people who are healing through love therapy. Everyone who has experienced childhood abuse and trauma will benefit from this book. I did not understand why I never felt loved, even though as an adult I have a large family that deeply love me. Now I understand. Those not having been abused need to read this book in order to be on high alert for abuse done to their loved ones. This type of abuse is particularly insidious and often the blame and guilt is placed on the victim.

Laurie Kahn’s credentials and talent as a debut author equal her abilities as a renowned trainer of psychotherapists, as her following words state so perfectly:

“Behind every first book there are angels who blow on your wings until you can fly.”

This author has her wings and then some!

Micki Peluso; author of . . . And The Whippoorwill Sang

[Barbara Bamberger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Baffled by Love - Stories of Lasting Impact of Childhood Trauma Inflicted by Loved Ones
Laurie Kahn
She Writes Press

Review by Barbara Bamberger Scott

Psychotherapist Laurie Kahn has daringly taken on the sorrows, anger and fears of women who, like herself, were mistreated as children by those they trusted most: “I got sick like many of my clients become sick. It is a sickness that comes from secrets unspoken…of losing your voice to protect yourself.”

Correlating events in her own life to those of her clients—victims of childhood sexual abuse—Kahn has composed a work that is painful at times to read, but extremely important to understand. Her clients were betrayed by their parents, their closest family and those who should have been confidantes in time of trouble. She demonstrates that those who have experienced this break in the bonds of love find it nearly impossible to love as adults. One client states that the worst aspect of calling it quits with her current partner will be having to leave the cat, illustrating that those who have been abused find a way of separating out their feelings in order to avoid further vulnerability. One of her consultations was with a woman who was so afraid of interaction that she arrived as late as possible to appointments so she couldn’t be seen and scrutinized in the waiting room. This woman, whose mother had been cold and inattentive and whose father by contrast introduced her to art and literature, suddenly blurted out during a session, “Imagine how special it is to have sex with the person whose sperm created you.” It would take years of therapy before Kahn could make her see that, far from being “special,” she was hurt and exploited by her father.

The stories presented by this experienced counselor may shock those who have never known the kinds of manipulation, ill-treatment and in some cases violence that Kahn’s patients were forced to endure when most innocent and susceptible. For those readers, advocacy can emerge as a positive aftereffect, as it did for Kahn, who states that she had not originally intended to include her story in this book, but did so, the reader will doubtless agree, courageously, in order to inspire.

For readers who have been through what Kahn and her clients describe, there may be revelations, some form of closure, in identifying with others who have endured the same plight. Kahn writes empathetically about her patients, while recalling her means of dealing with the sexual misbehavior in her own family. She tenderly writes about her own sense of resolution with her aging mother, finally realizing that both of them had had losses and lacks to deal with.

Combining memoir and professional observation, Baffled by Love stands out as a personalized examination of familial sexual abuse as a form of trauma that needs to be treated with recognition of the unique damage that it does.

[Lisl · Rating 5 out of 5]

How does one explain the reality of cruelty perpetrated by humans onto other people? More baffling would be an encounter with statistics that indicate victims of violence often know their abusers. Worse still wouldn’t even be realizing that many of the traumatized are the most vulnerable of our citizens—children—but rather that those who hurt them so badly are the very people meant to cherish and protect them: authority figures such as parents, relatives, neighbors, coaches, babysitters. The understandings they develop of the world and how to function as part of it are learned within the context of their violent upbringings and brought to bear on every relationship they subsequently enter into. Without intervention, the dysfunctions that set the stage of their personalities—coping methods, interpersonal communication and more—can negatively impact their broader life in the present as well as far into the future.

Laurie Kahn, a psychotherapist in practice since three decades, brings us through some of the dark places individuals have traversed in Baffled by Love: Stories of the Lasting Impact of Childhood Trauma Inflicted by Loved Ones. These are re-tellings of childhoods disturbed, interrupted and robbed by sexual and other violence, emotional manipulation and “corrupt models of love.” As adults, Kahn’s clients couldn’t form healthy intimate relationships because what they understood to be love was actually a set of circumstances that crippled their abilities in love and other arenas.

