Classic Guides

Male survivors are of different minds as to which books on childhood sexual abuse has proven most helpful, but one in particular stands out:

• Mike Lew. Victims No Longer: the Classic Guide for Men Recovering from Sexual Child Abuse. Second edition. New York: Quill, 2004. A classic and profoundly empathetic work first published in 1988 and now available in a thoroughly revised and redesigned new edition, authored by a therapist who has dedicated his life to working with male survivors in private practice in Massachusetts and through lectures, workshops, and retreats worldwide. His book is divided into five parts covering abuse, men, survivorhood and the aftereffects of abuse, recovery, and other people and resources; the individual chapters include many statements by survivors and “focus” summaries on major points. Many male survivors report using it on an ongoing basis. Good index and bibliography to 2003, with extensive listings of other resources.
  Link to Book

Two other works likewise reflect the expertise of highly respected pioneers in the field:

• Richard B. Gartner. Beyond Betrayal: Taking Charge of Your Life After Boyhood Sexual Abuse. Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons, 2005. This author, a New York-based psychologist and co-founder of MaleSurvivor, frames his discussion of childhood sexual abuse around the theme of betrayal of trust and the way this devastates a boy’s self-image and can affect his relationships with others on into adulthood. His analysis is illustrated with numerous accounts of the experiences of individual survivors, and concludes with a bibliography to 2004 and a useful index.
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• Mic Hunter. Abused Boys: the Neglected Victims of Sexual Abuse. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1990. This work is by a psychologist based in Saint Paul, MN. It consists of two sections; the first comprises six chapters surveying the main abuse and recovery issues relevant to male survivors, and the second following up with the stories of thirteen survivors, each concluding with important questions for the reader. The author addresses male survivors, their supporters, and clinicians, and succeeds in striking a good balance. He concludes with a wealth of useful notes, a section on resources, a bibliography to 1989, and a comprehensive index.
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Other Handbooks

Of the numerous manuals, handbooks, and workbooks available to male survivors, some are especially noteworthy:

