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Mending the Shattered Mirror: A Journey of Recovery from Abusive Therapy
"... I couldn't stop thinking about it. The book was hauntingly beautiful." K. E. Fleming " I love (this book) and was riveted page after page. I am in awe of Analie, as both a writer and survivor." D. N. Armintor " ... kept me reading into the wee hours of the night; I was that engrossed in the story." Chris Fischer for Readers' Favorite The phenomenal true story of one woman's struggle to regain her heart, soul, and sanity after being psychologically abused by a beloved therapist. A shocking account of a secret world of abuse that destroys the lives of many victims who are left defenseless and silent within a society that has no context to understand. A ground-breaking and important book! In 1960, three-year-old Analie’s mother fled violence from an alcoholic husband and found safety at her mother’s house. The five daughters shared one room, a lawn chair serving as a bed. "You are killing your mother!" their grandmother said, forbidding contact between the children and their mother. Overwhelming grief caused Analie’s psyche to split into seven personalities, “The Others.” Years passed. Analie, determined to achieve her dreams, graduated from college, married and had four beautiful children. Life was wonderful until her daughter revealed a dark family secret; Analie’s world crumbled. Seeking help, Analie began to see a well-respected psychologist. Within this therapy, Analie endured five years of unimaginable abuse and cruelty. Finally, able to leave the abusive therapist, Analie soon realizes finding a new therapist who will believe her shocking story and treat her with dignity and kindness, is next to impossible. In her struggle to find the help she needs, Analie endures alarming mistreatment and cruelty from a number of therapists. Through it all, Analie never gives up her struggle to find truth, within herself and for herself. A story of hope, courage and redemption. From the very first page, this inspirational story will enthrall you ... the conclusion of the book is amazingly beautiful and deeply satisfying.
296 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 26, 2017
18 people are currently reading
194 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 21, 2017
I was reluctant to start reading this book, it sat beside my bed for a long time. But I am glad I finally took the time to read this story about the journey through therapeutic abuse. When we think of trusting someone, like a counselor, with our upmost private thoughts and demons, we expect them to be there to help us through and see us achieve. However, this journey was nothing like this until she received the help and guidance through email then a friendship of trust was created. This story will rip your heart out and mend it all back together before you even finish the story. Kudos to Analie for sharing her amazing journey. I just hope this story will bring hope to others.
November 2, 2017
This is not only a difficult read, it is also a difficult thing to review. There are so many variables at the forefront here for me. I am not a therapist but I do have some experience from a standpoint of counselling, both as the client and as the counselor. As such to comment on the content would by and large be wrong, unethical if you will. I see and feel so much from reading these writings yet that is for my own self to process and no one else.
From a writing perspective, this is beautifully written. Clear and concise Ms. Shepherd's voice is strongly heard, and she has reiterated the voice of the many other 'characters' with compassion and empathy even though at times the content of the emails was less than pleasant.
I could not even imagine having to go through some of the struggles within myself that the author has been doing most of her adult life it seems. There is a quiet sense of peace the author portrays even though the majority of this work is very 'troubled.'
I must applaud Ms. Shepherd for putting herself 'out there' with the publication of this memoir, this I know all to well is an extremely difficult thing to do.
From a writing perspective, this is beautifully written. Clear and concise Ms. Shepherd's voice is strongly heard, and she has reiterated the voice of the many other 'characters' with compassion and empathy even though at times the content of the emails was less than pleasant.
I could not even imagine having to go through some of the struggles within myself that the author has been doing most of her adult life it seems. There is a quiet sense of peace the author portrays even though the majority of this work is very 'troubled.'
I must applaud Ms. Shepherd for putting herself 'out there' with the publication of this memoir, this I know all to well is an extremely difficult thing to do.
March 23, 2018
When I read what this book was about the description got my attention and decided to request it on Net Gallery.
This book goes back in forth constantly thoughout the book of exchanges between two people, Laurie and Ana in emails. Amazing to hear how people you go for help and professional help at that could take advantage of you. I don't know about you but I never heard of a doctor going to lunch with you or offering to let you borrow money, so yes this "doctor" went way over the bonds of patient care. I didn't understand all the I Love You's, hugging and hair petting.
This poor girl tried to cease seeing this doctor but only made it hard on her as the "doctor" would make it harder for her to see anyone else. That had to be very hard. It would take years to lead a normal life again and to understand that this was abuse. The emails between Laurie and Ana are heartwarming and it was nice to see their bond form and how they bought each other up emotional. I did learn a lot from their correspondence. Not only is this a eye-opening read about doctor abuse, it also can help in other abuse and can help you spot it. This "doctor: was overbearing, inappropriate, would refuse to see patient and crossed a lot of boundaries and also demanded money, My heart broke for both Ana and Laurie and their experiences. Thank you for sharing those experiences, how you dealt with it and the outcome.
