If you are currently in therapy, I suggest you encourage your therapist to do this work with you. This particular treatment process has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The roadmap is specific and clearly marked. If you follow it, you will reclaim your dignity and self-respect.

I know that some therapists and incest clients prefer the term incest survivor to the term incest victim, and that's fine. But for me, incest victim is a more accurate description of the individual's experience. I am certainly sympathetic to this semantic attempt to ease the pain, as long as the word survivor is not used to deny how much work needs to be done.

Professional help is a must for adults who were sexually abused as children. Nothing in my experience responds more dramatically and completely to therapy, despite the depth of the damage.

In this chapter I'm going to show you the treatment techniques that I have devised and refined in the process of working with more than a thousand incest victims. I am showing them to you because I want you to see how much hope there is for you and how extraordinary your recovery can be. I do not, however, want you to attempt this work on your own.

You feel you never had a childhood.

You are uncomfortable with sex or your sexuality.

You are easily used and exploited by others.

You draw cruel or abusive people into your life and are convinced that you can get them to love you or be nice to you.

You have learned to act "as if" things are okay when they're not.

If you were molested as a child, all or most of the statements on the following list will be true for you.

You have a very difficult time setting limits, expressing anger, or saying "no."

You often feel angry at your own child or children and resent the fact that they have it better than you did.

You believe everybody else is more important than you are.

You believe the only way to get love is by catering to the needs of others at the expense of your own.

You don't believe you deserve success, happiness, or a good relationship.

"Why Do I Need Therapy?"

You find it difficult to trust, and you expect people to betray you or hurt you.

You have a difficult time being playful or spontaneous.

You have deep-seated feelings of unworthiness, guilt, and shame.

These patterns of victimization started early. They are tenacious and difficult to break by yourself, but therapy can successfully end their hold on your life.

You wonder what it would feel like to be normal.

Those who are trained in family dynamics, and who use action-oriented techniques such as role playing, make the best therapists for incest victims. Freudian psychiatrists make the worst, because Freud significantly reversed his original (and accurate) positions on both the prevalence and the damage of incest; as a result, many Freudian psychiatrists and psychoanalysts meet their patients' accounts of childhood sexual abuse with skepticism or disbelief.

CHOOSING A THERAPIST

It is important to shop for a therapist specifically educated or experienced in working with incest victims. Many therapists are unqualified in this highly specialized area, and virtually no therapists learn anything about incest in graduate school. Question each prospective therapist about his or her special training and experience. If he or she has not worked with incest victims before or has not attended any workshops, seminars, conferences, or classes on incest treatment, I suggest you find someone else.

INDIVIDUAL OR GROUP THERAPY

The best way to work through the incest experience is to join a group made up of victims like yourself led by a therapist who is experienced and comfortable with the issue.

In the last decade many self-help groups for incest victims have been formed around the country. While these groups do provide some support and a sense of community to many incest victims, they lack the guidance of a therapist with the expertise to provide structure and direction for the work. A self-help group is better than no group at all, but it's far better to be in a group led by a professional.

One almost universal symptom of incest is a feeling of total isolation. But when you're surrounded by people talking about feelings and experiences that sound just like yours, the isolation begins to fade. Group members nurture and support you. In essence, they say: "We know how it feels, we believe you, we hurt for you, we care about you, we want you to be the best you can."

There are very few people who do not thrive in group, although most people are apprehensive about it at first. You may feel tense and self-conscious about talking about "it" in front of other people. Believe me, those feelings usually last no more than ten minutes.

THE FIRST TIME IN GROUP

The incest therapy groups at my treatment center are open-ended. This means that a new member can enter at any time. It also means that someone who is just beginning this work will be in group with people at different stages of progress. It's wonderfully encouraging for a new group member to see someone ready to graduate and leave the incest experience behind.

This initiation helps break the ice so that you can join the group in an active way. You will find yourself talking about your experience in detail for perhaps the first time. You will see that you are not alone, that other people have experienced similar traumas.

When a new client comes into group, we begin the session with an initiation exercise in which every group member tells about his or her incest experience: who it was with, what it involved, when it began, how long it went on, and who else knows about it. The new member goes last.

A small number of incest victims are too emotionally fragile to handle the intensity of group. For them, one-to-one therapy is the alternative.

I always put male and female victims together in group. The gender may be different, but the feelings and traumas are the same.

Your initiation will also continue the vital process of desensitization to the trauma for the other group members. Every time a new member is initiated, group members must repeat what has long been unspoken. The more often this happens, the more everyone in the group is desensitized to the shame and the guilt. The first time through is very difficult for any new member. There is a great deal of weeping and embarrassment. By the third or fourth time the experiences become easier to talk about, and the embarrassment subsides noticeably. By the time someone has told his or her story ten or twelve times, it is not much more difficult than talking about any other unhappy life event.

Stages of Treatment

Outrage is the deep anger that arises from feelings of violation and betrayal of the very core of one's being. It is the first essential part of this work and the most difficult.