• Larry Conrad. Secret Doors: a Workbook for Male Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse. Carlisle, PA: Our Phoenix Foundation, 2018. This workbook, written by the founding director of the Foundation, offers a new approach to recovery from sexual abuse by presenting the problem from the survivor’s perspective and addressing a knot of issues central to healing. The book consists primarily of statements by male survivors of many different national, ethnic, spiritual, and social backgrounds, organized according to five major themes: the young me, abusers, abuse, after the abuse, and thriving, with framing materials by the author and suggestions for how a completed workbook can be used to pursue further recovery work. Copies are available here on this website.
• Cynthia Crosson-Tower. Confronting Child and Adolescent Sexual Abuse. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2015. This textbook introduces university students and professionals to the “state of the field” of childhood sexual abuse and reflects the extensive clinical and teaching experience of a retired university professor in Boston who has written numerous books on the subject. It sketches out a history of sexual abuse, covers the current dynamics of the problem, does full justice to both genders as both victims and abusers, and gives due consideration to the cultural perspectives of minorities. Though dense going at times, it is exceptionally well written and is full of important insights. Each chapter closes with a summary and a list of review questions; the bibliography is exhaustive (in professional terms), and the index is excellent.
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• Michel Dorais. Don’t Tell: the Sexual Abuse of Boys, translated by Isabel Denholm Meyer. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002. The author is a Canadian authority on male sexuality who has worked extensively with male abuse victims, prostitutes, and members of gangs. Here he focuses on the emotional turmoil and confusion into which sexual abuse casts a boy, how abuse shapes his feelings about his masculinity and sexuality, ways in which these problems continue into adulthood, and how the survivor and his supporters can best address them. The book integrates the experiences and input of many survivors whose cases serve as illustrations. It concludes with appendices on research methods, notes (to 1998), and a good index.
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• Beverly Engel. Families in Recovery: Working Together to Heal the Damage of Childhood Sexual Abuse. Los Angeles: Lowell House, 1994. Observing that the concerns of a survivor’s family of origin often differ considerably from those that engage partners, lovers, and friends, an incest survivor/therapist addresses this book specifically to survivors and their families. She discusses how to disclose, how parents, siblings and perpetrators cope with the news, how the survivor and family members can support each other, what to expect in the various stages of recovery, and how the whole family can heal. Male survivors may dispute the author’s references to female survivors and male abusers, but she does in fact cover issues and points relevant to boys and men in particular. The book closes with an appendix on basic terms and information, a bibliography to 1994, and a list of resource organizations.
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• Howard Fradkin. Joining Forces: Empowering Male Survivors to Thrive. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 2012. This author, also a survivor, is a retired Ohio-based psychologist and a co-founder of MaleSurvivor; he was also co-chairman of its Weekend of Recovery program until the latter became an independent organization, Men Healing, in 2017. The author brings profound expertise to this new recovery manual, which is noteworthy for its focus on specific strategies and the use of confidence-building affirmations. Also prominent are the voices of the “Silence Breakers,” alumni of the Weekend of Recovery program. Joining Forces, which concludes with endnotes, a chapter-by-chapter list of resources, and a detailed index, is likely to become a classic ranking with those of Lew, Gartner, and Hunter.
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• Frederick Mathews. The Invisible Boy: Revisioning the Victimization of Male Children and Teens. Ottawa: National Clearinghouse on Family Violence, Health Promotion and Programs Branch, Health Canada, 1996. This booklet by a clinical psychologist will give you an idea of the issues that confront clinicians and researchers specializing in the childhood sexual abuse of males. The author orients sexual abuse within the framework of violence in general against boys and argues for a more power-oriented model as opposed to one dominated by gender considerations presuming to “know” behaviors and thinking that are distinctly male or female. His comments have especially important implications for our understanding, for example, of the connection between sexual abuse and family violence, the abuse of males by females, male prostitution, and the impact of sexual abuse on gay men. Extensive bibliography to 1995. Out of print, but available from various online sources.
• Ken Singer. Evicting the Perpetrator: a Male Survivor’s Guide to Recovery from Childhood Sexual Abuse. Holyoke, MA: NEARI Press, 2010. The author of this book is a retired New Jersey social worker, therapist, and former president of MaleSurvivor. His approach to recovery stresses the importance of learning to make decisions based on breaking the abuser’s power to continue harming the survivor now as he or she had in the past. The book is also noteworthy for its original coverage of both new and traditional topics and its citations from the many survivors with whom the author has worked. It concludes with a guide on choosing a therapist and a discussion addressed to family and friends.
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• Daniel Jay Sonkin. Wounded Boys, Heroic Men. Holbrook, MA: Adams Media, 1998. In this book the author, a professional counselor and authority on family violence, takes up the issues of child abuse in general and offers advice and support for boys and men who have been abused in any way. Stressing that recovery requires getting help, he encourages the survivor towards that goal with a combination of guidance on dealing with feelings, self-help activities and strategies for enlisting the support of friends and family members. There are dialogue boxes throughout the book stressing especially important themes, and the book closes with appendices on how to start a men’s group, a bibliography to 1996, lists of relevant organizations and websites, and a summary of steps in “the hero’s journey”.
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• Kay Toon and Carolyn Ainscough. Breaking Free: Help for Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse. Third edition. London: Sheldon Press, 2018. First published in 1993, this classic work is now available in a third updated edition with extensive new material on such topics as street exploitation, abuse by public figures, perpetrators’ use of digital technology to groom and gain access to victims, keeping safe, understanding and dealing with trauma, and child protection procedures and protocols. As previously, the book is characterized by a positive and optimistic outlook encouraging survivors to “break free” from the past. Together with a companion Breaking Free Workbook, it has regularly been recommended by therapists, and in one of its projects the National Health Service in the UK distributed copies to its mental health provider trusts. It closes with an appendix on breathing and managing panic attacks, another collecting survivor stories, a list of support resources in the UK, and a good index.
  Link to Book|Link to Workbook
• Tom Wilken. Rebuilding Your House of Self-Respect: Men Recovering in Group from Childhood Sexual Abuse. 2nd edition. Erieau, ON: Hope and Healing Associates, 2008. Many male survivors find group work an important means for safe disclosure and discussion, and this book, the joint effort of 7 survivors and their group leader (a psychologist and group leader), seeks to facilitate and encourage such work. After a brief survey of facts and figures about the sexual abuse of boys, the 7 survivors tell their stories and describe, 5 years later, how group work has helped them. This is followed by discussion of a 10-step process of recovery as experienced by the men in the group, and the book concludes with information for those supporting male survivors, the top 15 quotes from the group’s work, and an annotated bibliography and list of references to 2001.
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Survivor Activist Manuals

