title: The Courage to Heal - Third Edition - Revised and Expanded: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse
author: Ellen Bass
description: The classic and definitive self-help guide for women survivors of sexual abuse, <i>The Courage To Heal</i> is a tool for recovery that works. This is also the book often cited by those who challenge the credibility of incest survivors. Some survivors of childhood abuse recover memories of these traumatic early experiences years after the original events, and it is these recovered memories that are said to be false memories, implanted in the allegedly impressionable minds of survivors. I was curious to see how this revised and expanded third edition would differ from the much maligned first. In addition to an Afterword that carefully analyzes and refutes the false memory syndrome argument, the authors have made revisions throughout the book which offer guidelines for assessing confusing memories. The authors' commitment to survivors is clear throughout the book, beginning with the book's endorsements, which come not from therapists, but from anonymous survivors. This is a comprehensive, supportive, carefully worded and often passionate book, as helpful for those who are the partners, friends or family of survivors, as for survivors themselves. -- <i>From <a href="/exec/obidos/ISBN=0890878315/${0}">The WomanSource Catalog &amp; Review: Tools for Connecting the Community for Women</a>; review by Patricia Pettijohn</i>
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  PRAISE FOR _THE COURAGE TO HEAL_
  
  
  "This book advances the empowerment of survivors another major step--from
  breaking the silence to sharing recovery."
  
  
  --Judith Herman, M.D., author of _Trauma and Recovery_
  
  
  _" The Courage to Heal_ is a wise and gentle book that should be read by all
  people trying to recover from having been sexually misused as a child, and by
  all friends, family members, and professionals with a genuine desire to
  understand both the experience of being a victim of sexual abuse and the
  arduous path to recovery. _The Courage to Heal_ has helped countless survivors
  of sexual abuse in their efforts to confront the realities of their lives and
  to take charge of them in the present."
  
  
  --Bessel A. van der Kolk, M.D., associate professor of psychiatry, Harvard
  Medical School
  
  
  _" The Courage to Heal_ continues to be an invaluable resource for adults
  sexually abused as children. Ellen Bass and Laura Davis provide survivors