The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse by Ellen Bass & Laura Davis

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.

Also check out other resources on Mary's website: 
http://www.marydemuth.com/

Thin Places: A Memoir by Mary E. DeMuth

In her moving spiritual memoir, Mary DeMuth traces the winding path of “thin places” in her life—places where she experienced longing and healing more intensely than before. As DeMuth writes, “Thin places are snatches of holy ground, tucked into the corners of our world, where we might just catch a glimpse of eternity. They are aha moments, beautiful realizations, when the Son of God bursts through the hazy fog of our monotony and shines on us afresh.”

From losing her earthly father to discovering a heavenly Father who never leaves, from singing Olivia Newton-John songs to the sky to worshiping God under a French sun, from surviving abuse as a latchkey kid to experiencing the joy of mothering three children, DeMuth’s story calls readers to a deeper understanding of their own story. With unusual spiritual wisdom, she looks for God in the past so that she might experience him more profoundly in the present. Her powerful words invite readers to know God in a new way—a God ready to break through any ordinary day or extraordinary pain and offer a glimpse of eternity.

No Place to Cry: The Hurt and Healing of Sexual Abuse by Doris Van Stone and Erwin W. Lutzer

Just as God gave Dorie Van Stone a tender heart to forgive her abusers, He also gave her the strength to reveal her past in No Place to Cry, the sequel to the best-seller Dorie: The Girl Nobody Loved. Through her candor you will gain insight into the trauma of emotional and sexual abuse.

Invisible Chains: Overcoming Coercive Control in Your Intimate Relationship by Lisa Aronson Fontes, PhD

When you are showered with attention, it can feel incredibly romantic and can blind you to hints of problems ahead. But what happens when attentiveness becomes domination? In some relationships, the desire to control leads to jealousy, threats, micromanaging--even physical violence. If you or someone you care about are trapped in a web of coercive control, this book provides answers, hope, and a way out. Lisa Aronson Fontes draws on both professional expertise and personal experience to help you:

*Recognize controlling behaviors of all kinds.
*Understand why this destructive pattern occurs.
*Determine whether you are in danger and if your partner can change.
*Protect yourself and your kids.
*Find the support and resources you need.
*Take action to improve or end your relationship.
*Regain your freedom and independence.

Also check out Leslie's website for tons of great free resources:

http://leslievernick.com/

The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope by Leslie Vernick

Something Has to Change…
 
You can’t put it into words, but something is happening to you. Your stomach churns, your heart aches, and the tension in your marriage is making you feel weary and a little crazy. The constant criticism, disrespect, cruelty, deceit, and gross indifference are eroding your confidence and breaking your spirit.    
 
For any woman caught in an emotionally destructive marriage, Leslie Vernick offers a personalized path forward. Based on decades of counseling experience, her intensely practical, biblical advice will show you how to establish boundaries and break free from emotional abuse. Learn to:
 
·         identify damaging behaviors
·         gain the skills to respond wisely
·         promote healthy change
·         stay safe
·         understand when, why, and even how to leave
·         recognize that God sees and hates what is happening to you
 
Trying harder to be a perfect fantasy wife won’t help fix what’s wrong your marriage. Discover instead how you can initiate effective changes to stop the cycle of destruction and restore hope for the future.
 
“Women in an emotionally abusive marriage do not need another book on how to have a good marriage; those books rub salt in raw wounds. No, they desperately need this book so that they can diagnose just how bad their marriage is and then, with Leslie’s clear expertise, develop a plan that will either begin to turn their marriage around...or give them a wise route of escape.”
—Dee Brestin, author of Idol Lies and The Friendships of Women

Griefshare.org

Griefshare is a network of supporters that help each other walk through grief. Use their website to find a group near you, or get their daily-for-a-year email for daily reminders that healing is possible.

Experiencing Grief by H. Norman Wright

At one time or another, we will all find ourselves facing a dark journey—the passage through grief. Experiencing Grief is written for a person who is in the wake of despair grief leaves. This brief but powerful book will help lead readers out of their grief experience through five stages of grief. At the end of the journey is peace and a seasoned, more mature faith.

Beyond the Soiled Curtain by David & Beth Grant

"The sexual slavery and trafficking crisis was no longer something I could ignore; now it had a face. Thousands of young, innocent faces," voiced Hal Donaldson as he concluded his trip to India. Not only had he been introduced to the darkness of the sexual exploitation of the brothels, but more significantly Hal experienced first-hand the restorative ministry of Project Rescue.

Beyond the Soiled Curtain recounts the journey as David and Beth Grant and K.K. Devaraj pioneered a path of rescue and restoration for women and children trapped in the global sex industry. Project Rescue offers life-changing aftercare through a powerful proclamation of faith in Jesus and His power to heal.

The stories of this book are filled with tragedy and triumph. The pages recount His love reaching into dark, depraved places and transforming the lives of the enslaved. Beyond the Soiled Curtain may make you angry; cause you to weep; or prompt you to rejoice. But, it may also provoke you to action.

Bombay Smiles by Jaume Sanllorente

In 2003, Jaume Sanllorente was a young journalist leading an active and exciting life in Barcelona—no more idealistic than any other young professional. Then a travel agent convinced him to spend his vacation in India. Amazed by what he saw in the land of sacred cows and shocking poverty, Jaume was transformed.