Several manuals are of special interest as the work of male survivors whose recovery work led them to activism in the field and leadership in recovery groups and organizations:

• Hank Estrada. Recovery for Male Victims of Child Sexual Abuse. 2nd edition. Santa Fe, NM: Red Rabbit Press, 1994. This primer offers the insights of a survivor abused by his uncle from the age of 4 until he was 16, and then by a priest as a seminary student. In 1986 he founded the first national organization for male survivors and has often spoken on survivor issues to public audiences. The first half of his book is in an interview format offering a good balance between the author’s personal experience and information on broader abuse issues, and the latter half consists of a bibliography to 1993, a series of presentation outlines for group discussions, lists of resource catalogs, organizations and newsletters, and telephone numbers for relevant hotlines.
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• Stephen D. Grubman-Black. Broken Boys/Mending Men: Recovery from Childhood Sexual Abuse. Caldwell, NJ: Blackburn Press, 1990. This author (d. 2010), a professor of communication studies at Rhode Island University and an activist and counselor for male survivors, was abused in foster care as a very young boy; his book was a recovery project undertaken in therapy as an adult. He divides abuse and recovery issues into two parts on “broken boys” and “mending men” that seek “to encourage telling, so that feeling returns”, and much of the discussion is carried forward by the extensive quotations from his own journals and from other survivors. The book closes with the author’s survivor story, an epilogue on the beginnings of his work as an activist, and a bibliography to 1990. A second edition was published in 2002.
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• T. Thomas. Men Surviving Incest: a Male Survivor Shares on the Process of Recovery. Walnut Creek, CA: Launch Press, 1989. At the age of 30 the author began to recover memories of incest by his father and uncle, and this short book, written 4 years later, is part of his recovery work. In it he integrates his experiences as a victim and survivor into a broader 12-step perspective on recovery by illustrating the relevant issues with examples from his own past, which is useful since it invites other survivors to do the same. His book concludes with valuable thoughts on myths about men and self-worth, a list of resource organizations, and a bibliography to 1989.
  Link to book

For Gay Survivors

If you are gay, bisexual, or questioning your sexuality, valuable support and insights can be found in two useful works by therapists with extensive experience in working with gay men. See also the collection of essays edited by Fontes ("Other Perspectives") and the anthology published by the Queer Press Collective ("Anthologies"):

• James Cassese, ed. Gay Men and Childhood Sexual Trauma: Integrating the Shattered Self. New York: Harrington Park Press, 2000. This landmark collection of eleven essays addresses the special situation and needs of gay male survivors. Though written for professionals and clinicians, it is also accessible to the lay reader. Each essay begins with a brief synopsis and most provide bibliographies. Useful index.
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• Rik Isensee. Reclaiming Your Life: the Gay Man’s Guide to Recovery from Abuse, Addictions, and Self-Defeating Behavior. Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, 2005. This book by a San Francisco social worker and therapist is addressed to gay men struggling with a past of victimization and dysfunctional behaviors. The first part of the book studies these problems and their consequences, and a second part offers strategies and advice on ways to claim one’s self-confidence and respect. Though written for adults, teens will also find this book helpful. It concludes with an index and appendices on the effects of childhood abuse and resources for survivors.
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Other Perspectives

Male survivors who are members of racial, ethnic, or religious minorities (from a North American perspective) face special issues and problems arising from traditional stereotypes and expectations within their communities. These are addressed in some valuable books:

