Top 7 Must-Reads For Incest Survivors

My recovery journey from incest has involved individual and group therapy, an Adult Child of Alcoholics group, thirteen years of Al-Anon meetings and work with sponsors, church worship, and bibliotherapy—the use of books as a tool in the treatment of mental health challenges. I hope you’ll find in the following list some titles that intrigue you and will further your healing process.

The Color Purple, Alice Walker, 1982, 4.7 Stars

Celie has grown up poor in rural Georgia, despised by the society around her and abused by her own family. She strives to protect her sister, Nettie, from a similar fate, and while Nettie escapes to a new life as a missionary in Africa, Celie is left behind without her best friend and confidante, married off to an older suitor, and sentenced to a life alone with a harsh and brutal husband.

In an attempt to transcend a life that often seems too much to bear, Celie begins writing letters directly to God. The letters, spanning 20 years, record a journey of self-discovery and empowerment guided by the light of a few strong women. She meets Shug Avery, her husband’s mistress and a jazz singer with a zest for life, and her stepson’s wife, Sophia, who challenges her to fight for independence. And though the many letters from Celie’s sister are hidden by her husband, Nettie’s unwavering support will prove to be the most breathtaking of all.

The Right to Innocence: Healing the Trauma of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Beverly Engle, 1990, 4.5 Stars

"A practical and powerful must-read book for all who have suffered childhood sexual abuse, their family members and loved ones, and for all mental health professionals."—Harold H. Bloomfield, M.D., Author of Making Peace with Your Parents.

As a trained therapist and sufferer of sexual abuse herself, Beverly Engel knows that there is probably no trauma a child can suffer that makes her or him feel more alone than sexual abuse. This helpful book offers hope for recovery with exercises, visualizations, and techniques that support you through a seven-step program, that will aid you in: facing the truth, releasing your anger, confronting those responsible with facts and feelings, forgiving yourself, and more healing advice and information.

Conspiracy of Silence: The Trauma of Incest, Sandra Butler, 1996, 4.8 Stars

“This thoroughly researched and well-documented book explodes the reassuring myth that incest is predominantly a lower-class problem and reveals the profound implications of incestuous assault for the emotional and interpersonal development of the child victims. It also illuminates the complex pressures on the child not to report the abuse…scholarly, powerful, and enlightening…an excellent text.”—Contemporary Sociology

“In Totem and Taboo Freud explored the psychological roots of the nearly universal condemnation of incest. Sandra Butler’s background as a social counselor led her to investigate in depth this phenomenon as it exists in the U.S. today. The raw impact is enormous. Butler found that incest knows no social class. In ‘nice’ communities across the country, men who are esteemed, church-going pillars of righteousness are unmasked in anguished group therapy sessions that are the only rays of hope for their victims.”—Publishers Weekly

Beginning to Heal: A First Book for Men and Women Who Were Sexually Abused as Children, Ellen Bass & Laura Davis, 2003, 4.6 Stars

There's nothing as wonderful as starting to heal, waking up in the morning and knowing that nobody can hurt you if you don't let them.

Beginning to Heal offers hope and guidance for all survivors starting the healing journey. No matter how great your pain today, you can not only heal but thrive. Based on the authors' bestseller The Courage to Heal, this Revised Edition of Beginning to Heal takes you through the key stages of the healing process, from crisis times to breaking the silence, grief, and anger, to resolution and moving on. It includes inspirational highlights, clear explanations, practical suggestions, and compelling accounts of survivors' pain, their strength, and their triumphs.

The Courage to Heal, Ellen Bass & Laura Davis, 2008, 4.7 Stars

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.

The Obsidian Mirror: An Adult Healing from Sexual Abuse, Louise Wisechild, 2014, 4 Stars

The Obsidian Mirror tells the affirming and inspiring story of the author’s journey to confront and to heal from childhood sexual abuse. Through the use of inner characters—a critical judge, an adolescent rebel, scared and needy inner children, and an evolving nurturer, Wisechild illustrates the effects of abuse and her ongoing process of healing. With the support of friends, counselors, and her own work with creativity and body/mind therapies, Wisechild carries the reader with her on her journey from fear and grief to rage and personal empowerment. A classic in the literature on sexual abuse and healing, The Obsidian Mirror has encouraged thousands of survivors and their allies. Includes a Foreword by Laura Davis, author of The Courage to Heal.

Peeling Away the Façade: The Long Shadow of Child Abuse, Lee Reinecke, 2023, 4.8 Stars

Don’t be misled by Lee Reinecke’s fairy tale life—her handsome family, the house in a historical preservation district, a psychology career in the suburbs. A survivor of incest, she grapples with perfectionism, a turbulent marriage, and an undercurrent of rage. Her husband’s entanglement with a coworker, his deception, and shady professional ethics rock her black and white world one decade after another. And feeling smothered under their mother’s white-knuckled grip, her three sons rebel, choosing to walk on the edge instead of on the line.

“This is truly an exceptional book in that the author gives us both a personal and professional view of childhood assault and its aftermath. There are many layers to such abuse that are not readily apparent to its victims, who are typically too fixated on their own safety to analyze what’s actually happening to them. But here the survivor is a professionally trained psychologist, who offers unique insights into the emotional and intellectual struggles that confront and often paralyze victims of abuse. This is must reading for those who either suffer from or counsel those who have been abused.”—Dr. Richard Silvestri, author of CT: The Amazing New Confrontation Therapy, & Misery to Mastery: A Revolutionary New Treatment for Anxiety and Depression