Covert Emotional Incest

From Dr. Patricia Love, a ground-breaking work that identifies, explores and treats the harmful effects that emotionally and psychologically invasive parents have on their children, and provides a program for overcoming the chronic problems that can result.

Traumatic. Intangible. Unspoken. All these words have one thing in common: a sexual abuse that is not widely known. In this provocative and intimate look at Covert Emotional Incest (CEI), Adena Bank Lees, LCSW, a leader in the field of traumatic stress and addiction, takes you on a moving and informative journey through her own experiences with this form of abuse. CEI, as she has defined it, is an elusive, emotional form of sexual abuse that occurs in a family system with the absence of direct genital contact. Being placed in the surrogate or substitute spouse role for a parent(s) is one of the primary tenets of CEI, but there is much more. Covert Emotional Incest: The Hidden Sexual Abuse is an enlightening read for both professionals and non-professionals alike. Adena's story and easy-to-understand therapeutic explanations will help you fully comprehend the complex nature of CEI, its damaging consequences, and the path to restoration of health and well-being. A check-list of components, specific suggestions for healing, and what to address in psychotherapy are included. In summary, Covert Emotional Incest: The Hidden Sexual Abuse, combines a compelling story with clear and helpful strategies for recovery.

In this revised and updated 20th anniversary edition of his groundbreaking book, Dr. Kenneth Adams, a leading expert on covert incest, sex addiction, and childhood trauma, offers tools for identifying and healing from covert incestuous relationships that affect adult relationships and lives. He explains how 'feeling close' with a parent is not always the source of comfort the phrase suggests, especially when that child is cheated out of a childhood by being a parent's surrogate partner. Dr. Adams includes a new Q&A section that directly addresses issues including: • How can this be incestuous when there is no physical sexual contact? • Why is sexual addiction so common with covert incest survivors? • Why is it so hard for covert incest survivors to commit to romantic relationships? • If my partner is a covert incest survivor, how can I help? • Can I pass covert incest on to my children? Through new findings and expanded discussions on 'engulfment,' 'excessive guilt,' 'loyalty,' and 'narcissism,' and others, Silently Seduced offers a framework to understand covert incest and its effect on sexuality, intimacy, and relationships to facilitate the process of recovery.

When a Woman Is in an Emotional Tug-of-War for Her Man's Heart Why can't he commit? Many women find themselves asking this question when in love with a man who won't get married, won't stop womanizing, or refuses to give up his sex addictions. Often this kind of man is bound by an unhealthy attachment to his mother. This phenomenon is called "mother-son enmeshment." In When He's Married to Mom, clinical psychologist and renowned intimacy expert Dr. Kenneth M. Adams goes beyond the stereotypes of momma's boys and meddling mothers to explain how mother-son enmeshment affects everyone: the mother, the son, and the woman who loves him. In his twenty-five years of practice, Dr. Adams has successfully treated hundreds of enmeshed men and shares their stories in this informative guide. He provides proven methods to make things better, including: -- Guidelines to help women create fulfilling relationships with mother-enmeshed men -- Tools to help mother-enmeshed men have healthy and successful dating experiences leading to serious relationships and marriage -- Strategies to help parents avoid enmeshing their children When He's Married to Mom provides practical and compassionate advice to the women who are involved with mother-enmeshed men, to the mothers who wish to set them free, and to the men themselves.

A special collection book for the adult children of alcoholics.

First published in 1989, Dan Allender's The Wounded Heart has helped hundreds of thousands of people come to terms with sexual abuse in their past. Now, more than twenty-five years later, Allender has written a brand-new book on the subject that takes into account recent discoveries about the lasting physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual ramifications of sexual abuse. With great compassion Allender offers hope for victims of rape, date rape, incest, molestation, sexting, sexual bullying, unwanted advances, pornography, and more, exposing the raw wounds that are left behind and clearing the path toward wholeness and healing. Never minimizing victims' pain or offering pat spiritual answers that don't truly address the problem, he instead calls evil evil and lights the way to renewed joy. Counselors, pastors, and friends of those who have suffered sexual harm will find in this book the deep spiritual guidance they need to effectively minister to the sexually broken around them. Victims themselves will find here a sympathetic friend to walk alongside them on the road to healing.

LI>As the partner of an incest survivor, do you feel like a neglected victim even though your life has been drastically affected by the aftermath of sexual abuse? Do you fee left out in the cold as you watch them go through recovery? Do you feel isolated or rejected, and think that no one else will understand your problems? Although the impact of incest or sexual abuse can destroy relationships and test long-standing commitments, the information in this book may be the key to holding your relationship together through the journey to recovery. Ghosts in the Bedroom provides comfort and guidance for partners in the process of recovery. Graber draws from personal experience to show how partners can accept responsibility for their own issues, support the recovery of the incest or sexual abuse survivor and work toward solving relationship problems together.

Healing from Incest tells the journey of a victim-turned-survivor, working with her therapist to find healing. Readers are pulled into the therapeutic process as Henderson relates her conversations and feelings as a victim of child abuse and Emerton interprets those feelings and describes interventions. For those who recognize this as their own story, this frank and genuine narrative will be reassuring in its descriptions of one woman's journey toward hope and healing.

Focusing on the later manifestations of incest, this reference offers a diagnostic aftereffects checklist, suggestions for healthy, rather than neurotic, coping mechanisms, and therapeutic treatment strategies.

This book lays bare the logic of forgotten abuse. Psychologist Jennifer Freyd's breakthrough theory explaining this phenomenon shows how psychogenic amnesia not only happens but, if the abuse occurred at the hands of a parent or caregiver, is often necessary for survival. Freyd's book will give embattled professionals, beleaguered abuse survivors, and the confused public a new, clear understanding of the lifelong effects and treatment of child abuse.