Soul Rape: Recovering Personhood after Abuse
Overview
If you were abused or neglected as a child, chances are that you have been your whole life, whether you’re a man, a woman, or a teen. Child abuse so mangles the personality that the victim unconsciously attracts abusers throughout the life cycle. Lies about yourself were planted deep in your mind by the abuse, and you still believe them. Until you understand exactly what the abuse did to you, you cannot get free. Soul Rape: Recovering Personhood after Abuse provides an effective seven-step program for use by victims, their therapists, and for group work. In this book, survivors and professionals will discover:
- How celebrities become addicts
- Why 12-step programs don’t work and can be extremely harmful
- What a faith-based seven-step program for abuse recovery can do for you
- How addressing abuse solves the cycle of addictions
- Why mental illness is a reaction to somebody else’s craziness
- How group work can transform victims into survivors
- Why “bootleg” churches are starving souls and endangering America
With Logos, countless Scripture passages are just a click away. Whether you’re a counselor or you’re being counseled, the Logos edition of Soul Rape: Recovering Personhood after Abuse brings the words of Scripture closer than ever to one of life’s greatest challenges. Search the entire volume by topic to find the exact resources you’re looking for and specific biblical insight on any question. Whether you’re a working counselor looking for a comprehensive set of practical tools or you’re a Christian dealing with the book’s topics in your own life, Soul Rape: Recovering Personhood after Abuse can help you tackle one of today’s toughest issues.
- Provides a comprehensive look at various forms of abuse
- Presents a faith-based seven step program for abuse recovery
- Illustrates that finding our identity in Christ is the only way to recover personhood after abuse
- Includes seven psychometric instruments and assessments
- Disintegration of Life
- The Recovering of Self
- The Lies Implanted by Abuse
- Physical Abuse
- Terrorizing
- Parentification
- Abuse at School
- Neglect and Rejection
- Domestic Abuse
- A Man’s Account
- Child Abuse Treatment
- Treatment of Adult Survivors
- A New Seven-Step Program
- Special Populations
- The Dangerous Student
- Workplace Violence
- The Falsely Accused: Victims in the Truest Sense
Top Highlights
“St. Paul called the love of money the root of all kinds of evil. But child abuse is an evil root that runs deeper, spreads farther, and holds a specific, predictable consequence: the loss of personhood and often of life itself. Always feeling despicable, the victim has neither hope nor any concept of eternal life. There is no possibility of a healthy relationship with God.” (Pages 2–3)
“As best we know, one in every three little girls is sexually abused and about one in four boys. There is no way to know the actual prevalence because, of course, abuse occurs in secret. However, it is fairly accurate to say that perhaps 90 percent of women attending Alcoholics Anonymous have been sexually abused, and about 80 percent of the men have been physically abused, a large but unknown number sexually. Half the abused women are victims of incest. Present studies indicate about 40 million children abused per day worldwide.” (Page 3)
“While child abuse might harshly be stated as ‘raping the soul’, even children reared in fairly normal homes still suffer a ‘molestation’ of their identity through the communication of false information about themselves.” (Page 4)
“Child abuse implants false messages about who one is. It is most difficult to live a successful life that is based on lies.” (Page xi)
“Wounded healers are by far the most effective psychotherapists” (Page 132)
Soul Rape is an eye-opener for everybody who hates human suffering. It clearly demonstrates that mental illness is usually the result of being sinned against. We need to stop this cycle of abuse, which is occurring not just often but virtually all the time all around this world. The first step is to master the insights of this invaluable book, which is destined to change the face of psychology and theology permanently.
—Anacleto B. Millendez, founder, Beautiful Heart Foundation
Soul Rape is a tour de force of the tortured landscape of child abuse and its pernicious long-term outcomes. Numerous case studies expertly intertwine with theoretical insights to produce the equivalent of a comprehensive and unconventional treatment modality. This book is important contribution toward the edification of victims and institutions alike.
—Sam Vaknin, editor-in-chief, Global Politician
This is a wonderful book. It should be compulsory reading for anyone dealing with abused children or abused adults, or adult survivors of childhood abuse: physicians, psychologists, and other therapists, teachers, protective workers, and so on. And the language is so clear and nontechnical that it will be of enormous benefit to the survivors of trauma themselves, and even to parent who want to ensure the safety and wellbeing of their children.
—Robert Rich, psychologist
Heyward Bruce Ewart created [this book] to help victims, parents, and therapists. There are various tests included in this book which can help determine whether the victim is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There is a test for concealed child abuse and a domestic violence inventory questionnaire throughout its pages, descriptions of what effects the abuse has taken and how you can break free. This book is not meant to take over the work of a qualified therapist, but to help therapists and those dealing with abused people. This book is an excellent resource!
—Reader Views
This book provides the reader with an in-depth understanding into the long-lasting effects of abuse and also provides a number of useful tests and tools to aid in such areas as uncovering concealed child abuse and screening for potentially dangerous employees. This is an important book and would be a beneficial read for those who were abused as children, those currently suffering from abuse, those working with the abused, and anyone who knows someone who has been abused.