There were so many things that jumped out at me in this book. I'll share one:
Verbal Abuse can drive a person to utter despair and life threatening desperation.
Isn't that the truth?
Thank you Net Gallery and BooksGoSocial.
Cherie'
This book goes back in forth constantly thoughout the book of exchanges between two people, Laurie and Ana in emails. Amazing to hear how people you go for help and professional help at that could take advantage of you. I don't know about you but I never heard of a doctor going to lunch with you or offering to let you borrow money, so yes this "doctor" went way over the bonds of patient care. I didn't understand all the I Love You's, hugging and hair petting.
This poor girl tried to cease seeing this doctor but only made it hard on her as the "doctor" would make it harder for her to see anyone else. That had to be very hard. It would take years to lead a normal life again and to understand that this was abuse. The emails between Laurie and Ana are heartwarming and it was nice to see their bond form and how they bought each other up emotional. I did learn a lot from their correspondence. Not only is this a eye-opening read about doctor abuse, it also can help in other abuse and can help you spot it. This "doctor: was overbearing, inappropriate, would refuse to see patient and crossed a lot of boundaries and also demanded money, My heart broke for both Ana and Laurie and their experiences. Thank you for sharing those experiences, how you dealt with it and the outcome.
There were so many things that jumped out at me in this book. I'll share one:
Verbal Abuse can drive a person to utter despair and life threatening desperation.
Isn't that the truth?
Thank you Net Gallery and BooksGoSocial.
Cherie'
July 29, 2018
WOW!, was an amazing book. I could not put it down. This true story by Analie Shephard exposes a long-standing problem that has plagued the field of psychiatry and through her own struggles we are able to view the dark side of the issue. The riveting book, 'Mending the Shattered Mirror' is an excellent look into the world as Analie Shephard sees it, feels it, lives it...One of my favorite emails is from Laurie, where she states..."You will certainly not do anything to upset me...because neither you, nor I, is nuts." What a wonderful thing to say and has such strong meaning.
The renderings throughout the book are stunning and reflects the authors view of 'The Others' in great detail. My very favorite picture is towards the latter part of the book reflecting Little Ana being held in a supportive hand, finally.
I also felt it was tremendously meditative when one of the emails was signed from 'Meagan & co.' and later an email simply stating 'I have a voice.' What a simple but strong statement for the author to make.
T cannot recommend this book highly enough! An excellent, intriguing true story that brought Analie Shephard to eventually get to the point where she could say..."...within my own heart, dwells the strength, joy, peace, compassion and love that I sought for so many years."
A heart-wrenching but excellent read!
July 8, 2020
Powerful message
This book is a heartbreaking story of the betrayal of trust. This true story with a series of email exchanges throughout the book, I thought it would not keep my attention very long but was surprised how engaging the story flowed. I have a better understanding of what victims are feeling and going through after reading your book. Thank you for bringing awareness and finding this a must read for those suffering.
This book is a heartbreaking story of the betrayal of trust. This true story with a series of email exchanges throughout the book, I thought it would not keep my attention very long but was surprised how engaging the story flowed. I have a better understanding of what victims are feeling and going through after reading your book. Thank you for bringing awareness and finding this a must read for those suffering.
July 30, 2018
A moving and accurate glimpse into what it's like to leave an abuser and the pain that goes hand in hand with healing.
July 29, 2023
I didn't like the format at all but the information is priceless!
February 18, 2017
I recevied a complimentary copy.
Let me clarify that I did not give this five stars because I like the topics or because it is exciting to read about someone's pain and rawness. I gave this five stars for the strength and honesty, for the openness the author pours into the book. It is one thing to be in a real life of horrors and another to gain the strength and boldness to share it for the world to chew and review. I do not think anyone ever really recovers from abuse but over time it becomes less about pain and more about healing.
Let me clarify that I did not give this five stars because I like the topics or because it is exciting to read about someone's pain and rawness. I gave this five stars for the strength and honesty, for the openness the author pours into the book. It is one thing to be in a real life of horrors and another to gain the strength and boldness to share it for the world to chew and review. I do not think anyone ever really recovers from abuse but over time it becomes less about pain and more about healing.
September 16, 2020
Review Rating:
5 stars!
Reviewed By Chris Fischer for Readers’ Favorite
Wow! Just, wow! That's exactly what I thought when I finished reading Mending the Shattered Mirror: A Journey of Recovery from Abuse in Therapy. This intriguing and horrifying true story of the abuse that author Analie Shepherd went through at the hands of her therapist kept me reading into the wee hours of the night; I was that engrossed in the story. Analie, a woman who suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly known as multiple personality disorder, sought the help of a therapist after suffering a terrible tragedy. What she found from her therapist, instead of help, was physical, verbal and emotional abuse. Finally freeing herself from this horrible person, she finds retired psychiatrist, Laurie, through an abuse survivor's support group, TELL. The book recounts their four-year email relationship and the healing that both women are able to achieve from the past wrongs they have suffered.
