Surviving Survival ...

About the Book

The purpose of the book is to present a decade long period of research and experience regarding the author’s healing from sexual abuse. The hope of the book is to provide information and thus offer a measure of assistance to others in their own healing process and those who treat them. If Surviving Survival meets its goals, it would do so by communicating to readers who are survivors that they are not alone in what they have endured and to those caring for and about survivors what particular needs exist for those harmed by sexual abuse. The perspective of one woman’s journey has value in its example and its use of the very principles the book suggests. In this respect Surviving Survival may appeal to survivors, their loved ones and clinicians as the universal and unique aspects of healing are brought forth in the writing.

About the Author

Born number twelve in a family of 13 children, Gertrude Scahill learned early how to exercise her voice amidst a clamor. The trajectory of her life has been a continuation of such ‘speaking up’. A commitment intensified by an awareness of the many whose voices remain whispers or nonexistent. Through formal and informal study of language and an abiding love of words Ms. Scahill has been able to, however marginally, open pathways to articulation of the suffering of those made mute by the crime of sexual abuse in her recent book: Surviving Survival: A Non-clinical Guide to Healing from Sexual Abuse.