Sexual Abuse by Health Professionals: A Personal Search for Meaning and Healing

The author of this book is a psychiatrist, and the survivor of sexual and emotional abuse by her first psychotherapist, also a psychiatrist. Penfold employs two voices in the writing of her book: the first, which starts each chapter, is that of the victim of abuse telling her own story; the second is that of the survivor and professional on her journey towards understanding the meaning of the abuse and how to heal from it. This voyage of discovery includes having a second, very different, experience of therapy; learning the stories of other survivors of abuse by health professionals; reading published accounts of such abuses; making her own story public to both professional and general audiences; becoming a member of a group dedicated to combating sexual abuse by therapists; talking to colleagues with experience in treating victims of abuse by health professionals; culling ideas from the literature; and herself treating patients who are survivors of abuse by health professionals.