That experience lead him to reconsider the world he lived in and caused him to think that he might do something to make it a little better. He devoted himself to helping a small orphanage in Bombay, one that was about to close its doors and send its forty children back to the streets (and the brothels) from which they had been rescued. Jaume seized the moment, determined not to let that happen. As a consequence, he changed his life, and much more as well.

In Bombay Smiles, Jaume Sanllorente gives us an insightful and loving vision of a country of great contrasts. He reveals that the secret of his own happiness is in seeking happiness for others.

Bombay Smiles is a story of loneliness, ransoms, dangers, injustices, threats of death, and acts of courage, which give an example to follow in spite of the adversities one might meet. It is a lesson of wise love, surrender, sacrifice, and hope, which invites us to start on the path toward a better world.

Priceless: A Novel on the Edge of the World by Tom Davis (fiction)

Photojournalist Stuart Daniels has found purpose in life. After suffering the fallout of a tragic assignment, Daniels rediscovered his faith while helping a young African orphan. Now his photo work carries a greater mission: To educate people about social injustice happening around the world.
 
Daniels next assignment carries him back overseas and into the heart of Russia. Once there, Daniels is persuaded by an old friend to help save two girls from a desperate situation. Soon he becomes a key player in a dangerous campaign to rescue helpless women trapped in the sex-slave trade. What Daniels encounters during his journey will shake his faith, test his courage, and even threaten his life. Yet as Daniels gets deeper and the stakes get higher, he will discover that hope can be found in the darkest of places.

Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery by Siddharth Kara

Every year, hundreds of thousands of women and children are abducted, deceived, seduced, or sold into forced prostitution, coerced to service hundreds if not thousands of men before being discarded. These trafficked sex slaves form the backbone of one of the world's most profitable illicit enterprises and generate huge profits for their exploiters, for unlike narcotics, which must be grown, harvested, refined, and packaged, sex slaves require no such "processing," and can be repeatedly "consumed."

Kara first encountered the horrors of slavery in a Bosnian refugee camp in 1995. Subsequently, in the first journey of its kind, he traveled across four continents to investigate these crimes and take stock of their devastating human toll. Kara made several trips to India, Nepal, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Albania, Moldova, Mexico, and the United States. He witnessed firsthand the sale of human beings into slavery, interviewed over four hundred slaves, and confronted some of those who trafficked and exploited them.

In this book, Kara provides a riveting account of his journey into this unconscionable industry, sharing the moving stories of its victims and revealing the shocking conditions of their exploitation. He draws on his background in finance, economics, and law to provide the first ever business analysis of contemporary slavery worldwide, focusing on its most profitable and barbaric form: sex trafficking. Kara describes the local factors and global economic forces that gave rise to this and other forms of modern slavery over the past two decades and quantifies, for the first time, the size, growth, and profitability of each industry. Finally, he identifies the sectors of the sex trafficking industry that would be hardest hit by specifically designed interventions and recommends the specific legal, tactical, and policy measures that would target these vulnerable sectors and help to abolish this form of slavery, once and for all.

The author will donate a portion of the proceeds of this book to the anti-slavery organization, Free the Slaves.

The Natashas: The New Global Sex Trade by Victor Malarek

The buying and selling of human beings for the worldwide sex industry is organized crime’s fastest-growing business with up to two million people globally—mostly women and children—being trafficked into the sex trade every year.

In The Natashas, leading investigate journalist Victor Malarek details the tragic lives of the women and girls ensnared in the most recent wave of this brutal trade. He unearths evidence of training centers in Serbia where teenage girls from Ukraine, Moldova and Romania are viciously indoctrinated into the world of prostitution. He travels to war-torn countries such as Kosovo and Bosnia where he exposes corruption involving United Nations peacekeepers. And he uncovers scandalous situations throughout Europe, Israel and North America where the trafficking trade continues to flourish. Shocking stories of corrupt cops, complicit government officials and complacent politicians combine to form a powerful truth—one that Malarek hopes will not be ignored.

Trafficking Women and Children in India by P.M. Nair, Institute of Social Sciences New Delhi

This book presents the research findings of Action Research on Trafficking in Women and Children in India (ARTWAC) that involved the United Nations Development Fund for Women, the National Human Rights Commission and the Institute of Social Sciences. Through a human rights perspective, the first section of this book analyses the data generated by ARTWAC and gives detailed recommendations for better judicial interventions, law enforcement and community participation in anti-trafficking strategies. The second section contains a rich collection of case studies, giving an on-ground picture of how exploiters have little or no respect for the rights of trafficking victims.

Unchained Memories: True Stories of Traumatic Memories, Lost and Found by Lenore Terr, M.D.

Can a long-forgotten memory of a horrible event suddenly resurface years later? How can we know whether a memory is true or false? Seven spellbinding cases shed light on why it is rare for a reclaimed memory to be wholly false. Here are unforgettable true stories of what happens when people remember what they’ve tried to forget—plus one case of genuine false memory. In the best detective-story fashion, using her insights as a psychiatrist and the latest research on the mind and the brain, Lenore Terr helps us separate truth from fiction.