The Courage to Heal

A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse

By: Ellen Bass, Laura Davis

Narrated by: Ellen Bass, Laura Davis

Length: 25 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

Come to terms with your past while moving powerfully into the future.

The Courage to Heal is an inspiring, comprehensive guide that offers hope and a map of the healing journey to every woman who was sexually abused as a child - and to those who care about her. Although the effects of child sexual abuse are long-term and severe, healing is possible.

Weaving together personal experience with professional knowledge, the authors provide clear explanations, practical suggestions, and support throughout the healing process. Readers will feel recognized and encouraged by hundreds of moving first-person stories drawn from interviews and the authors' extensive work with survivors, both nationally and internationally.

This completely revised and updated 20th anniversary edition continues to provide the compassionate wisdom the book has been famous for, as well as many new features:

• Contemporary research on trauma and the brain
• An overview of powerful new healing tools such as imagery, meditation, and body-centered practices
• Additional stories that reflect an even greater diversity of survivor experiences
• The reassuring accounts of survivors who have been healing for more than twenty years
• The most comprehensive, up-to-date resource guide in the field
• Insights from the authors' decades of experience

Cherished by survivors, and recommended by therapists and institutions everywhere, The Courage to Heal has often been called the bible of healing from child sexual abuse. This new edition will continue to serve as the healing beacon it has always been.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©1994 Laura Davis (P)2013 HarperCollins Publishers

absolutely recommend

well read, excellent material for its target audience. i was skeptical, but this book has changed my life for the better.

Thank you for saving my life

I have just completed this guide to healing and wow I am beyond grateful and thankful that this book has come across me in my journey of healing.
I am, and have been, moved to tears.

Truly, I give thanks to all individuals who had a hand in the completion of The Courage to Heal.

My life is forever changed for the better
I am forever changed and becoming better.

Thank you all 🙏🏼❤️

Unbelievably amazing book!

This was the first book I read (listened to) after speaking out about sex trauma I experienced 20 years ago and it made me feel like I wasn’t alone. It covered everything! I read somewhere that this book was the “bible” of sex abuse recovery and I couldn’t agree more! So grateful for this book! I plan on rereading the physical copy so I can highlight and process on a deeper level on second pass.

Helpful in general, but explicit accounts of abuse

I wish there had been warnings before the book went into first person accounts of rape and molestation. I would have glossed over them right now, because its too much to hear. Its upsetting to start hearing accounts of child molestation before you can get to Audible and fast forward, or to fast forward farther along in the account to some other explicit and overwhelming detail.

more about personal stories than point blank info

too many poems and personal stories
otherwise a good book.I would have liked to hear more information with out deriving it from first hand accounts.

Powerful healing book

This is the book it took me the longest to read because it was triggering and I needed tome to stabilize but it was worth my time.

Powerful

Very powerful and moving. Some of the stories are difficult to hear even as a survivor.

Un título imprescindible ya seas víctima o Psicoterapeuta

Yo personalmente, no soy víctima de abuso sexual, sin embargo, pude aprender con este libro que muchas de mis conductas indican que si viví algunas experiencias de mi infancia como abuso. Este es un libro invaluable para aquellas personas que se encuentran en el camino de sanar sus experiencias de abuso sexual, está lleno de ejemplos y testimonios reales que inspiran la sanación de cualquier persona. El mensaje central del libro es muy contundente, real, y extremadamente útil: el libro nos habla de que sanar es un proceso que se realiza a lo largo de toda la vida, conforme vamos pasando diferentes etapas de nuestra vida, dependiendo de las situaciones que enfrentamos. En muchas ocasiones, los recuerdos de abuso sexual pueden estar reprimidos. Es gracias a las situaciones de vida que volvemos a descubrirlos. Es ahí cuando empieza el trabajo de sanación. Recomiendo este libro muy muy ampliamente. Está en inglés.

Life Changing

I loved this book. What a beautiful tool in the journey of my healing. Highly recommended.

Very Raw

This was a hard read but so Raw and true as to how people who have been abused need to speak up!