• Lisa Aronson Fontes, ed. Sexual Abuse in Nine North American Cultures: Treatment and Prevention. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1995. This collection of essays looks at sexual abuse from the perspectives of various ethnic, racial, and religious groups and sexual orientations in North America. The contributors discuss how cultural issues and social attitudes contribute to dysfunctional family situations, how they discourage disclosure, and their impact on survivors seeking support and professional help. The chapters close with case histories and other useful discussions, and the editor introduces and concludes the volume with contextual studies. Bibliography to 1995, detailed index, and notes on the contributors.
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• David Mandel and David Pelcovitz, eds. Breaking the Silence: Sexual Abuse in the Jewish Community. Jersey City, NJ: Ktav Publishing House, 2011. This collection of twelve essays covers issues involved in disclosure, education, prevention, treatment, and interpretation of sexual abuse of both sexes from a Jewish (largely Orthodox) perspective. The authors are authorities in the fields of medicine, psychology, social work, and religious studies, and their essays address not only survivors, but also parents, community leaders, and professional service providers. There is no index, but the book concludes with a glossary of frequently used Hebrew terms.
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• Lori S. Robinson. I Will Survive: the African-American Guide to Healing from Sexual Assault and Abuse. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press, 2003. The author, a rape survivor, is a journalist, editor, and advocate with a special interest in African-American and Hispanic family issues, and her book is an excellent manual focusing on the unique historical, social, and cultural circumstances of the African-American community. In Part I she covers post-abuse health issues, the legal process, emotional recovery and therapy, topics of concern to family and friends, sexual healing, spiritual aspects, risk reduction and prevention for different age groups, and responses to a history of repression. Part II offers the survivor stories of three women and one man. The book closes with a list of resource organizations and hotlines, a bibliography to 2002, and a good index. Its orientation is Christian, but accommodates other belief systems and does not insist on forgiveness.
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• Robin D. Stone. No Secrets, No Lies: How Black Families Can Heal from Sexual Abuse. New York: Harlem Moon, 2004. In this book an incest survivor uses extensive reading in professional literature and interviews with many survivors and their families to elucidate the impact of sexual abuse on Black children, showing how their recovery is influenced by cultural taboos and social dynamics emerging from reactions to a history of enslavement and racism. Though addressed primarily to women, the book also considers boys and men, whose issues are further explored in a separate chapter. Each chapter includes useful inserts of “Fast Facts” and ends with a “Help Yourself” section inviting further reflection. The book has an extensive section on resources, a bibliography to 2004, and a good index.
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Spiritual Approaches

If religious faith plays an important role in your life you may be looking for a spiritually grounded approach to recovery. Several such books are available, though there is currently still nothing aimed specifically at an audience of male survivors:

• Dan B. Allender. Healing the Wounded Heart: the Heartache of Sexual Abuse and the Hope of Transformation. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2016. Allender, a survivor himself, is a seminary-trained psychologist whose first book, The Wounded Heart (1990), was a pioneering faith-based work that many Christian male survivors continue to value as a crucial resource. This new book is not a revision of the old one, but its successor, reflecting the profound changes both in our knowledge of sexual abuse and in the face of sexual abuse itself that have developed over the past several decades, including the increasingly public issue of clergy abuse. As previously, the author’s approach is biblical, stressing trust in God’s wisdom and love, while directly and honestly addressing the soul-searching questions survivors of faith most often raise. There is no bibliography, but the endnotes refer to a wealth of relevant literature. A companion workbook is also available (2016).
  Link to Book|Link to Workbook
• Diane Mandt Langberg. On the Threshold of Hope: Opening the Door to Hope and Healing for Survivors of Sexual Abuse. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1999. This work by a psychologist and Christian counselor offers an approach to healing based on the interplay of “four voices:” hers and those of survivors, the reader, and the Bible. She covers such topics as getting started, self-care, dealing with the abuse, how the body, emotions, thinking, relationships, and spirit are damaged by sexual abuse, and how they can heal. A final part offers guidance on finding a good Christian counselor, suggestions for those who are supporting a survivor, and some concluding spiritual thoughts. A companion workbook has recently been published (2014).
  Link to Book|Link to Workbook
• Steven R. Tracy. Mending the Soul: Understanding and Healing Abuse. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005. This book by a pastor and Christian counselor covers recovery from all forms of abuse, physical and emotional as well as sexual. Male survivors will note an emphasis on the victimization of females, but Tracy’s book does reflect a more mature Christian approach to abuse, especially on the vexed topics of love and forgiveness. It also provides appendices on how churches can most effectively screen volunteers and applicants for positions involving access to children and on the warning signs that abuse may be occurring. There is an appendix on relevant Bible passages, and the book closes with notes to the text (the cited reading extends to 2003) and indices of scriptural citations and subjects.
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Survivors of Female Abuse

