Transforming Trauma: A Guide to Understanding and Treating Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse

I am a physican and mentalhealth professional, and I was found the book to be one of the better books on the subject because, for the first time, brought you into the mind set of the perpetrators AND the victims. However, the first half of the book, that deals with the perpetrators, was disturbing mainly bc the quotes the various perpetrators. The quote where simply chilling. I caution anyone reading this book, bc the quote alone could cause vicarious trauma in the reader.

I read the chapter about the after effects of sadistic sexual abuse and non-sadistic sexual abuse (after searching all over for a book that addresses this aspect of child abuse). The examples were horrifying, so I do not recommend this book to everyone. This is one of the few books on sexual abuse that talks about sadistic abuse, and as a survivor I know how important it is to understand the unique effects of this kind of sexual abuse. Reading this chapter helped me to understand the motivations behind the cruel acts that were committed against me, and the after effects that I experience. I could see myself in both the survivors of sadistic abuse and non-sadistic abuse because I was abused in both ways at different times during my life. This book offers important insight into a painful topic. Anna C. Salter has written other books on the issues of sadistic abuse and psychopathic sex offenders. I also highly recommend her book: Predators.

Anna Salter's "Transforming Trauma" is a must-read for survivors, therapists and anyone interested in the field. She starts off with an often overlooked component of the abuser/victim cycle -- getting into the mind and thought pattern of the abuser. It is *essential* to thorougly understand this, for it is only then that the competent therapist can truly help the victim. The abusers are masters of introjecting their sick thought patterns into the victim's mind, and any help at recovery must begin with teasing out that subtle "other voice" -- so subtle, the victim might not even recognize that he/she has heard it ever since the abuse. Even therapists who have experience in this area would do well to read this book. It goes into some typical pitfalls in which well-meaning therapists-- unwittingly -- fail their clientele. A particularly good section deals with how to help the client move from victim to survivor and beyond -- to thriving person. It is powerful, direct, readable even from a non-clinical point of view. Some political questions are raised about so-called "false memory" syndrome, statutes of limitations, prison/rehabilitation for perpetrators, and an excellent section regarding apologies from perps--and how they can go wrong.I can't rate this highly enough. Please, read this book!

I'm not a therapist, just a sexual abuse survivor with access to a university library. This book was both comprehensible and original, and most of all, several of its concepts just clicked with me as the best explanations I'd ever heard for some of my own behaviors. Most notably, her discussion of the sadistic vs. the nonsadistic abuser, and the different effects they leave on their victims' psyches, described my situation better than anything else I'd ever read about abuse survivors (and that's nearly everything in the university library). Fascinating and useful.