Transforming Trauma

Practitioners helping adult survivors of child sexual abuse need to be aware of the thought processes of offenders. The premise of Anna Salter's major book is that those who do not recognize an internalized perpetrator when they hear one will often be frustrated by the tenacity of the survivor's self blame. Primarily oriented towards treating adult survivors, this invaluable book will also be useful for treating sex offenders. It includes discussion of crucial issues such as: what clinicians who treat survivors need to know about sex offenders; the different ways sadistic and nonsadistic offenders think and the resulting different `footprints' they leave in the heads of survivors; how trauma affects survivors' world-views; whether apology sessions re-abuse survivors; and what is effective, and why telling a client that `it's not your fault' is ineffective, in combating an internalized perpetrator. Finally, Salter describes the steps of therapy for survivors and proposes that trauma can be transformed rather than just endured.