I take incest victims through three basic stages: outrage, grief, and release.

Most adults who were molested as children have had plenty of practice at feeling sad, lonely, and bad. Grief is familiar to them, but outrage is not. As a result, they often try to skip over their outrage and move on to grief as quickly as possible. This is a mistake. Outrage must precede grief. Of course, it is impossible to keep intense feelings totally separate -- there is grief in outrage and outrage in grief. But for the purpose of this work, they are distinct stages.

For many of you, this is easier said than done. You've spent years keeping the lid on. You may have repressed your outrage so effectively that you've become a submissive, self-sacrificing perfectionist. It's as if you've been saying, "I'm not damaged and I can prove it by being perfect. I sacrifice everything for others, I don't get angry, and I do as I'm told." Releasing your outrage is like uncapping a volcano. The resulting eruption may feel overwhelming.

In order to put the responsibility firmly where it belongs, you must acknowledge your outrage and learn, in the safety of therapy, to let it out.

For others, the problem isn't how to get in touch with their outrage, it's how to control it. You may seethe with outrage at everyone around you except those at whom you're really angry -- your parents. You may have a perpetual chip on your shoulder, displacing your outrage from your parents to whomever happens to come along. You may act so tough and belligerent that you scare people away.

THE VICTIM'S OUTRAGE

If you've pushed your rage totally out of conscious awareness, you are also especially vulnerable to physical or emotional symptoms such as headaches or depression.

RELEASE AND EMPOWERMENT

During the healing process, you're going to actively grieve over many losses -- the loss of the "good family" fantasy, of innocence, of love, of childhood, of years that might otherwise have been happy and productive. This grief may overwhelm you. Your therapist must have the courage and the experience to lead you through it and bring you out the other end. As with any grief, there are no easy ways around it, no shortcuts.

In the last stage of treatment, when you have exhausted your outrage and your grief, you will learn to take the energy they were consuming and use it to rebuild your life and your self-image. By this time, many of your symptoms will have either diminished significantly or become manageable. You'll have a new dignity and a new sense of yourself as a valuable and lovable person. You will be faced with a new option for the first time in your life -- that of no longer feeling or behaving like a victim.

THE VICTIM'S GRIEF

The techniques I'll show you later in this chapter will allow you to externalize your outrage in manageable ways, to prevent you from losing control, and to allow you to open the pressure valve and let your outrage go.

Treatment Techniques

The two primary techniques I use for treating clients are letter writing and role playing. I have also designed a number of group exercises that have proved especially helpful for incest victims and other adult children of toxic parents. These techniques can be used in both individual and group therapy. Since only a small percentage of the incest therapy at my treatment centers is done on an individual basis, I've selected my examples from group sessions.

Letters

I ask every group member to write one letter a week, especially in the beginning. They write these letters at home, then read them aloud to the group. Although no one is required to mail their letters, many group members choose to, especially when they begin to feel stronger. I ask my clients to write their letters in the following order:

to the aggressor (s)

to the other parent (assuming that one parent was the aggressor; adults who were molested by a family member other than a parent need to write first to the aggressor and then to each parent)

to the damaged child from your adult self

a "fairy tale" about your life

LETTER TO THE AGGRESSOR

to each of your children

In the first letter -- to the aggressor -- I want you to let it all out, to get as outraged as you can. Use phrases like "how dare you…" and "how could you…" as often as possible. These phrases will make it easier for you to contact your outrage.

to your partner or lover (if you have one)

After this series of letters is completed, I ask my group members to begin the series again. In this way the letters become not only powerful tools for healing but clear barometers of progress. A letter written during the first few weeks of therapy will be very different, in both tone and content, from a letter written three or four months later.

When I first met Janine, a gentle, petite, blond 36-year-old, she rarely spoke above a whisper. Her father had molested her from the time she was 7 until she was 11-- but Janine was still clinging to the hope that she could somehow win his love. She was especially reluctant to acknowledge her inner rage at him. She wept through her initiation and was noticeably uncomfortable when I asked her to write her father a letter. I encouraged her to use her letter to get outraged at how her father had hurt and betrayed her. I reminded her that her father didn't ever have to see this letter.

I didn't do anything to make you hate me. I didn't try to turn you on. Are little girls tighter, is that it? Do small new breasts make you hard, you bastard? I should have spit on you. I hate myself for not having the courage to fight you. How dare you use your power as my daddy to rape me? How dare you make me hurt? How dare you not talk to me?

When I was really little you'd take me in the ocean and hold my hand and we would go through the waves, remember? I had your blue eyes, I trusted you. I wanted you to respect me so bad. I wanted you to be proud of me. You were more to me than just a child molester, but you didn't care, did you? I won't stand for pretending it didn't happen anymore. It did happen, Dad, and it's still alive in me.

Dear Dad,

You're not really "dear" and you only got to be my dad because you shot your sperm into Mom one night. I hate you and I pity you. How dare you violate your own little girl?