This failure to know love can prove debilitating…Love is the pathway to connections with others; it is the key to our humanity. Love breeds compassion, and it sustains us in the face of adversity. Love creates meaning in our lives. Without empathy or compassion for others, you can harm others and feel little or no regret. Children who are deprived of love have two difficult choices: yearn for love or succumb to numbing indifference and contempt for others.

Lovelessness is excruciating in its banality. It robs a child of her vitality. It leaves no physical welts or scars, just a devastating, enduring emptiness. Lovelessness has no language, poetry, or music. It is unnamed, hidden from view and disabling.

Kahn’s discussion of each chapter is set up within a framework introducing a client or a particular angle that lays out a concept she expertly deconstructs and subsequently pieces together before our eyes as a means to illustrate how people’s lives are affected by what they have endured. However, the author doesn’t merely present case studies and pair the experiences with smart summaries of what went wrong, nor is her picking apart of life details shrouded in psychologist talk that—as I have often found elsewhere—makes sense individually but loses me under the weight of its numerous detail of theories, labels and pathologies.

Instead Kahn focuses on her clients’ humanity, often enabling our understanding in ways as simple as identifying what was lost and how that negatively impacts now, when the individual needs the foundation of such typical experiences to proceed in a constructive manner. In so doing the author displays her storytelling prowess, perhaps exercised even more brilliantly given these are not “stories” in the manner of which we are accustomed to discussing them. Respectful in how she handles each person, she lays out the scenes, interactions between herself and a client, perhaps, or someone may narrate or act out a memory—providing openings into angles she simultaneously discusses. One of Kahn’s most succinct passages illustrates the concept of what she calls “damaged danger detectors”:

Wendy was raised believing that the world was a dangerous place, and that family provided love and comfort. The abuse and neglect she experienced and witnessed in her family left her with no way to assess who was safe and who was not.

It points to what many of us hear about regarding any family dynamic, negative or positive: what the child grows within is what he or she perceives as normal, with the added handicap of mistaking other abusive behavior for caring, or inability to recognize warning signs in later relationships and, tragically, falling into the trap of serial victimhood.

Also a major part of how Kahn sets up her topic is by opening herself up as well to what we see. Alternating chapters move into the memoir, a condition, she writes, that “mortifies” her. It pairs, however, with another approach she utilizes, that of searing honesty within her counselor-client relationships that results in self-reflection, specifically as to the emotions she feels that unsettle her the most. With adroitness she addresses the relationship between the traditional therapeutic ideal of distance, not getting too close to clients, and trauma survivors’ greatest fear of triggering their therapists’ withdrawal.

As the book proceeds, all of this is wrapped amongst each other, nestled with details of her clients’ and Kahn’s own childhoods, as it exposes a reality that these lessons—repeatedly taught and learned by the author in her counseling role—can provide benefit to those outside of these scenarios as well. Honest self-reflection enables us to love ourselves better as we are even if we simultaneously, silently, admit there is much room for improvement, and provides compassion toward others and the ability to grow this sort of love. In this way and others Kahn keeps Baffled by Love from becoming, at its heart, an exercise in voyeurism. Instead, she enables us as humans to travel through this life with a better set of luggage, packed with tools that strengthen our self-respect as well as regard for the myriad ways in which we and those others who occupy any given moment with us got there, and move forward together.

While not the easiest book to read given its content, Baffled by Love nevertheless is also not a mere litany of abuse. Kahn explores ways to find healing, to discover a productive love, all within writing so smooth and pleasing we hardly realize we are, in some instances, also being instructed. Her varied angles are threaded together impressively, creating a smooth tapestry, powerful in its representation of histories and touching in its willingness to be vulnerable for the sake of others. With something to offer a wide audience, even those without the issues her clients faced, it is a worthy read that transcends other accounts of the healing of broken love.