It was once thought that boys are hardly ever molested by females, but over the past 30 years it has become increasingly clear that this form of sexual abuse is common and extremely harmful to its victims. There is now an extensive literature on the topic, and several works stand out as especially useful to survivors:

• Karen A. Duncan. Female Sexual Predators: Understanding Them to Protect Our Children and Youth. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2010. This author is an Indiana therapist with long experience in sexual abuse cases and a keen eye for myths, stereotypes, and old iconic images, which she highlights and rejects throughout her book. She begins with a cogent account of female offenders and then moves on to the special case of maternal sexual abuse. Further chapters deal with problems in college dating relationships and sexual exploitation and harassment in schools, and Duncan closes with thoughts on future directions. Each chapter concludes with a useful summary, and the book, which is thoroughly documented, closes with an extensive bibliography and a good index.
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• Michele Elliott, ed. Female Sexual Abuse of Children: the Ultimate Taboo. New York and London: Guilford Press, 1994. This book is a collection of essays by eleven professionals, all but one of them women, from the UK, USA, and Canada covering female sexual abuse of both boys and girls. Though dated in some respects, it remains useful as a pioneering work and for its extensive use of stories by both male and female victims. It closes with a good index.
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• Robert M. Marchese. Land of July: a Real Life Scandal of Sex and Social Media at a Connecticut High School. Castroville, TX: Black Rose Writing, 2018. The husband of a woman who molested two teenage boys in the school where they both taught gives a powerful account of the case and its impact on himself, the family (two young boys), and the community. Particularly striking is how widely the abuser’s view of what she has done differs from the reality so evident to everyone else.
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• Hani G. Miletski. Mother-Son Incest: the Unthinkable Broken Taboo Persists – an Updated and Revised Overview of Findings. Second edition. Bethesda, MD: East West Publishing, 2007. This work began as the author’s master’s thesis and has since then (1995) been extensively revised and updated in a second edition. The author, a therapist and social worker based in Maryland, devotes chapters to disproving five misconceptions about the sexual abuse of boys by female perpetrators, illustrates the problem with numerous survivor stories by male victims, and offers suggestions for recovery. That is, while the title suggests a more limited focus, the book in fact covers the topic of female sexual abuse of boys more generally. The book closes with a useful appendix on reports of female sexual abuse of boys (beginning in 1934), a list of male survivor organizations and self-help books (to 2005), and an extensive bibliography (to 2006).
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Trauma and Suffering

There is a close symbiotic relationship between works that address trauma, which can be taken to mean the aggregate of the harm done to a child in abuse, and suffering, in the sense of the sum of how the victim and survivor responds to trauma emotionally. Some works adopt a clinical approach, addressing trauma, while others focus on the emotional response. But the best works representing either perspective all end up dealing with the other as well.

Both of these viewpoints are fundamental for a survivor to address, since recovery involves acknowledging the ongoing emotional impact of what was done to him as a child. Owning feelings will lead to difficult questions, some of them relating to the meaning of life itself.

Several classic works stand out as superbly helpful for their support in framing and addressing these questions:

• Viktor E. Frankl. Man’s Search for Meaning: an Introduction to Logotherapy, translated by Ilse Lasch. Fourth edition. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992. A Jewish Austrian psychiatrist who lost most of his family in the Holocaust, Frankl first published this book in German in 1946 to address the question of how one can find meaning and purpose in life in the face of unbearable suffering. His answer springs from his experiences in several Nazi concentration camps and revolves around his conviction that as love and hope are never beyond reach, even in the worst circumstances, it is always possible to find meaning in life, and hence to achieve fulfillment. Happiness cannot be pursued; it is the outcome of dedication to a greater cause.
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• Judith Lewis Herman. Trauma and Recovery: the Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Violence to Political Terror. New York: Basic Books, 1992, 1997. Our understanding of trauma, how it is perpetrated, how its victims can recover, and why it is so difficult to address, is largely based on this groundbreaking study by a professor of psychiatry at Harvard’s medical school. Herman’s analysis draws together both public and private forms of trauma, including sexual abuse, and it is to her that we owe, among so many other things, our appreciation of the importance of safety as a foundation for recovery. She also stresses the need for constant awareness and activism, since it will always be easier, at all levels, for the problem to be denied, minimized, or ignored. The book is addressed to a professional audience and envisages survivors largely as women, but it is full of important insights that will amply reward a careful read by male survivors.
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• Harold S. Kushner. When Bad Things Happen to Good People. New York: Schocken Books, 1981. This widely acclaimed book is a rabbi’s personal response to the death of his fourteen-year-old son. Writing not as a theologian or philosopher, but as “a man who has been hurt by life,” he addresses his thoughts and insights to those who blame themselves for their suffering, find that their faith is challenged by their anger at God, or encounter difficulty in moving past the realization that if there is justice in the world they deserved better. The overall theme of the book is that while God does not restrict mankind’s freedom to be human, he inspires people to come to the support of those who suffer and provides the resources needed “to live fully, bravely, and meaningfully in this less-than-perfect world.”
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• Martha Stout. The Myth of Sanity: Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness. New York: Viking, 2001. Stout is an expert on the psychology of trauma and has decades of teaching and clinical experience. In this important and readily accessible book she argues that everyone – no exceptions – is to one degree or another affected by the impact of painful and harmful events that occurred in childhood and adolescence. These experiences do not simply disappear into a harmless past; it is part of the nature of trauma that we don’t just “get over it.” These experiences influence how we think and act in later years, often in ways not easy to recognize. But with professional support problems can be identified and addressed. For survivors of childhood sexual abuse, the book bears a reassuring empowering message on such topics as dissociation, depression, memories, stress, and the results that can be achieved through commitment to recovery.
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• Bessel A. van der Kolk. The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. New York: Viking, 2014. This is another work by a researcher and clinician with decades of experience. In it the author combines cutting-edge scholarship with humane outreach to survivors of trauma and their loved ones and other allies as he lays out a new understanding of the causes and consequences of trauma. This includes not only clarification of the many ways in which trauma can affect lives, but emphasis on the many and widely varied options available to address trauma issues. Survivors often feel they are beyond repair; Van der Kolk uses the power of relationships and social engagement to show that both children and adults can reclaim their lives.
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Who Am I?

One of the greatest challenges in recovery from childhood sexual abuse is that it compels the survivor to face head-on a knot of questions that may not even occur to many non-survivors: Who am I? Does my life have a purpose, something that gives it meaning? Is there something about me that is essentially and uniquely “me”? If so, how can I find it? What does it mean to be true to myself? We are each different and unique, but see what you think of these books, which we list here because they provide important perspective and help us to organize and focus our own thinking.

• Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Poetry as Insurgent Art. New York: New Directions, 2007. Still going at the age of 99, Lawrence Ferlinghetti is a prolific author of verse, prose fiction, theater pieces, and criticism. His first volume of poetry, A Coney Island of the Mind (1958), has never been out of print and has sold more than a million copies. But he is best known for his role as a publisher, owner of the renowned San Francisco bookstore City Lights, and practical advocate for civil liberties. Poetry as Insurgent Art addresses all individuals as potential poets, each in their own way, and is a powerful call for the expansion and popularization of poetry to “transport the public to higher places than other wheels can carry it.” Like the other works of poetry in this list, it’s one of those books that rewards the effort no matter where you open it. Like Whitman (see below), Ferlinghetti wanted to create a small book that could easily be carried in a pocket.
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• Sigmund Freud. Civilization and Its Discontents, translated by Joan Riviere. London: Hogarth Press, 1929, with many editions and reprints. Reflections on what an ideal community would look like and how it could be achieved have been concerns in social thought since Plato. Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, however, asks whether advances in material culture, routinely regarded as the measure of a civilization, have any necessary connection with personal happiness and fulfillment. In his own day, and from his own clinical practice, it was very clear that people living in an “advanced” civilization could still be profoundly unhappy. Freud sees the key to this apparent paradox in a dynamic within civilization itself. As a culture becomes more complex, its members expand their personal expectations from “wants” into “needs.” But at the same time, boundaries in the form of institutions of control (law, police, regulatory bodies) must become more articulate, and hence more restrictive of personal aspirations, in order to maintain stability. Stresses and frustrations are thus manifestations of the contradictions built into civilization, and personal fulfillment lies not in eliminating this problem, but in recognizing it as inevitable.
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• James Hillman. The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling. New York: Random House, 1996. This American psychologist pursued most of his professional career in Europe and was Director of Studies at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich. His main contribution revolved around his conviction that contemporary psychology was essentially soulless, and this book presents his thinking on the importance of soul (spirit, heart, inspiration) for a general audience. Pursuing the metaphor of how a tiny acorn may appear to be insignificant, but actually represents the destiny of a mighty oak tree, he argues that there is something essential and defining to each of our lives, something that is our “calling.” “Character” is the set of images that enables us to pursue that calling. These images are already evident in our childhood fantasies, impulses, and dreams. Setting aside the nature vs. nurture debate, he argues that we are not victims of our lives, and that while the impact of adversity certainly challenges us, it cannot diminish the truth that our lives, each in its own way, all bear value and fulfilling potential.
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• Hugh MacLeod. Ignore Everybody and 39 Other Keys to Creativity. New York: Portfolio, 2009. An important way to explore and assert who you are is to be creative. Find whatever ways work for you to express your ideas and feelings in some tangible way: art, dance, music, writing – whatever works. There is of course no end to books on creativity, but one that stands out is this short work by a writer who came to New York in 1997 with a couple suitcases, a reservation at the YMCA, and a ten-day job with an advertising agency. In 2004 he began blogging about creativity, one outcome of which is this truly unique book. MacLeod is profoundly thought-provoking and yet retains a sharp sense of humor, cynical and ruthless but still positive and encouraging. Though I doubt that he ever considered the possibility that his book would be so useful to survivors, those to whom I have recommended it confirm how deeply his ideas and suggestions have resonated with them. Ignore Everybody, which is not really the theme of the book, is liberally peppered with MacLeod’s awesome cartoons, which he began to doodle on the backs of business cards when he first arrived in Manhattan.
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• Wayne Muller. Legacy of the Heart: the Spiritual Advantages of a Painful Childhood. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992. Muller is a therapist and ordained minister with decades of experience in working with adults who experienced serious troubles in childhood. In addition to private practice, he has been active in programs in a wide range of government agencies and community institutions. In this book he addresses the problem that people hurt as children have often learned to regard themselves as “broken” and their lives as fraught with hopelessness and despair. In twelve discussions of separate but related aspects of this view, he argues that childhood adversity can be reframed as a source of inspiration, in that it sends the survivor “on a pilgrimage in search of the love and belonging, safety and abundance, joy and peace that were missing from our childhood story.” The author’s approach is spiritual, but respectful and inclusive at all levels.
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• Mary Oliver. Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver. New York: Penguin Press, 2017. Mary Oliver, a survivor of sexual abuse as a child, has been writing poetry for six decades and ranks as one of the most influential American poets of our time. She has won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and has also been a workshop and seminar leader and an award-winning university teacher. Devotions is her own selection of more than 200 poems from the 33 works of verse she has published so far. Her work evokes her early years in Ohio and her long residence in Provincetown, MA, from which she draws an ever-evolving matrix of observations on the natural world as a source of inspiration and personal fulfillment. Her poem “The Journey,” included in this volume, is one of the most powerful and positive statements on recovery from personal adversity.
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• Tony Porter. Breaking Out of the Man Box: the Next Generation of Manhood. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2015. This author, whose work at first focused on racism and other forms of group oppression, is a social activist, advocate, lecturer and writer on male socialization. He has worked with many educational and sports institutions, and his 2010 TED Talk has been named as one of the top ten Ted Talks every man should see. In this book he urges men to hold onto the positive aspects of manhood, like taking pride in one’s work and serving as responsible providers and loving partners, fathers, and friends, while at the same time to reexamine and discard dysfunctional myths and modes of thinking and behavior that he characterizes as the “man box.” His focus is on ending sexism and violence against women, but the more general message – that we can empower themselves to establish a healthier vision of what it means to be a man – is one of immediate relevance to male survivors confronting recovery issues.
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• Henry David Thoreau. Walden. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1854, with many editions and reprints. At the encouragement of his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thoreau built a small one-room house in a woodland by a pond near Concord, MA, and lived simply there for over two years, at the cost of a little over $28.00. He then spent the next decade distilling his thoughts and experiences into Walden (named after the pond), which compresses the time frame into a single year, using the four seasons as a metaphor for human development. His argument is that very few material things in life are really essential, or even important, and that by reframing our priorities based on that truth we empower ourselves to grow, open our hearts, and “live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.” Rather than living a life of “quiet desperation,” one can find joy and wonder even in the seemingly ordinary. Life is a constant challenge to explore and learn, to experience it in the company of those we love and care about, and not to arrive, as life ends, at the discovery that we have not really lived at all. Rather like Thoreau’s vision of life, Walden requires effort but is well worth it.
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• Walt Whitman. Leaves of Grass. Various editions from 1855 to 1891, many reprints. Often described as the greatest of all American poets, Whitman wrote in a style that made his poetry assessable and meaningful to anyone who could read or was willing to listen. Leaves of Grass (the title comes from a pun in one of the poems) is his only poetic work. He published the first edition in 1855, paying the costs and even helping to set the type himself, and then kept adding to it in numerous editions until right before his death in 1892. The book thus expanded from a small volume of twelve poems, which Whitman wanted to be something that could be carried in a pocket, to a massive collection of over 400. It’s an exuberant work that celebrates the common man and presents the experience of living as an epic that doesn’t need great heroic figures. Everyone’s life has its greater or lesser share of social and personal problems, but that cannot rob life of meaning. Personal struggle against adversity is part of what makes life itself heroic and draws out our own individual dignity. In his own time Whitman was controversial and was criticized as lazy, filthy, stupid, etc., but remained unrepentant: he responded to one especially negative review by reprinting it in full in a later edition of his book.
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Anthologies