From our work together, I expected her first letter to be tentative, full of yearning and wishful thinking. Was I in for a surprise:

Where's my apology, Dad? Where's my virginity? Where's my self-respect?

Janine

Dear Daddy,

Janine's letter brought more feelings to the surface than hours of talking ever could have. She was frightened by the intensity of her feelings, but comforted by the knowledge that she had a safe place to explore and express them for the first time.

Connie -- the redheaded loan officer whose father had molested her from an early age and who later acted out her self-loathing by sleeping with hundreds of men -- had entered this same group several months before Janine. Connie displayed a quick temper and had an aggressive, angry way about her. I called her my "tough guy," but I knew how small and vulnerable she really felt. In her first letter to her father, Connie's feelings spilled haphazardly across the page, without boundaries, without form. But when Connie read her second letter to her father, it was clear that both her feelings and her perceptions had become much more organized and focused:

A lifetime has passed since I wrote my first letter for Susan's group -- so much has changed. When I started you were still a terrifying ogre and in some ways I had become like you. Incest was bad enough, but I also had to live with your violence and threats of violence all the time. You were a bully and a tyrant. How dare you steal my childhood from me? How dare you ruin my life?

I can't solve your problems or Mother's problems but I can solve mine. And in the process, if either or both of you are hurt, there is nothing I can do. I didn't ask to be molested.

I'm finally beginning to put the pieces together. You are a very sick, disturbed man. You used me in every way that a man can use a person. You made me love you in ways that no father should make a daughter love him and I was powerless to stop you. I don't feel normal, I feel dirty. Things have been so bad and I have behaved in such self-destructive ways that anything, ANYTHING that changes has to be an improvement.

Connie

LETTER TO THE SILENT PARTNER

As Connie expressed her outrage she was able to leave behind much of her self-hatred and self-disgust. The more this happened, the more she strengthened her commitment to personal growth and healing.

After you've written your letter to your aggressor, you'll write to your other parent, in most cases your mother. If you think your mother didn't know about the incest, this letter may be the first time you've put these experiences into words for her.

Connie's letter to her mother offers a poignant example of the tremendous ambivalence most incest victims feel toward their mothers. The letter began with a recounting of the sexual abuses she had suffered from her father. She moved on to express her view of her mother's role in this family drama:

If you think your mother did know about the incest, or if you actually told her while it was going on, there is an enormous amount of outrage that you need to express to her: outrage for the lack of protection, for being disbelieved or blamed, for having been used as a sacrificial lamb to keep a destructive marriage and a destructive family intact, and outrage at having been less important to your mother than her need for financial security or maintaining the status quo.

… I feel that you betrayed me, too. Mothers are supposed to protect little girls, but you didn't do that. You didn't take care of me and because of that he hurt me.

Didn't you want to see? Or didn't you care enough to see? I'm so angry at you for all the lonely scared years I had. You abandoned me. Peace with him was so damned important to you that you sacrificed me to him. It hurt so much to know that I wasn't important enough to protect. It hurt so much that I shut my pain away. I can't even feel things like a normal person. My parents not only stole my childhood, they stole my emotions, too. I hate and love you so much that I'm really confused. Why didn't you take care of me, Mommy? Why didn't you just love me? What was wrong with me? Will I ever get any answers?

In many ways the letter to the damaged child within you may be the most difficult letter for you to write, but it may also be the most important. This letter begins the process of "reparenting" yourself.

Connie's eloquent expression of her confusion echoes the confusion felt by all incest victims about why their mothers failed to protect them. As Connie put it, "Even animals protect their cubs."

LETTER TO THE DAMAGED CHILD

Reparenting means to dig deep within yourself to find a loving, validating parent for the hurting child you still carry inside. This is the parent who, through this letter, comforts, reassures, and protects that part of you that is still vulnerable and frightened.

Many of you who were sexually abused as children have become alienated from your inner child. Your shame translates into contempt and loathing for that "tainted," helpless child. To defend against some of these extremely painful feelings, you may have tried to disown this child, but the child within you can only be hidden, not abandoned.

Dear Little Dan,

You were a beautiful child, an innocent. You were pure love. I'm going to take care of you from now on. You were talented and creative. I'm going to express you. You're safe now. You can love and you can let love in. You won't be hurt. You can discern now. I'll take care of us. I'll pull us together. We were always apart, playing different roles, learning to cope. You're not crazy. You were afraid. He can't hurt you anymore. I've stopped taking the alcohol and drugs that were concealing your anger, your rage, your sadness, your depression, your guilt, and your anxiety. You can let go of those feelings now. I've stopped punishing us, like he did. I've surrendered to God. We are worthwhile. I am worthwhile. The world we made up is over now. We are waking up. It still hurts, but not as much. And it's finally real.