[Angie Mangino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Baffled By Love
By Laurie Kahn
2017
Reviewed by Angie Mangino
Rating: 4 stars

In the introduction the author, a trauma therapist who specializes in the treatment of survivors of childhood abuse, informs readers of the substance of this book.

“When they were children, my clients were abused by someone they believed to be trustworthy – someone who professed to love them. … Love is why they come to therapy. Love is what they want, and love, they report, is not going well.”

In these true stories of her clients, Kahn shows their struggle and resolve to unearth what prevents them from loving and being loved. In writing their story an element of memoir creeps in unexpectedly for the author.

“Yet over time I came to realize that intertwining my own stories with my clients’ was more honest and human. …At times, we are all baffled by love.”

This honesty and humanity gives the book its greatest strength. Readers are not reading clinical problems, but rather are involved with the personal look at the interaction of therapist and clients. By getting to know and relate to the people, perhaps discovering bits of themselves in the process, readers find that they need not be “baffled by love.”


Angie Mangino currently works as a freelance journalist and book reviewer, additionally offering authors personalized critique service and copyediting of unpublished manuscripts. http://www.angiemangino.com

[Carla Pineda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was not an especially easy book to read yet I could not put it down. Laurie Kahn is a pioneer in the field of trauma therapy and knows her subject well. In Baffled by Love: Stories of the Lasting Impact of Childhood Trauma Inflicted by Loved Ones she tells the stories of her clients who experienced love in ways painful and traumatic. Yet, they still long for and search for the "good" kind of love we all long for. What makes this book different from others I have read about this topic is that Laurie has woven threads of her own story into the narrative. Her knowledge of the topic (she founded the Womancare Counseling and Training Center in 1980), her deep connection and commitment to her clients, and the transparency of her own story makes for a powerful read. Laurie has told these stories, adding to the ongoing body of work in this area, and she has told them from her heart. This is rare in a book of this genre. I highly recommend it.

[Noelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm honestly at a loss on how to write how I feel..... This book was profoundly moving. I'm so grateful for the emotionally taxing work Laurie does and that she shared a piece of it with us. As someone who suffered childhood trauma, it's always very healing to feel seen/understood. As an inspiring therapist, I feel even more inspired.

Thank you Laurie.

[Sheila Trask · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great author coming out of She Writes Press!

Part professional case study, part personal memoir, Baffled by Love is a compassionate and honest look at the impact of childhood trauma on adult relationships. Kahn lets us into the therapy room, the group process, and most hearteningly, her own life, where we learn what it's like to be brought up with love that doesn't look like love.

Kahn's extensive professional experience working with trauma mixes beautifully with a careful, and not always comfortable, analysis of her own upbringing and how it affected her dating life, marriages, and motherhood. All the while, her patients' stories shine a light on the steps traumatized people can take to repair the damage done and learn a new way to love.

[Lee Gooden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Baffled by Love:Stories of the Lasting Impact of Childhood Trauma Inflicted by Loved Ones
Written by, Laurie Kahn
SWP She Writes Press
254 pages