—Rebecca’s Reads
- Title: Soul Rape: Recovering Personhood after Abuse
- Author: Heyward Bruce Ewart
- Publisher: Loving Healing Press
- Publication Date: 2012
- Pages: 190
Reviews
3 ratings
Kevin Osborne
5/28/2015
This has been the toughest book of my life to read! I found it to be a riveting and captivating journey into the living hell of abuse. It reminded me of the tremendous destructive damage of my own abuse from my schzophrenic father, damage that Dr. Ewart is being used by God to help heal. My mind went through a roller coaster of emotions reading it. I found myself crying for those who never recovered from their abuse and rejoicing with those who have. The cases presented of lives destroyed by abuse are heart-breaking. Dr. Ewart describes abuse as a rape of the soul. Think about that word rape. Let all that word means to you sink deep inside you. Abuse causes its victim to be robbed of who God created that individual to be. Picture that beautiful child when it crys out for the first time. That infant is God’s perfect creation. Sadly, as Dr. Ewart discusses in his book, that beautiful child of God gets damaged by the viciousness and cruelty of abuse. The identity of self is attacked. The abuser seeks to destroy the true self and replace it with a false self that the abuser can control and manipulate. When thinking how best to describe Soul Rape to you, the image of a cardiologist telling a patient that there is damage to their heart after a heart attack came to my mind. The specialist tells the patient that muscle around the heart has been damaged from a heart attack. That’s the bad news. The good news is that with proper treatment further damage to the heart can be prevented. The awful news is that through the abuse, the Enemy attacks the body, mind and spirit. The great news is that we are given the power through the Holy Spirit and proper training in Christian counseling and psychology to make a permanent positive change in the lives of those we counsel. The Enemy says the abused person is a piece of garbage, stupid, weak and will always be a failure. The Psalmist, David, speaks God’s truth that we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm139:14); Dr. Ewart equates abuse as being on the same level as murder. His critics may well say that this statement is a radical one. I disagree. I have been told by some who have counseled me about my abuse to get over it. One professional told me,”Other people have been abused and they get on with their lives. What makes you so special that you haven’t recovered from your abuse?” These are some of the judgmental thoughts many abused people are exposed to. It is in many instances regarded as the family secret that must remain hidden and never ever talked about. Men are raised to suck up the abuse they experienced and get on with life. Tough men are not abused. It is only weak men who admit that. My abuse was a killing of that child, who so much wanted to do so many things with his life, to dream dreams as high as Mount Everest. My father in his manic rages killed the joyful child. His destructive negative programming comes back in these haunting spirit-killing words. “You’re lazy. You’re weak. You’re stupid. You’ll always be a failure. Your brother is smarter than you’ll ever be. I wish you had never been born!” Those who say abuse is not on the same level as murder need to think again. When I would prove to my father that I was not stupid, I would get beaten or belittled, so I played the role my father gave me of being far less than my Lord wanted me to be. It was safer to do that; it kept me alive. Dr. Ewart is encouraging that joyful child to live again. No dream no matter how impossible it seems is beyond reach when God is in it. The songs that I am writing are more filled with the child-like joy that my Father wants me and all of us to have.I am not sending out multiple links about my writing and song writing to prove to people I am worthy, that I am not a failure. I know more abojut who I am. As I take that road to further healing I discover more insights about who I truly am. More people want to engage in conversation with me because I am letting them see the real me with both my strengths and my weaknesses. The child who loves to tell stories, have our cats do a kitty dance as I sing to them, — to enjoy being alive and help others heal from their abuse is living again. I am embracing the joy of learning more difficult pieces like Ave Maria and You Raise Me Up thanks to Christ’s healing power over my life and the wise guidance of Dr. Ewart. Dr. Ewart highlights that one of the main signs a child has been abused is that nothing they ever do pleases their abuser. You can get 95 on a test. That’s not good enough. It should have been 100. I could never do enough as a child to gain my father’s approval. The abused deal with an impossible task of never being a failure and yet failing at the same time. You dare not surpass your abuser’s expectations of you and yet if it is deemed you’re not trying hard enough, you get punished for that. The abused person whether it is a child or adult is set up for failure. You must fail to not be beaten or killed. Dr. Ewart says this wounded self then lives up to the limited expectations set for it by its abuser. When you are told over and over again that you are a failure, you begin to believe that hate-filled negative programming. It is so sad that many abused children because of this false self that is created engage in destructive behaviours such as drug and alcohol addiction or in being promiscuous. There is that ever-growing poisonous venom that attacks the beautiful soul God created. The victims of sexual abuse then can go on to hate the gender who abused them and seek their destruction. If a father says to his daughter, she is a prostitute ,why then not get paid for it and at the same time manipulate all men? Men then become the enemy to be destroyed. It is like they are attacking their father. You will want so many times to stop reading this book. Don’t. The lives that have been transformed by Dr. Ewart will have you cheering. Some have gone on to be ministers, professors, chaplains and psychotherapists. He says the abused who receive counseling for their abuse make the best counselors and therapists. It takes one who has been so wounded by their abuse to truly understand the full gravity of the suffering the abused experience.Dr. Ewart, Father Paul as I lovingly call him, was physically and emotionally abused by his father as a child. I encourage you to read his touching and powerful story in this book. Abuse is their cross. It is a heavy cross, but it is also a transforming one that leads the abused from bitter defeat to sweet victory. The victim can become the victorious healer. That is who I am.. I believe in the silent prayers and in the terror of the night of all the abused, that is who they seek to be. Kevin Osborne, B.A. in Clinical Christian Counseling summa cum laude St. James the Elder Theological Seminary, BTh with honours Canada Christian College & Graduate School, D.D., D Sc. in Clinical Christian Counseling St. James the Elder Theological Seminary , Diplomate Honours in Creative Ministry, St. James the Elder Theological SeminaryFrancis Rozario
9/19/2013
Kent R Acheson, DBA, MBA
8/12/2013