In this letter I want you to embrace that child and reintegrate him or her into your personality. Be a loving parent. Give the child the nurturing and support you never had. Make the child feel loved and worthwhile for the first time. Dan -- the engineer who was sexually abused by his father during his entire childhood and adolescence -- had long felt loathing for the little boy he once was, the little boy who was too weak to resist his father. This portion of his letter to that little boy shows how dramatically those feelings had changed after only a few group sessions:

Dan

After you have written these three letters, I want you to write a story describing your life in fairy-tale language and images. You'll write about yourself as the little princess or the gentle young prince who lived with evil kings or ugly monsters or dragons in dark forests or crumbling castles. You'll write about the incest as the Black Plague or the thunderstorm or the end of joy or whatever your imagination creates.

THE FAIRY TALE

Dan used this letter not only to communicate with the child within but to reassure himself that his decision to renounce drugs and alcohol was a self-affirming step. He understood for the first time, as he wrote this letter, the connection between his self-defeating behavior and his childhood pain.

This fairy tale is the first assignment you'll write in the third person; instead of using the point of view of "I," you'll write about "he" or "she." This will help you see your inner world from a new, more objective perspective, putting some emotional distance between you and your childhood traumas. By referring to the little girl as "her" instead of "me," the sharp pain of your experiences will begin to fade. When you bring your feelings to life through symbols, you will be able to deal with them on a level you've never approached before, and you will come away with a new, clearer understanding of what happened to you.

Once upon a time lived a little plant in a rather isolated valley surrounded by mountains. The little plant, whose name was "Ivy," [an acronym for "incest victim"] was quite miserable, so she would often gaze over the river, secretly wishing to escape to the other side.

I'll never forget the day Tracy -- who was molested by her insurance-salesman father -- read her fairy tale. It was very long, so I've included only parts of it here, but the truth and the hope she was able to find through this exercise forever changed her perspective on her situation:

The only limitation I set is that your fairy tale, despite its sad beginning, have a hopeful ending. After all, the fairy tale is an allegory for your life, and there is hope. You may not really believe that when you begin this work, but by writing optimistically about your future, you will start to draw more positive pictures in your mind. This is especially important for people who cannot imagine a happy future for themselves. By imagining a better life, you can begin to develop concrete, attainable goals, and once you have goals, you have something to inspire you.

Gil was a lowly creature who slithered all over Ivy, nibbling at her leaves, her stem, and her roots. It was Gil, as much as anyone else, who kept Ivy sick and shackled in that valley.

Ivy's little corner of the world was ruled by the notorious King Morris Lester, known to most everyone as Moe. You'll notice that when you put the nickname and the surname together, you come out with Moe Lester, and what you hear is actually what you get.

Moe had a passion for tender young plants. When Ivy was just beginning to bloom, Moe spied her and was taken by the fact that she was ripe yet as green as could be. Moe performed one ill deed after another with Ivy, but even so, she held him in reverence and treated him like a king.

Moe had no shame at all, but what he lacked, Ivy made up for. Poor Ivy withdrew from the world almost completely, and in her terrible aloneness she had only one companion: Gil Trip.

A day did come, however, when Ivy was astounded to meet an emancipator. "Who are you?" asked Ivy in wonder. "I am your Fairy Godmother, otherwise known as Susan of the North. Pack your bags and make it snappy. You are about to be uprooted." Ivy panicked. "But there's no way over the river," she cried. "Yes there is," cooed Susan victoriously. "You may ride on my outrage. It has carried me far, and it will carry you too."

LETTER TO YOUR PARTNER

In addition to her insights, Tracy's wonderful use of imagination and humor allowed her to recapture some of the playfulness that was so badly trampled in her childhood.

Clinging to the outrage that no one had ever held for her before, Ivy allowed herself to be jet propelled -- swept up and out of the valley of her discontent.

Some of my clients protest when I assign the fairy tale, claiming that they can't write or that the assignment is frivolous. But the fairy tale always turns out to be one of our most moving and healing exercises.

Your next letter should be to your partner. If you have no spouse, lover, or live-in companion, a former lover or ex-husband will do (remember, you do not have to mail this letter). Explain to him or her how your childhood trauma is affecting your relationship. You don't have to take responsibility for every problem the two of you have, but your inability to trust, your need to be compliant, and your experience of sexuality may be taking their toll. The most important thing about this letter is that you talk openly and honestly about what happened to you. This is an important part of letting go of your shame.

The Power of Role Playing

Your series of letters ends with a letter to each of your children. If you have no children, you may write to the child you plan to have, or to the child you never had. Use this letter to reaffirm your ability to love and to understand that by experiencing your pain and coming through it, you are gaining the inner strength to be a better parent.

LETTER TO YOUR CHILDREN

Role playing cuts through the intellectualizing and denial that you may be using as a defense against your feelings. It offers you a chance to express the full range of your emotions toward family members before you are ready to face them. It provides a safe atmosphere for you to try out new behaviors. All of these factors are essential for successful treatment.

In group, after all the letters are read, we set up brief improvised scenes to deal with issues brought up in the letters. I have found these psychodrama or role-playing scenes to be a wonderfully insightful and effective means of working through the incest trauma and dealing with the other concerns in my clients' lives.

