Main description:

The Impossible Choice offers readers a narrative of the relationship between a therapist and her patient who desperately wants to discover her past. With no memory and no way of knowing what was real, her long therapeutic journey was to last 26 years, half her lifetime. Her only reality was the life she lived in the presence of her therapist. The narrative unfolds to reveal a story of horrific events that must be hidden, yet can no longer be kept secret. It sheds light on how chronic long-term traumatisation within a closed family circle can create madness in a vulnerable and lonely child, and helps reader gain an understanding of the enigmatic phenomena of Dissociated Identity Disorder.

Having been terrorized into silence, destroying her ability to use language in a house of secrets and lies, the therapy reveals how this patient struggles to come out of her autistic-like state in search of ways to find her past, her 'self' and her voice. In this struggle, the reader becomes an audience exposed to the birth of dissociative personae who come forth to tell her story. As language slowly unfolds, she begins to share a first-hand account, albeit in written form, of the most complex psychological forces involved in a victim of incest who simultaneously loves, hates and is terrorized by her lover-father.

Through live vignettes it demonstrates how external violence can create inner violence that threatens to annihilate the soul, leaving only a body to survive. The book provides an original contribution to our understanding of the complex psychological forces involved in incest, featuring the patient's own, coherent written texts, mediated by her therapist. The former's remarkable insights represent essential reading for all readers involved in policy development for the protection of children at high risk of suffering abuse.

Contents:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

NOTES TO READER

PART I CREATING A SAFE PLACE INSIDE

Chapter One IN THE BEGINING - A STONE

Chapter Two SEPARATING INSIDE FROM OUTSIDE

Chapter Three TAKE OUT THE BADNESS - I WANT TO BE GOOD

Chapter Four FROM DEAD ENDS TO DID

Chapter Five ALTERNATIVE WAYS TO COMMUNICATE - WRITING

Chapter Six HOW CAN I KNOW THAT WE ARE REAL?

Chapter Seven THE STORY OF INCEST :KEEPING IT ALL IN THE FAMILY

Chapter Eight THE DANGER OF THE GOOD OBJECT

Chapter Nine ON INCEST, BLINDNESS AND PARANOIA

Chapter Ten THE HOSPITAL DREAM

Chapter Eleven THE SILENCE IS NOT TO BE BATTLED - BUT UNDERSTOOD

Chapter Twelve THE DEATH OF DAD: LONELINESS

Chapter Thirteen ON PIMPS AND PROSTITUTES

Chapter Fourteen WHEN TRAUMA HAS NO WITNESS

PART II LIVING THE PAST IN THE PRESENT LIVING DEATH

Chapter Fifteen ENACTMENT INSTEAD OF MEMORY

Chapter Sixteen FROM HANGING DOLL TO DATH BY HANGING

Chapter Seventeen THE CULT DREAM

Chapter Eighteen ALICE IN HORRORLAND

Chapter Nineteen THE MYSTERIOUS GARDEN

PART III FROM INSIDE TO OUTSIDE CHOOSING LIFE

Chapter Twenty ENTER: THE MINISTER

Chapter Twenty-one FROM PREGNANCY TO BIRTH

EPILOGUE

BIBLIOGRAPHY