Working with Adult Incest Survivors

Working with Adult Incest Survivors offers a successful, multidimensional approach to treatment - painstakingly developed and fine-tuned by the authors over a period of 15 years. This method, Comprehensive Family Therapy, combines pertinent elements of cognitive-behavioural, psychodynamic, and family treatment approaches and encompasses six clearly defined stages of treatment for individual survivors with an additional stage for those who are in committed relationships. Step by step, the volume takes the therapist from the initial stage of determining whether or not a particular patient is indeed an incest survivor, through a multitude of therapeutic techniques to normalize and alleviate symptomatology, and onward to prepare the survivor and partner for sessions with the family of origin. The next stage encompasses family sessions in which the survivor confronts the perpetrator, surviving parents, and siblings with the details of the abuse - and very importantly, beyond, to follow-up family sessions and contacts via letter with goals of reparation and resolution. The final stage includes couples and sex therapy in which the survivor and partner learn ways to overcome longstanding intimacy and sexual problems.