Three months into group, Connie was feeling strong enough to mail her letters to her father and mother. But she realized that once her letters arrived, she would need a lot of support. I asked her whether her husband, Wayne, could provide it, and she sheepishly admitted that she still hadn't told him about her father's sexual abuse.

Like most incest victims, Connie was convinced that he would lose his attraction to her, that it would make her disgusting and repellent to him. Even though she had many years of evidence that Wayne was a loving, supportive man, her anxiety still prevented her from revealing her painful secret. But now she needed him to know.

To help ease Connie's fears, I asked her to use role playing in group to rehearse telling Wayne before she ventured to attempt the real thing. We played out a number of scenes with myself or another group member playing Wayne and reacting in a variety of ways, ranging from total acceptance to total rejection.

In one particularly dramatic scene, Connie herself played Wayne so that she could try to experience some of his feelings. I played Connie. After telling "Wayne" about what my father had done to me, I told him what I needed from him.

CONNIE (as Wayne): Of course I don't hate you. I just wish you had told me sooner so I could have been there for you. If anything, knowing this makes you even more precious to me. I've always known that there was something painful inside you that made you so suspicious and angry all the time, and now that I know what it is, it all starts to make sense. I wish I could do something to make the hurt go away, and I wish you had trusted me enough to have told me sooner…

SUSAN (as Connie): I really need your love and support right now. I need to know that none of this makes any difference to you and that you don't hate me or think I'm dirty.

At this point Connie stopped the role playing.

CONNIE: I could really feel his love for me when I was being him. It's going to be all right. I know it is. And if it isn't [she smiled], I'll just punch him out.

You can use role playing to embolden yourself to break the silence. When Connie actually told Wayne about her childhood, she found that the rehearsals in group had eased her anxiety considerably. Wayne was indeed as understanding as she had sensed he would be, and his support throughout the remainder of her therapy was enormously helpful to her.

In addition to the letter writing and the role playing, there are a number of extremely potent group exercises for healing. Following are two of the most powerful.

REWRITING HISTORY -- THE "NO' EXERCISE

Exercises for Healing the Inner Child

Even though you may feel considerable pain over the fact that you couldn't do this at the time, this rewriting of history is an exciting and empowering exercise. As Dan said:

To give yourself a rebirth of power, close your eyes and visualize the first time you remember being molested, but this time, change what happened. See the room where it took place. See your aggressor. Put your hands out and push your aggressor away, saying, "No! You can't! I won't let you! Go away! I'll tell! I'll scream!" Visualize the aggressor obeying you. Watch him turn around and leave the room, becoming smaller and smaller as he walks out the door.

If you're like the great majority of incest victims, you don't know how to say "no." You may believe you are powerless, that you have to do whatever anyone asks. These beliefs have their genesis in your expereince of having been coerced, intimidated, and humiliated by a powerful parent.

One of the most poignant group exercises we do involves members playing themselves at whatever age their molestations began.

God, I would have given anything in the world to have been able to really do that. But even doing it now really put me in touch with strengths I didn't even know I had. None of us was able to protect ourselves then, but we can sure as hell learn to do it now!

CHOOSING TO BE A CHILD, CHOOSING TO BE AN ADULT

In this exercise, it's important to recapture the feelings of being a child. To help you do this, try sitting on the floor -- chairs and sofas are for grown-ups. Remember that little kids don't speak like adults -- they have their own vocabulary and their own ways of perceiving the world. Once you've formed your group of abused children, tell your group leader about the "weird stuff" that's going on in your house. The other "children" can ask questions as well as comfort you. In the following excerpt from a recent group session, Connie had a major breakthrough.

SUSAN: Hi, sweetie, how old are you?

LITTLE CONNIE (in a childlike voice): Seven.

SUSAN: I understand that your daddy is doing some really yucky stuff to you. It can help if you tell us all about it.

SUSAN: How do you feel when your daddy does those things to you?

LITTLE CONNIE: Well… it's real hard to talk about. I feel real ashamed, but my daddy… he comes into my room and he… he pulls my panties down and he touches me and he licks me… you know, down there, on my pee-pee. Then he rubs his pee-pee on my leg and he breathes real hard and after a while this gooey white stuff comes out and then he tells me to get a towel and clean it up and he tells me if I ever tell anybody he'll beat me up.

LITTLE CONNIE: I feel really scared and sick in my tummy. I guess I must be a really bad girl for my daddy to do this to me. Sometimes I just wish I could die 'cause then he would know how icky I feel and if I was dead he'd have to stop doing that to me.

At this point Connie's "tough guy" defenses crumbled. The other members of the group formed a circle around her and cradled her as she wept for several minutes.

As I write this I feel a deep sadness at having to warn you that the people who were supposed to nurture, love, and protect you will, in all likelihood, assault you emotionally when you dare to tell the truth. Everything I've told you about confrontation goes double when you confront the incest aggressor.