I loved Mending the Shattered Mirror: A Journey of Recovery from Abuse in Therapy. Loved. It. How's that for a review? Well, it is absolutely how I felt about this amazing book. This heart-wrenching story will definitely make you question the therapist and patient relationship, and realize how much harm a person with the wrong intentions in a helping profession can do to a vulnerable person. Author Analie Shepherd is clearly an amazing and resilient woman, and I thank her for being willing to share her very difficult story with the public. I could not give this book a higher recommendation, and I certainly hope that the author will consider writing a second volume that details her continuing life.
5 stars!
Reviewed By Chris Fischer for Readers’ Favorite
Wow! Just, wow! That's exactly what I thought when I finished reading Mending the Shattered Mirror: A Journey of Recovery from Abuse in Therapy. This intriguing and horrifying true story of the abuse that author Analie Shepherd went through at the hands of her therapist kept me reading into the wee hours of the night; I was that engrossed in the story. Analie, a woman who suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly known as multiple personality disorder, sought the help of a therapist after suffering a terrible tragedy. What she found from her therapist, instead of help, was physical, verbal and emotional abuse. Finally freeing herself from this horrible person, she finds retired psychiatrist, Laurie, through an abuse survivor's support group, TELL. The book recounts their four-year email relationship and the healing that both women are able to achieve from the past wrongs they have suffered.
I loved Mending the Shattered Mirror: A Journey of Recovery from Abuse in Therapy. Loved. It. How's that for a review? Well, it is absolutely how I felt about this amazing book. This heart-wrenching story will definitely make you question the therapist and patient relationship, and realize how much harm a person with the wrong intentions in a helping profession can do to a vulnerable person. Author Analie Shepherd is clearly an amazing and resilient woman, and I thank her for being willing to share her very difficult story with the public. I could not give this book a higher recommendation, and I certainly hope that the author will consider writing a second volume that details her continuing life.
April 2, 2017
What can you do if your therapist turns out to be abusive? Who can you tell? You can tell TELL, the Therapy Exploitation Link Line. Here’s the link to the link line, so you can tell TELL.
TELL is a resource, referral, and networking organization that seeks to help victims and survivors of exploitation by psychotherapists and other healthcare providers find the support and resources they will need to understand what has happened to them, take action, and heal.
I wouldn’t have known to tell you about TELL had I not been asked to review a book by one woman who turned to that organization for help in recovering from a psychotherapist gone bad. The book is Mending the Shattered Mirror: A Journey of Recovery from Abuse in Therapy by Analie Shepherd.
The book is a chronicle of Ms Shepherd’s journey into healing by way of an email correspondence with a volunteer from TELL. It has all the strengths and weaknesses of any epistolary memoir. You get the vivid, gripping immediacy of the two correspondents, while they discuss something off stage. There is no question about it, the author feels things deeply and the process you witness is majorly intense, but if you want an objective view of what happened, you have to read between the lines.
I wouldn’t necessarily recommend the book for psychotherapy patients who feel there is something not right about their therapist. They need to take a look at their own case more than at Analie Shepherd’s. But it would be good for those safely out of range of a therapy gone bad. I would definitely recommend it to therapists and therapy students as a case study from the client’s point of view. It’s easy for those of us who sit in the therapist’s chair to forget how powerful a relationship to a therapist can be for clients, how helpless they often are to our machinations, and how apocalyptic premature termination can feel.
What the book doesn’t do is explain how therapists go wrong. As far as Shepherd is concerned, there simply are good therapists and bad ones. She had a bad one, followed by at first others who weren't good enough to help her recover; then she found one who was. Being able to sort the good from the bad may be all Ms Shepherd and other clients need to know, but we therapists need to recognize how we go bad and what to do about it.
It needs to be said that Ms Shepard had a difficult mental condition to treat, one that would challenge the best therapist to remain effective and ethical. She presented with dissociative identity disorder (DID), commonly known as multiple personalities. When you’re a therapist and you find yourself treating DID, you’re sitting down with a squad of clients, all whom are demanding different things from you, some of whom you may not even be aware exist. The condition is simultaneously fascinating and frustrating, one that seems to be designed to lure, trap, and defeat you.
I’ve had a few such cases and was interested enough in DID to start to make it the subject of my master’s project. My study turned out to have more to do with clinicians’ reactions to the patients, than the condition itself. Countertransference, is our technical word for these reactions; the feelings a therapist has about the client, both positive and negative. I developed a psychological measure called the countertransference identification scale, had some therapists use the instrument, and analyzed the results.