I did not want to like Laurie Kahn’s book Baffled By Love. I despise self-help books and so-called psychology books. I abhor New Age crap recycled and disguised as self-help books. 
I also hate books that rip open the Pandora’s box that is my psyche to its raw and beating heart and then, while plunging down into me further, it triggers and stirs up deep seated and deep seeded memories grown in the rancid slurry of my past traumas. Afterwards, useless to everyone, I am a quivering hot mess that needs time to make sense of the onrush of my mixed emotions and thoughts. 
So, I approached Baffled by Love with much trepidation. During the first read, I asked myself, who is Laurie Kahn and can I trust her? Has she been there? Does she know and understand trauma and shame? Is she the real deal? And then, I read a passage where Kahn writes about how she identifies with her client “Wendy’s” defenses and how they started forming when she was a child. Kahn writes, “Wendy reminds me of the kids I knew when I worked in group homes who wore distrust like a badge of honor…I remember the secret pride I felt as a child when I hid my pain and loneliness from others.”
Interconnected with the stories of the clients she’s treated, she shares her own backstory. Kahn writes of her own experiences of family dysfunction and abuse. Initially, with my ingrained skepticism, I could not help but think of the old Hair Club for Men commercial for balding men. The commercial where Sy Sperling, the supposed president of the Hair Club for Men reveals that not only is he the president, but he is also a client. But, Kahn is not a barker or a sales person for her book. As a survivor of abuse, Kahn not only consults but continues to commiserate with her clients, sharing more about her childhood, how in her innocence she accepted dysfunction as a norm. She writes, “…My distress remained a mystery. I did not know what was wrong with me; I did not know why I was angry or why I had random fits of crying. I did not know why I felt like an outsider…I did not understand the loneliness that was my constant companion.”
Empathy exudes from her lyrical prose. She strongly believes in speaking about the things that we, the abused and traumatized, for so long were told to keep a secret. Baffled by Love invites readers who were abused to be witnesses and advocate for themselves, letting their own damaged psyches scream out and be heard. Kahn writes, “Trauma is hard to speak about. But stories unshared don’t disappear, they return in relationships, silently taking prisoners…Telling your story to a compassionate witness…can be healing.”
Baffled By Love exposed my psyche’s raw and beating heart, but it did so slowly and gently, removing my layers of defenses one thin skin layer at a time. Kahn takes the reader on their own personal journey. She holds their hand. She lets them go at their own pace, showing and sharing her strength and vulnerability at the same time. She writes, “The thing about treating trauma is the behaviors that appear odd, discordant, or startling often have a context, a story. But the context takes time to emerge.”
Kahn is an innovator in trauma treatment for over thirty years. Her expertise is in the treatment of survivors of childhood abuse. Where many books written about trauma and abuse are from an aloof and cold clinician’s eye, Kahn’s writing is like the prose in a literary novel. It is is poetic and enticing, a difficult feat considering the subject matter. I fell in love with her and her “characters”. I was glad that she and  some of her clients had supposed happy resolutions. Although I found Baffled by Love cathartic, I was sad when the book ended, a bitter sweet sadness, like saying goodbye to close friends that made you a better person.

—L

[Grady · Rating 5 out of 5]

Infliction and reparation

Author/therapist/humanist Laurie Kahn is one of the leading experts in the field of trauma treatment. For more than 30 years, Laurie has specialized in the treatment of survivors of childhood abuse. Among her important contributions to her field is the concept of child abuse as specifically a traumatic experience of love, a concept she introduced in 2006 in an article in the Journal of Trauma Practice. She is a frequent presenter at workshops, panels, pre-institutes and conferences, including the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS), International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD), and the Institute on Violence, Abuse and Trauma (IVAT).

Laurie is also a keen weaver of stories and she loans that aspect of her multifaceted talents to the creation of this important book – BAFFLED BY LOVE - using this gift to share her understanding of child abuse as a traumatic experience of love, and how its damage can be repaired.

In her telling Introduction she states, ‘When they were children, my clients were abused by someone they believed to be trustworthy—someone who professed to love them. Their wounds are often invisible to an untrained eye. And they blend in. They are social workers, teachers, lawyers. They are students, single fathers, at-home mothers who attend yoga classes. They vary by age, class, culture, and sexual orientation. Love is why they come to therapy. Love is what they want, and love, they report, is not going well. Early and ongoing abuse harmed my clients’ self-esteem, causing symptoms of post-traumatic stress and feelings of undeserved shame that they carry like phantom limbs. What they have in common is damage to their capacity to create intimate and loving relationships. Their abusers—a father, stepfather, priest, coach, babysitter, aunt, neighbor—are usually people who inhabited their daily lives. Maybe their abuser introduced them to the pleasures of Beethoven and Mozart, or taught them how to ride a bicycle. They offered love when caring was otherwise in short supply.’