Between sobs, Connie told us that she hadn't cried for years and that she was frightened by how defenseless it made her feel. I assured her that freeing up her soft, vulnerable side would be a great source of strength, not weakness. The frightened, hurting child inside her wouldn't have to hide anymore.

After your "child" has had a chance to express herself, and has been comforted and validated, you need to make a conscious choice to return to your adult self. Stand up and experience the size of your body. Feel your adult power. The ability to return to your adult self is a source of great strength that you can summon whenever you feel like a helpless child.

Confronting Your Parents

These are just a few of the many group exercises that your therapist may draw from. Along with letter writing and role playing, the group exercises are major steps along the road to devictimization.

You must have a strong support system.

You must rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse.

You must be prepared to significantly change your relationship with your parents, or even to sacrifice it.

You must have shifted your beliefs about who is responsible.

If your parents are still together you can confront them at the same time or separately. However, I have found that in incest cases, it is usually less explosive to confront parents separately. Confronted together, parents of incest victims often close ranks to defend their marriage against what they perceive as an all-out attack. In that case, it will be two against one, and it becomes especially important for you to have a support person with you.

While there is no way to predict how any aggressor will react, confronting him by himself does seem to take some of the heat out. Your aggressor may deny that the incest ever happened, may become enraged and leave the session, may attack your therapist for encouraging you to hurt the family, may try to minimize his crimes, or may even acknowledge what he did. You must be prepared for anything. If he does acknowledge his crimes, beware of excuses. Aggressors often try to manipulate their victims into feeling sorry for them.

Full acknowledgement of what happened. If the aggressor claims not to remember, ask him to acknowledge that even though he doesn't remember, it must be true because you remember.

Here's what you want:

Though the steps of confrontation are the same as with other toxic parents, there are some very specific things you need to include in "this is what I want from you now." Your aggressor's response to these requests will be your only accurate indicator of your future relationship with him.

Full acceptance of responsibility and explicit removal of any responsibility from you.

An apology.

Willingness to make reparations. For example, he can go into therapy, pay for your therapy, apologize to other people in your life for the pain he's caused, and be available to talk about this with you when you need to.

A word of warning: apologies can be very seductive and can create false hope that things will change significantly in your relationship. If apologies are not followed by behavioral changes in the aggressor, however, nothing will change. He must be willing to do something about the problem. Otherwise, apologies are empty words that will only set you up for further hurt and disappointment.

"IT'S TIME FOR US TO STOP PRETENDING"

Tracy decided to confront her father and mother separately. Tracy told her father that she was in therapy but didn't specify what kind. She said it would be very helpful if he would come in for a joint session with her. He agreed but canceled several appointments before he finally showed up.

Obviously, few victims get a positive response to all or even most of these requests, but it is essential for your growth that you make them. You need to define the ground rules for any future relationship. You must show clearly that you will no longer live with lies, half-truths, secrecy, and denial. Most important, you must make it clear that you will no longer accept the responsibility for the violence committed against you -- that you are no longer willing to be a victim.

Tracy's father, Harold, was a slightly built, balding man in his late fifties. He was impeccably groomed and looked every inch the executive that he now was. When I asked him if he knew why Tracy wanted him to come in to see me, he said he had "a pretty good idea." I began by asking Tracy to tell her father what kind of therapy she was in:

Harold flushed visibly and averted his eyes. He started to say something, but Tracy stopped him and got him to agree to hear her out. She continued to tell him what he had done to her and how sick, frightened, confused, and dirty it had made her feel. Then she told him how the incest had affected her life.

I never felt it was okay for me to like another man. I always felt I was betraying you or cheating on you. I felt like a possession, like I had no life outside you. I believed you when you said I was a slut -- after all, I had this dirty secret inside of me. I thought it was my fault. I've been depressed most of my life but I learned to act like everything's okay. Well, everything's not okay, Dad, and it's time for all of us to stop acting. My marriage almost fell apart because I hated sex, I hated my body, I hated me! That's all changing now, thank God. But you've been getting off scot-free while I've been carrying the whole load. You betrayed me, you used me, you did the worst thing that a father can do to his little girl.

I'm in a group for victims of incest, Dad. People who have fathers and sometimes mothers who did to them what you did to me.

Tracy's father was stunned. He accused her of blackmailing him. He made no attempt to deny the incest, but tried to minimize it by reminding Tracy that he had never "hurt her physically." He did apologize, but his primary concern was about the effects on his marriage and his professional status if all this became "public knowledge." He denied that he needed any therapy because he had led a "useful and productive life."

The following week Tracy pressured her father into "confessing" to her mother. Tracy then came to group and reported on the aftermath:

My mother was pretty devastated but in the next breath she asked me to forgive him and not to tell anyone else in the family. When I told her I wouldn't agree to do that she asked me why I needed to hurt them so much. Do you love it -- all of a sudden I'm the bad guy in all of this.

Then Tracy told her father what she wanted from him -- an apology and a full acknowledgment of his responsibility. She also gave him a chance to tell her mother before she did.

Everyone in group was eager to know how Tracy was feeling since she had taken this huge step. I will never forget her answer:

We all were thrilled to see how Tracy had taken back her power and come a long way toward devictimizing herself. Ultimately, Tracy decided to maintain a relationship with her parents but to have only limited contact with them.

I feel like this thirty-ton weight has been lifted off my shoulders. You know, what I realize now is that I have a right to tell the truth and I'm not responsible if other people can't deal with it.

Tracy needed very little help from me in her confrontation with her father. On the other hand, Liz -- whose stepfather, the powerful local minister, not only abused her but almost strangled her when she found the courage to tell him to stop -- needed a great deal, especially since her mother and stepfather insisted on coming in together. When Liz told her parents that she wanted them to come to a therapy session, they told her they would "do anything to help her with her mental problems."

RUNNING INTO A STONE WALL

When Liz was 13 she had told her mother about her stepfather's abuse in a desperate effort to stop it. Her mother hadn't believed her, and Liz had never brought it up again.

You've both betrayed her enough -- I'm not going to permit it anymore. I'm sorry that neither of you has the courage to admit the truth. Burt, you know everything Liz is saying is true. No one makes up these humiliating and painful things. And no one makes up years of depression and shame. The statute of limitations has run out on your crime, but I want you to know that because you're in a position of trust and authority with other children, Liz and I have reported you to Child Protective Services. If you ever hurt another child, that report will weigh heavily against you. I don't see how you can minister to other people when your whole life is built on a lie. You're a fraud and a child molester, Reverend! You know it and God knows it.

Liz did and said everything she had practiced, but every time she attempted to talk about the molestations she was met with a stone wall of angry denial and accusation. According to her parents, she was insane, she was making it all up, and she was a wicked, vengeful girl, trying to get back at Burt for having been a "stern disciplinarian." Liz was holding her own but getting nowhere. She looked at me helplessly. I stepped in:

Liz's stepfather, Burt, was a courtly, ruddy-faced man now in his early sixties. It was significant that he wore his black clerical suit and white collar to the session. Liz's mother, Rhoda, was a tall, thin, stern-faced woman with black hair heavily streaked with gray. Both were full of righteous indignation from the moment they walked in the door.

Burt and Rhoda's defenses were impenetrable, and I saw no reason to prolong Liz's pain. She had all the information she needed, so I asked Burt and Rhoda to leave.

Burt's face turned to stone. He said nothing, but his rage was obvious. I turned to Liz's mother in one last attempt to get her to face the truth, but all my words fell on deaf ears.

I've got to cut them out of my life. They're just too crazy. The only way I could have a relationship with them is for me to be crazy too. Now that I'm so much stronger, it's like they're from another planet. God, Susan, that woman was supposed to be my mother!

She started to cry. I held her for several minutes as she sobbed. Finally, she said:

I guess what hurts the most is realizing that they simply don't care about me and never have. I mean, by any normal definition of love, they don't love me.

Liz knew that she had to make a choice between her parents and her emotional well-being. It was not possible for her to have both. Her decision didn't take long:

With that last statement Liz showed a willingness to face the terrible truth that many adults who were abused as children have to face -- in the final analysis, her parents were simply incapable of love. It was their failure and their character flaws that created this painful reality, not hers.

Connie's parents lived in another state, so she decided to confront with separate letters to her father and mother. During the exercise in which she played herself as a child, Connie had remembered that when her father molested her the first time, she had told her mother. It was especially important to Connie to find out why her mother had failed to take steps to protect her.

Connie was climbing the walls with anxiety after she mailed her letters. After three weeks she bemoaned the fact that she hadn't gotten an answer from her father.

"But you have," I said. "His answer is that he's not willing to deal with this."

CONFRONTING THE SILENT PARTNER

No matter what I say, it will always be inadequate for all the harm that has been done to you. At the time I thought I was protecting you the best I knew how. I did talk to him about it, but he apologized and swore he wouldn't do it again. He seemed so sincere. He begged for another chance and told me he loved me. No one will ever know my fear, my uncertainty. I didn't know what to do, I thought the problem was over. Now I realize to my own disgust how he tricked me so easily. I wanted a happy family so badly that I resorted to the big cover-up. I was so intent on keeping peace in our lives. My mind is going around in circles and I can't say any more about this right now. Maybe, as always, I've been no help to you, Connie, but please accept that I do love you and want the very best for you.

Connie did, however, get a letter from her mother. She read part of it to the group:

Mom

Love,

The letter stirred up some hope for Connie that the two of them could initiate a more honest relationship. At my suggestion, Connie set up a conference call between her mother, herself, and me. During the call, Connie's mother, Margaret, again expressed her sorrow over what had happened and again acknowledged her weakness and complicity. I too began to have hopes that these two women could build something of value between them… until Connie asked for the one thing she really wanted.

MARGARET: I can't do that. I just can't do that. Please don't ask me to do that.

Margaret was silent for a long moment.

CONNIE: I don't expect you to leave him after all these years, but there is one thing that's really important to me. I want you to go to him and tell him how horrible what he did to me was. I don't want anything from him -- he's a sick, crazy man and I've had to accept that. But I do want him to hear this from you.

CONNIE: So you're going to protect him over me, just like you always have. When I got your letter, I thought maybe, finally, I was going to have a mother. I thought maybe you could be on my team this once. Just being sorry isn't enough, Mom. You need to do something for me. You need to show you love me, not just say it.

MARGARET: Connie, it was a long time ago. You have your own life, your own family now. He's all I've got.

"WE GO ON FROM HERE"

Connie was bitterly disappointed when her mother refused to do the one thing she asked. But she recognized that her mother had made her choice a long time ago. It was unrealistic for Connie to expect anything different at this time in their lives.

Dan's mother, Evelyn, a retired high school principal, responded quite differently when he broke the silence. Dan's parents had been divorced for about ten years when Dan finally felt strong enough to tell his mother about the years of sexual abuse his father had inflicted on him.

Connie decided that for her well-being she would maintain minimal mail and phone contact with her mother and accept her mother's limitations. She decided to cut off all contact with her father.

Evelyn wept as she heard the details of what had happened to her son and went over and took him in her arms.

Oh, God, honey, I'm so sorry. Why didn't you tell me? I could have done something about it. I had no idea. I knew there was something terribly wrong with him. We had an awful sexual relationship, and I knew he was always masturbating in the bathroom, but I never dreamed he would do anything to you. Oh, my baby, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry.

Dan was concerned about loading too much on his mother's shoulders; he had underestimated her capacity to empathize. But she assured him that she would rather share the awful truth with him than live a lie:

Dan had not only given himself a gift by telling the truth, he had given his mother one as well. By telling her about the incest, Dan had answered for her many of the painful, bewildering questions she had about her marriage. Dan's mother responded as all incest victims yearn for their mothers to respond -- with compassion, anger at the aggressor, and genuine support.

I feel like I've been hit by a truck, but I'm so glad you told me. So many things are starting to make sense now. So many things are starting to fall into place… like your drinking and your depression and so many things about my marriage. You know, for years I'd blame myself because he seemed to have so little interest in me sexually. And I'd blame myself for his temper. Now I know he was sick, really sick, and neither of us was to blame. So we go on from here.

Graduation

This will be a sad but exciting time for you, for the other members of your group, and for your therapist. You will have to say goodbye to the only good family you have ever known, though many of my group members maintain close friendships long after they have left group. These friendships from group, based on having shared powerful emotional experiences, tend to be extremely strong and provide ongoing affection and support to help alleviate the sense of loss when you leave therapy.

As Dan and his mother left my office arm-in-arm, I couldn't help but reflect on how wonderful it would be if all mothers responded this way.

There comes a time in the treatment process when you will have written and rewritten all the letters, gone through the role playing, the exercises, and the confrontations, and made the decisions about your future relationship with your parents. You will see ever-increasing evidence of your strength and well-being. The changes in your beliefs, your feelings, and your behavior will be integrated into your personality. In short, you will be ready for "graduation."

The timing of your graduation will be guided by your needs. Most of the incest victims in my groups take a year to a year and a half to work through the treatment cycle. If your parents are unusually supportive, as Dan's mother was, that time may be shorter. If you elect to cut off your relationship, as Connie did with her father, you may need to stay in group somewhat longer to avoid piling one loss (of your group) on top of another (of your parent). I never cease to be amazed at the dramatic changes that occur in this relatively short period of time, especially when you consider how extensive the original damage was.

A NEW PERSON

From time to time clients who have graduated contact me to let me know how they are doing in their lives. I was especially delighted and touched by a letter I received recently from one of my first graduates, a young woman named Patty.

Patty was in one of the first incest victims' groups I conducted. She was then 16 years old. I mentioned Patty briefly in chapter 7; she was the little girl whose father threatened to put her up for adoption if she didn't submit to him. I had not heard from her for many years, but I remembered that she had been unable to confront her father because he had disappeared several years before she started treatment. Here's what she wrote:

Dear Susan,

Patty

I am married to a great guy, we have three kids, and I have learned to trust again. I think because of what I went through I am a better mom. My kids know not to let people touch them in the wrong places and they know if it happened they could tell me and I'd be on their side.

Love always,

I wanted to write and thank you again for helping me become a new person. Thanks to you and to the group, I am really okay.

I finally did confront my dad. It took some doing, but I tracked him down and told him how I felt about him. His only answer was, "I am a sick person." Never once did he say he was sorry. But you were right, it didn't matter. I just needed to put the blame where it belonged and I felt better. Thank you for your love. I owe my life to you.

Patty is not unusual. Though life may look grim from the perspective of an incest victim, therapy does work. No matter how low you feel, there is a better life for you, a life of self-respect and freedom from guilt, fear, and shame. All the people you've met in this chapter have moved from despair to health. You can too.