Beyond Betrayal , livre ebook

Table of Contents
 
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
 
PART ONE - BETRAYAL’S WOUNDS
 
Chapter 1 - Trust and Betrayal
 
Trust
Betrayal
Sexually Abusive Behaviors
Recovery
 
Chapter 2 - Sexual Abuse and Manhood
 
Three Images of Man
Betrayal of Manhood
Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation
Five Paths to Masculinity
Your Many Masculine Selves
Your New Masculinity
 
Chapter 3 - Boundaries in Relationships
 
Boundary Violations
Boundaries within the Family
The Effect of Boundary Violations on Everyday Life
Using Daydreams
 
Chapter 4 - Not Knowing What You Know, Not Feeling What You Feel
 
Dissociation
Associations
How Trauma Affects Memories
Traumatic Dissociation
Dissociated Experiences Return
Severe Dissociation
Using Dissociation to Deal with Everyday Stress
What Helped Then May Hurt Now
Sexual Compulsions
Multiple Compulsions
Emotional Extremes
Multiple Selves
The Need for a Confidant
Putting Your Story Together
 
Chapter 5 - Betrayal in Families
 
More than Mistreatment
Family Environments and Abuse
Relating to the World
The Need to Communicate
Families and Authority
Hungry for Love
The Influence of Culture
 
Chapter 6 - Same-Sex Abuse and Sexual Orientation
 
Sexual Orientation
Sexual Initiation or Sexual Exploitation?
What Does All This Say about Me?
Male Abusers: Gay? Pedophiles? Both?
Doesn’t Abuse Make You Gay?
I’m Straight, Aren’t I?
Hatred of Gays
In the Movies
 
Chapter 7 - When the Abuser Is Female
 
Funny or Criminal?
Myths about Sex with Women
Is it Okay for Women to Be Boy-lovers?
If You’re Gay and Had a Female Abuser
When the Abuser Is Your Mother
In the Movies
 
Chapter 8 - Relating to Others
 
Affection, Intimacy, and Betrayal
Abused Boys Become Distrustful Men
Ambivalent Relationships
Power in Relationships
Avoiding Intimacy
Being Responsible
 
Chapter 9 - Sexuality and Intimacy
 
Sexual Anxieties
Sex Takes on Twisted Meanings
Differentiating between Abusive and Healthy Ways of Relating
Sexuality as Currency
Exploitative Relationships
Abused Men May Become Abusers
Sadistic and Masochistic Relationships
Achieving Intimacy
 
PART TWO - MOVING BEYOND BETRAYAL
Chapter 10 - Taking Charge
 
Changing Perspective
Your Automatic Reactions
Taking Charge of Your Actions
Taking Charge of Your Responsibilities
Taking Charge of Your Belief System
Taking Charge of Your Recovery
Taking Charge of Your Trust
Taking Charge of How You Relate to Others
Expectations, Limitations, and Goals
Acknowledgment and Acceptance
Letting Your Victim Identity Recede
Whom Should You Tell?
How and When to Tell
 
Chapter 11 - Safely Experiencing Emotions
 
Reclaim Your Emotions
Handling Emotions, Then and Now
Emotions of Betrayal
Learn the Different Emotions
Managing Your Emotions
Completing Your Story
Seven Ways to Regain and Manage Emotions
Interventions
Resolving Your Emotions about Your Abuser
Forgiveness
 
Chapter 12 - Helping Yourself Heal
 
Addressing Your Problems
Men and Psychotherapy
What Goes On in Psychotherapy?
Locating a Therapist
Interviewing a Therapist
Professional Background and Credentials
Theoretical Background
Therapists’ Personal Characteristics
Should My Therapist Be a Survivor?
Talking about Sex
Questioning the Relationship
Rough Times in Therapy
Evaluating Therapy
If the Therapy Seems Unhelpful
Group Therapy
Medication
Additional Therapies
Other Aids to Recovery
 
Chapter 13 - Deciding Who You Are
 
Taking Charge of Who You Are
Taking Charge of What You Desire
Your Masculine Self-images
Choosing What to Accept
A Man in Charge of Himself
 
PART THREE - BETRAYAL’S OTHER VICTIMS
Chapter 14 - For Families and Loved Ones
 
First Things First: Understanding Him
How Can I Talk to Him about His Sexual Betrayal?
Living with His Other Behaviors
Your Stages of Grief and Acceptance
Abusers’ Complex Motives and Effects
Who to Believe?
Does Anything Support the Allegations?
Taking a Position
 
Bibliography
Index

Copyright © 2005 by Richard B. Gartner. All rights reserved Foreword © 2005 by William S. Pollack, Ph.D.
 
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey Published simultaneously in Canada
 
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
 
Gartner, Richard B.
Beyond betrayal : taking charge of your life after boyhood sexual abuse / Richard B. Gartner.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-471-61910-8 (cloth)
1. Adult child sexual abuse victims—Psychology. 2. Adult child sexual abuse victims—Rehabilitation. I. Title.
HV6570.G37 2005
362.76’4—dc22
2004025803
 
I dedicate this book to the memory of my parents, Mae and Ben Gartner. Their generosity, love, and vision ensured that I got the education I needed to write about complex topics. Their confidence, pride, and faith in me made all the difference.
 
I also dedicate this book to the memory of my agent, Jed Mattes. He cared extraordinarily about the power of books, and his unwavering confidence in the need for this book outlasted the fear and distrust of many doubters.
Foreword
For years clinicians and the general population believed that a man or even a boy as a victim of sexual abuse was an oxymoron. The reasoning went that males weren’t those who were hurt and betrayed as a result of sexual mistreatment, incest, sexual criminal behavior, and/or abuse—they were the abusers, the predators. It is indeed true, unfortunately, that men and boys do perpetrate sexual abuse. Equally true is the painful fact that men and boys are the victims of it as well. Some of the striking clinical writing of pioneers working with abused boys and men abused as boys finally brought this mental health epidemic out of the closet.
Indeed it was the pioneering groundbreaking clinical work of Dr. Richard Gartner that first opened our eyes to this hidden crisis of male-based pain. He was the one who informed the world of clinicians that by the age of sixteen up to one in four boys has experienced some form of unwanted direct or indirect sexual contact with someone older. In his highly regarded professional text, Betrayed as Boys: Psychodynamic Treatment of Sexually Abused Boys , he revealed how the effects of abuse on boys are distinctly different from the effects on girls. Gartner explored the sense of betrayal by one’s supposed protectors within a context of the pathways to “normal” masculinity. He showed how many of the male-female differences result from the negative admonitions, emotional straitjackets, and myths we place on boys growing up in our culture, which I also explored in my own book, Real Boys .
No clinician who read Betrayed as Boys could ever approach the treatment of boys and men, especially those betrayed by sexual abuse, in the same manner again. I do not believe it is an exaggeration to state that Dr. Gartner’s work led to the saving of countless emotional lives.
As the twenty-first century arrived, headlines were filled with horrific stories about clergy sexually abusing young boys for decades, a scourge that still haunts adult male victims. As a society, we began to see that this was merely the tip of an iceberg. We finally saw that boys were victims of sexual abuse at the hands of a myriad of adults—male and female—who betrayed their trust and responsibility. And now it was out in the open and we were finally talking about it in the press. The issues went way beyond blame and adjudication; the most important issues were the effects of the betrayal and how we could help male victims heal from the abuse as well as bring knowledge, succor, and support to the males, females, adults, and children who love them.
In his new and important book, Beyond Betrayal: Taking Charge of Your Life after Boyhood Sexual Abuse ,