And that in essence is the message of this immensely important book. Love – and all of its manifestations and at times thwarted intentions. Best advice? Read this book slowly and repeatedly – especially if there is a needy mind in your life.

[Dev · Rating 5 out of 5]

I ordered this book from the library and it was written with such thoughtfulness and kindness that I am using some of my VERY limited funds to actually purchase it. I want to highlight passages and annotate on my reread. It resonated on a soul-level.
With gut-punching beautiful sentences that spoke my truth, such as 'Lovelessness is excruciating in its banality' and 'A survivor's past teaches her that relationships are a source of betrayal, not of comfort' I felt seen, heard, and cared for.
This was the first book on trauma that I have read where, with almost every chapter, I found things to be like 'wow, that's me'. So much of it was relatable. And it was written with such a depth of compassion and love that is often lacking from material on these topics. So many times I have tried to find something to speak to what I have gone through and have been presented with cold facts meant to distance the author from the subject. Books or papers that hide behind impersonality marketed as 'professionalism'.
That was not the case with this book or this author. Not at all. It was clear that she knew what she was talking about from experience, but her humanity was also very apparent.
Informative, genuine, heartfelt, kind, and hopeful. Will be reading again. And soon.
Literally as soon as I get a copy I don't have to return to the library.

[Beth Holzhauer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This gutsy and brilliant book blends both literary art and clinical wisdom to produce a work that is compelling and compassionate. Ms. Kahn uses unadorned, but gently told, true stories of how cruel and horrific distortions, and the numbing absence of love, injure and maim the psyches and relational road maps of the young child. The book masterfully weaves together psychological theory, snapshots of therapy sessions, and personal memoir to take the reader on a journey into the mind and heart of this gifted therapist. The author also demonstrates how authentic love, with all its missteps and stumblings, apologies and reconciliations, tenderness and joy, can heal and restore human connection and belonging.
This is not just a book for clinicians! – although I highly recommend it to both the emerging and seasoned therapist alike. This is a book for all readers who want to be deeply moved and changed by the power of story, and inspired by the tenacity of the human heart.

[Mary Jo Doig · Rating 5 out of 5]

This tenderly written memoir is about a therapist who, for thirty years, has worked with children and adults wounded by trauma in their early lives. Laurie Kahn is a warm and wise woman who provides sensitive care to her patients as well as teaches us much about love. We learn the many ways in which lack of love can wound, how a very good professional can heal those wounds, given time and patience; and that even a parent who is "just okay" can raise a healthy child if the child can depend on and know the parent is always there for the child.

In absorbing case study after case study, Kahn shows us how fragile the patient-therapist relationship can be, particularly at first and perhaps for a long while; that when the environment of a trusting relationship grows between therapist and patient, healing can begin to happen, albeit in a sometimes bumpy pathway. Overall, I found the precious jewels of kindness, compassion, and dedication in this book along with the treasure of hope. I unreservedly recommend "Baffled by Love" for professionals and for those contemplating and/or in the journey of healing, as well as those who have completed that profound work.

[Fate's Lady · Rating 3 out of 5]

This year I took in a teenager who has been neglected and/or emotionally abused his entire life. He's deeply traumatized, and when I saw this book, I expected that it would provide insight, advice, or at least encouragement. What I actually got was more akin to "chicken soup for the adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse's soul" mixed in with a memoir of the therapist and get relation to her own personal trauma. It's moving, but ultimately it feels like it lacks depth despite the gravity of the topic. It focuses almost exclusively on women (and one our two men, briefly mentioned) who are learning to be less broken adults after having survived sexual trauma as children, rather than on how to recognize and help children we might know in our own lives who are suffering through trauma, sexual or otherwise.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked the way the writer, intertwined her own experience with childhood abuse. As a survivor of childhood abuse, I fully understand how difficult it is to overcome and trust people. I have survived but, always in the back of my mind I question, if I am making the right decisions as it relates to people. It is often easier to be alone than deal with the difficulty of trust. "Tales cloaked in denial have gentler story lines, their characters more pleasing. But denial makes us and our children vulnerable, destroying our ability to distinguish malevolence from benevolence. There is much at stake." I believe this excerpt from the book sums it up beautifully. The tales are eery reminders that many have suffered, we do not know all or who has, we should be patient with people.