Many survivors find it helpful to see what other survivors have written about their recovery. There are a number of anthologies collecting essays, letters, and poems by male survivors, and others dealing with both men and women. Those of particular interest include:

• Neal King. Speaking Our Truth: Voices of Courage and Healing for Male Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse. New York: Harper Perennial, 1995. This author, a survivor, pursued a career as a professor of psychology and clinician and is currently president of Antioch University Los Angeles. His book is a collection of poems, drawings, and prose extracts from writings by numerous male survivors, organized within and framed by the author’s commentary to depict the broad lines of the process of recovery. He begins with pieces acknowledging what was done to the survivors, secrets, memories of abuse, and the question “does it matter?” Further chapters discuss the realities of abuse and its effects, male and female abusers, feelings, taking control, recovery, and moving on. The book concludes with an epilogue on healing and a brief bibliography to 1994.
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• Mike Lew. Leaping Upon the Mountains: Men Proclaiming Victory over Sexual Child Abuse. Boston: Small Wonder Books, 2000. This second book by Mike Lew is organized around a large corpus of short essays, letters, poems, and comments by hundreds of male survivors worldwide, ranging in age from 19 to 75. The contributions have been organized according to the various stages of recovery and deal with a vast range of issues and problems; the author frames all this with a commentary that usefully contextualizes the material and highlights important points around positive recovery themes. The book concludes with a chapter of encouraging comments by male survivors from all over the world and a very useful bibliography of books (to 1996), websites, and support and advocacy organizations worldwide.
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• Queer Press Collective, ed. Loving in Fear: an Anthology of Lesbian and Gay Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse. Toronto: Queer Press, 1991. A collection of essays, interviews, and poems by nineteen lesbian and nine gay survivors of childhood sexual abuse from a wide variety of backgrounds, aiming to give voice to the impact of abuse on gays and lesbians as survivors, friends, lovers, partners, and members of their community. The contributions relate personal experiences and thoughts on abuse and recovery, addressing specific topics such as dissociation, options for taking legal action against abusers (in Canada, as of 1991), and identifying one’s own healing path. Several provide references, and the book concludes with notes on the contributors.
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• Marjorie Ryerson, ed. The Journey of Healing: Wisdom from Survivors of Sexual Abuse – a Literary Anthology. Brandon, VT: Safer Society Press, 2010. A powerful collection of essays, stories, and poems by 37 women (39 contributions) and nine men (sixteen pieces) about their experiences of and recovery from childhood sexual abuse. The published pieces illustrate abuse experience and recovery from a diverse range of cultural, social, and ethnic perspectives and serve to encourage “hope in the resiliency of the human spirit.” The book includes numerous photographs and closes with notes on the contributors and a brief list of online support resources.
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