Books by Topic: Recovery and Healing

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A Heart Set Free:  A Journey to Hope through the Psalms of Lament

by Christina Fox. For many of us, we might busy ourselves with projects or work long hours to keep our mind off our pain. We might look at our circumstances and seek to change our situation in the hope that we will finally feel at peace once our life has changed.

The question is: How often do you look to God in His Word for help and hope? How often do you turn to Him when you feel anxious, distraught, or abandoned? How often do you bring your burdens to your Saviour? Take a journey of hope through the Psalms of lament with Christina Fox.

BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Hostile Emails, Personal Attacks and Social Media Meltdowns.

by Bill Eddy. Written by president and co-founder of High Conflict Institute, Eddy created the BIFF response to protect you and your reputation by responding quickly and civilly to people who treat you rudely — while being reasonable in return. BIFF stands for Brief, Informative, Friendly, and Firm. This little book gives over 20 examples of BIFF responses for all areas of life — plus additional tips to help you deal with high-conflict people anywhere.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

by Malcolm Gladwell. This book does not address abuse, but it will help you to pay attention and give more credit to your intuition.

Coercive Control in Children’s and Mothers’ Lives

By Emma Katz. “The ground-breaking insights in Emma’s book are helping professionals and victims-survivors to enhance their levels of understanding of the harms caused by perpetrators of coercive control, and to learn about effective ways of tackling this form of abuse.” This quote, by Barbara Roberts, can be found here.

The Devil Inside: How My Minister Father Molested Kids In Our Home And Church For Decades And How I Finally Stopped Him

by Jimmy Hinton. From the back of the book: When Jimmy Hinton’s sister confided in him that their own father had sexually abused her, Jimmy was both dismayed and spurred into action. His father, a respected minister in the community, was a predator who used his role behind the pulpit to secretly molest and abuse countless victims. Turning his father over to the police, Jimmy became a tireless advocate and voice for the victims. His pursuit of justice would eventually result in his father’s confession and subsequent conviction.

Haunted by the discovery of his father’s grotesque acts against children, Jimmy, also a pastor, worked to restore the very church where his dad had perpetrated such sickening acts. He was determined to protect others and nurture an environment of healing in the aftermath of abuse. Today he relentlessly studies and exposes the deception techniques that predators like his father used to molest, harm, abuse, and terrorize children.

For the Kingdom!: My abuse story, my thoughts and the good news blog posts

by Hadassah Lily Darling.

The Gift of Fear and Other Survival Signals that Protect Us From Violence

by Gavin de Becker. Helps you recognize early warning signs that someone may be dangerous.

The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

by Bonnie Badenoch.

He Loves Me Not?: How to Break the Cycle of Painful Relationships

by Joanne Robinson. For Christian women preparing for dating and marriage relationships and those recovering from a break up or divorce.

How to Avoid Falling in Love with a Jerk: The Foolproof Way to Follow Your Heart Without Losing Your Mind

by Dr. John Van Epp. Helpful for those entering new relationships.

The Judas Syndrome: Why Good People Do Awful Things

by George Simon Jr. Has a more overtly Christian tone than his two previously published books.

Mending the Soul: Understanding and Healing Abuse

by Steven Tracy.

My Path from Doormat to Dignity: A Personal Story

by Jane Bartelmes. Click here to read a recommendation for this book.

My Single Mom Life: Stories and Practical Lessons for Your Journey

by Angela Thomas. Read a recommendation of this book here.

Released From Shame:  Moving Beyond the Pain of the Past

by Sandra D. Wilson.  Shame is an wicked ally of abuse. Writing from a Christian perspective, Wilson teaches us about shame, about its causes, and how to be free from it.

Shame & Guilt: Masters of Disguise

by Jane Middleton-Moz, MS. This book describes how debilitating shame is created and fostered in childhood and how it manifests itself in adulthood and in intimate relationships.

Steps to Freedom: Escaping Intimate Control

by Don Hennessy. From this post: Controlling behaviour, particularly of men towards women, is far more common in all walks of life than we have been led to believe. In this easy-to-read guide, best-selling author Don Hennessy offers practical advice to all those dealing with violent or controlling behaviour in their own lives, based on his experience of dealing with hundreds of such people in a therapeutic setting. Most important, he explains to the reader how they can throw off the shackles and live lives free from fear and intimidation.

This Little Light: Beyond a Baptist Preacher Predator and His Gang

by Christa Brown. From the back of the book: One of TIME’s Top 10 underreported news stories of 2008, the Southern Baptist Convention’s unwillingness to protect its children deserves scrutiny. In sharing her painful history, Christa Brown shines a light on the patterns of Baptist clergy sex abuse and the collusion of Baptist leadership.

The Baptist “good ol’ boys” network is exposed as a web of power and manipulation, centralizing nearly everything except responsibility for informing congregations about predator pastors who commit unspeakable crimes and church-hop with ease.

God, Scripture and faith become the pedophiles’ weapons for gaining victims’ submission. God, Scripture, faith, hush-money, and intimidation tactics then become the church leaders weapons for silencing victims.

A must-read for anyone concerned with the safety of children and the abuse of power in evangelical churches.

Trauma and Recovery:  The Aftermath of Violence-from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror.

by Judith Herman. The author draws on her own cutting-edge research in domestic violence as well as on the vast literature of combat veterans and victims of political terror, to show the parallels between private terrors such as rape and public traumas such as terrorism. The book puts individual experience in a broader political frame, arguing that psychological trauma can be understood only in a social context. Meticulously documented and frequently using the victims’ own words as well as those from classic literary works and prison diaries, Trauma and Recovery is a powerful work that will continue to profoundly impact our thinking.

Truth and Repair: How Trauma Survivors Envision Justice

by Judith Herman. From the Amazon blurb: From one of America’s most influential psychiatrists, a powerful manifesto for reimagining justice, based on the testimony of trauma survivors

The #MeToo movement brought worldwide attention to sexual violence, but while the media focused on the fates of a few notorious predators who were put on trial, we heard far less about the outcomes of those trials for the survivors of their abuse.

The conventional retributive process fails to serve most survivors; it was never designed for them. Renowned trauma expert Judith L. Herman argues that the first step toward a better form of justice is simply to ask survivors what would make things as right as possible for them. In Truth and Repair, she commits the radical act of listening to survivors. Recounting their stories, she offers an alternative vision of justice as healing for survivors and their communities.

Deeply researched and compassionately told, Truth and Repair envisions a new path to justice for all.

WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP LAZARUS?: Reaching Out with Knowledge and Compassion to Survivors of Domestic Abuse in our Congregations

by Harriet Cook.

From the Amazon blurb: Domestic abuse concealed within the fabric of Christian life is often foreign to both leadership and laity alike. With a focus on abused wives, What Can I Do to Help Lazarus? compassionately gives spiritual and practical ways for leaders and fellow believers to better minister to women whose spouse has cruelly torn apart the marriage covenant. With sensitivity, scripture, and wisdom, the author also brings needed validation to the targets of purposed evil in the institution God designed to be a woman’s sanctuary — marital oneness.

What Can I Do to Help Lazarus? was written as a short article for abuse survivors reading a Christian domestic abuse support site. Reader comments were extremely positive and, with the Lord’s inspiration, the author expanded the content.

A link to the original A Cry For Justice post on which Harriet Cook based her book can be found here. We published this post to announce the recent release.

What Doesn’t Kill Us: The New Psychology of Posttraumatic Growth

by Stephen Joseph.