[Jan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Baffled by Love. Ah, aren’t we all? But Laurie Kahn masterfully faces this “baffling” with honesty, vulnerability, respect, intelligence, compassion, and careful regard. As a trauma therapist for some 40 years, Kahn weaves the stories of her patients who have been sexually abused as children with memories of her own childhood. As children, all these stories begin in the distorted and corrupt notions of what it means to love and be loved, while the book chronicles the complex and uneven reparative journey toward healing for Kahn's patients and for herself. Profound and powerful. It is definitely worth investing the emotional energy to read it.

[Cathy Zane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fabulous book on a difficult subject. Like Kahn, I am a psychotherapist and childhood trauma survivor who has worked for the past two decades with children and youth who have suffered trauma. Kahn's interweaving of her own story with those of her clients made this book read like a novel -- and hard to put down. Her compassion, courage, and vulnerability both as an author and therapist shine through. It should be required reading for all therapists, but will be equally accessible to anyone who wants to understand more about the impact of trauma and the incredible resilience and courage involved in healing.

[Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this this book. It was compelling and a surprisingly quick, easy read. The author skillfully weaves together stories of clients healing from childhoods full of distorted ideas about love, her own personal story learning about love, her experience of the past 30 years as a psychotherapist working with trauma survivors, and she writes about it all beautifully. It was incredibly instructive and inspiring to read as a clinician, but one doesn't have to be a therapist to read it. This is a phenomenal book.

[Sippy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book can be a little disturbing in some ways. The focus is on sexual abuse, but is also very much about attachment, trust, love, attunement or the lack thereof. At times it can be a little anxiety provoking and might trigger some people. Not for the fainthearted. It ends hopeful. Maybe moreso than is realistic for some. Pity the pages weren't added to the book, so I wasn't able to update and write notes on the go...

[Lily · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. The opening chapters alone make me very concerned about this author's boundaries with her clients, both in the session excerpts and the fact that it does not clarify (at least in the beginning) that she asked for their permission to write out their lives and trauma histories in explicit detail and/or changed identifying information. The whole book, written in large part about her clients' lives, feels very exploitative to me. Would not recommend.

[Rae Lewis-Thornton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is Amazing... As an adult survivor of childhood abuse both sexual and physical it gave great insight on how trauma impacts you later in life... through real stories the author illuminates the spaces that need to be healed... I didn’t want to put it down... it is heavy but manageable. It may trigger survivors...

[Shulamis Chava · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laurie masterfully weaves her experiences as a professional and her personal affairs to construct an image that is both shocking and palatable. I find that her vulnerability and specificity in descriptions of her thoughts, feelings, and actions goes beyond flowery illustrations. They offer her core to the reader, allowing for messages that resonate and incur a confrontation with the self.

[Carmen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing in depth explanation of child abuse and why it may be difficult to approach someone in need of help who has been abused. Love the different patient accounts including the author own inscription!

[Alyssa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, transparent read - Laurie gives us not only insight into the lives of her clients, but her own life as well. Sometimes difficult to read, the stories of the men and women in this book are the stories that we often hide, which is why it was so intriguing and honest a book.

[Jenny Zabrocki · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is top notch. Non fiction and primarily of interest to me because it relates to my profession, but even so, there is a beautiful understanding here of the impact to children who are hurt by those who should love them. Highly recommend if you have any interest in this area.

[Foxglow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Told with depth and compassion. For those of us who suffered childhood trauma, a breath of fresh air.

[Kelsey Hoeper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely incredible.

[Zu Y · Rating 4 out of 5]

Left a deep thoughts in me. Thanks Laurie for writing this book.