Baffled by Love: Stories of the Lasting Impact of Childhood Trauma Inflicted by Loved Ones

by Laurie Kahn

Overview

For three decades, Laurie Kahn has treated clients who were abused as children—people who were injured by someone whom they believed to be trustworthy, someone who professed to love them. Their abusers—a father, stepfather, priest, coach, babysitter, aunt, neighbor—often were people who inhabited their daily lives.
Love is why they come to therapy. Love is what they want, and love is what they say is not going well for them.

Kahn, too, had to learn to navigate a wilderness in order to find the “good” kind of love after a rocky childhood. In Baffled by Love, she includes strands from her own story, along with those of her clients, creating a narrative full of resonance, meaning, and shared humanity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781631522260
Publisher:	She Writes Press
Publication date:	06/06/2017
Pages:	280
Sales rank:	266,996
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Laurie Kahn MA, LCPC, MFA is a pioneer in the field of trauma treatment. For more than thirty years, she has specialized in the treatment of survivors of childhood abuse. In 1980, she founded Womencare Counseling and Training Center. Since then, her ideas and expertise have served both people who have experienced childhood abuse and hundreds of clinicians who have graduated from her Trauma Consultation Training Program. Kahn’s personal essays have been published in anthologies, and her articles and book reviews in professional journals.

Table of Contents

Prologue xi

Introduction: Thinking About Love xv

Part 1

Chapter 1 Don't Like Me 3

Chapter 2 A Nice Visit 9

Chapter 3 Sharing Stories 14

Chapter 4 Quills of a Porcupine 24

Chapter 5 Love Outsourced 33

Chapter 6 A Terrible Mistake 39

Chapter 7 Traumatic Experiences of Love 45

Chapter 8 I Really Like Willow 51

Chapter 9 Children for Sale 57

Chapter 10 Love and Lies 64

Chapter 11 The Topic is Sex 71

Chapter 12 Teaching Children about Love 77

Part 2

Chapter 13 Disempowered 81

Chapter 14 Betrayal Blindness 85

Chapter 15 Surrender 90

Chapter 16 Another Betrayal 94

Chapter 17 You're My Favorite 99

Chapter 18 Soup Cans 108

Chapter 19 My First Marriage 116

Chapter 20 Dog Bite 121

Chapter 21 Meeting Natalie 126

Chapter 22 Grooming 134

Chapter 23 Not for Cowards 138

Chapter 24 Three Wet Kisses 141

Chapter 25 No Surprise 146

Chapter 26 Hey, Doc 151

Part 3

Chapter 27 Trust 163

Chapter 28 Break and Repair 174

Chapter 29 Black and Blue 179

Chapter 30 Good-bye 184

Chapter 31 The Women in my Life 188

Chapter 32 The Date 191

Chapter 33 Transitions 200

Chapter 34 Kristy's Wings 205

Chapter 35 A Different Kind of Love 212

Chapter 36 Jessica goes to Cambodia 220

Chapter 37 I Love You, Too 232

Chapter 38 My Mother learns to Pray 235

Editorial Reviews

"[The author] weaves together her own difficult family history with the stories of women who share the burden of abuse. Kahn’s in-depth look at childhood trauma is expert, caring, informative, and affecting."

—Booklist

"Psychotherapist Kahn (founder, Womencare Counseling & Training Ctr.), who specializes in the treatment of survivors of childhood abuse, relates the stories of her clients whose understanding of love was twisted by the mistreatment of those who were supposed to love and protect them. An unsettling yet compelling work on the issue of childhood sexual abuse that will be valuable for survivors and their loved ones as well as health-care professionals."

—Library Journal

“I feel in my bones that this is a work of oceanic empathy and insight and importance—a highly personal yet deeply professional major book that has the potential to shape many lives.”

—Thomas French, Pulitzer Prize winner author of Juniper, Zoo Story

“This is a love story and a beautiful one. Laurie has done a marvelous job of tracking the processes of pain, healing, and love in her clients and herself. I would recommend it to everyone.”

—Don Catherall PhD, author of Emotional Safety: Viewing Couples Through the Lens of Affect

“A powerful collection of stories of…traumatic experience. Kahn shares pieces of her own story [too] while warming your heart.”

—Richard A. Chefetz, M.D. Past President, International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation and Recipient of ISSTD’s Pierre Janet Writing Award

"Laurie Kahn bravely challenges the paralyzing taboos around love and psychotherapy. Her extraordinary achievement rests on wise insights, tender honesty, eloquent prose, and perhaps most of all, on the well-timed telling of her own compelling struggles with betrayal and love."

—Jennifer Freyd PhD, author of the award-winning book Betrayal Trauma: The Logic of Forgetting Childhood Abuse

"A sensitive and wise book. Laurie Kahn explores the devastating experience of having been molested by people you love and treasure who simultaneously are the source of pain and betrayal. Baffled by Love is about the healing power of sharing, exploring and finding words for one’s self. A deeply comforting book."
—Bessel van der Kolk MD, author of New York Times Science bestseller The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Healing of Trauma

From the Publisher

05/01/2017
Psychotherapist Kahn (founder, Womencare Counseling & Training Ctr.), who specializes in the treatment of survivors of childhood abuse, relates the stories of her clients whose understanding of love was twisted by the mistreatment of those who were supposed to love and protect them. The narratives range from a daughter whose father served as her pimp to a woman who grew up in a cult where women's role was solely to service men to an athlete who was preyed upon by her coach. Kahn also weaves in her own personal story as well as the often lasting effects of abuse—absence of trust, traumatic flashbacks, and the ability to see danger in relationships. She demonstrates how her clients grew and found solidarity with one another throughout a therapeutic experience and that hope and resources exist for survivors. VERDICT An unsettling yet compelling work on the issue of childhood sexual abuse that will be valuable for survivors and their loved ones as well as health care professionals.

Library Journal