I assumed that the positive feelings of love, fascination, concern, affiliation, and compassion would be inversely related to the negative feelings of anger, fear, disgust, frustration, and lust. In other words, I thought I’d find that the more you like a client, the less likely you were to hurt him. What I discovered was surprising. Therapists who had strong positive feelings were the same as the ones with strong negative feelings. The difference was not between those therapists who felt positive towards their clients and those who had negative feelings; the difference was between those who felt strongly and those who did not feel at all.
This makes sense, if you think about it. You’re the most angry at the people you love. It’s the ones you are the most interested in that you are more likely to take advantage of. This is exactly the kind of relationship Ms Shepherd had with her first therapist. It started off being very close, but then turned abusive and controlling.
Both her story and my research suggest that the very thing you might expect from a therapist: to show interest and care for you, increases the likelihood of abuse. It means that the moment your therapist gives you unbelievable love and support and promises to correct the injuries of your childhood by re-parenting you, it’s time to head for the hills.
Keith Wilson writes on mental health and relationship issues on his blog, Madness 101
TELL is a resource, referral, and networking organization that seeks to help victims and survivors of exploitation by psychotherapists and other healthcare providers find the support and resources they will need to understand what has happened to them, take action, and heal.
I wouldn’t have known to tell you about TELL had I not been asked to review a book by one woman who turned to that organization for help in recovering from a psychotherapist gone bad. The book is Mending the Shattered Mirror: A Journey of Recovery from Abuse in Therapy by Analie Shepherd.
The book is a chronicle of Ms Shepherd’s journey into healing by way of an email correspondence with a volunteer from TELL. It has all the strengths and weaknesses of any epistolary memoir. You get the vivid, gripping immediacy of the two correspondents, while they discuss something off stage. There is no question about it, the author feels things deeply and the process you witness is majorly intense, but if you want an objective view of what happened, you have to read between the lines.
I wouldn’t necessarily recommend the book for psychotherapy patients who feel there is something not right about their therapist. They need to take a look at their own case more than at Analie Shepherd’s. But it would be good for those safely out of range of a therapy gone bad. I would definitely recommend it to therapists and therapy students as a case study from the client’s point of view. It’s easy for those of us who sit in the therapist’s chair to forget how powerful a relationship to a therapist can be for clients, how helpless they often are to our machinations, and how apocalyptic premature termination can feel.
What the book doesn’t do is explain how therapists go wrong. As far as Shepherd is concerned, there simply are good therapists and bad ones. She had a bad one, followed by at first others who weren't good enough to help her recover; then she found one who was. Being able to sort the good from the bad may be all Ms Shepherd and other clients need to know, but we therapists need to recognize how we go bad and what to do about it.
It needs to be said that Ms Shepard had a difficult mental condition to treat, one that would challenge the best therapist to remain effective and ethical. She presented with dissociative identity disorder (DID), commonly known as multiple personalities. When you’re a therapist and you find yourself treating DID, you’re sitting down with a squad of clients, all whom are demanding different things from you, some of whom you may not even be aware exist. The condition is simultaneously fascinating and frustrating, one that seems to be designed to lure, trap, and defeat you.
I’ve had a few such cases and was interested enough in DID to start to make it the subject of my master’s project. My study turned out to have more to do with clinicians’ reactions to the patients, than the condition itself. Countertransference, is our technical word for these reactions; the feelings a therapist has about the client, both positive and negative. I developed a psychological measure called the countertransference identification scale, had some therapists use the instrument, and analyzed the results.
I assumed that the positive feelings of love, fascination, concern, affiliation, and compassion would be inversely related to the negative feelings of anger, fear, disgust, frustration, and lust. In other words, I thought I’d find that the more you like a client, the less likely you were to hurt him. What I discovered was surprising. Therapists who had strong positive feelings were the same as the ones with strong negative feelings. The difference was not between those therapists who felt positive towards their clients and those who had negative feelings; the difference was between those who felt strongly and those who did not feel at all.
This makes sense, if you think about it. You’re the most angry at the people you love. It’s the ones you are the most interested in that you are more likely to take advantage of. This is exactly the kind of relationship Ms Shepherd had with her first therapist. It started off being very close, but then turned abusive and controlling.
Both her story and my research suggest that the very thing you might expect from a therapist: to show interest and care for you, increases the likelihood of abuse. It means that the moment your therapist gives you unbelievable love and support and promises to correct the injuries of your childhood by re-parenting you, it’s time to head for the hills.
Keith Wilson writes on mental health and relationship issues on his blog, Madness 101
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews