Child abuse is beginning to be recognized as something more significant than an isolated family affair. The title of Alice Miller's book, first published in Germany in 1981, spells out the unspoken commandment that such abused children - indeed, all of us - have been obeying since early childhood. We have all been made to feel from our earliest days that we are to blame for anything shameful that happens to us, so that our awareness of these inflicted abuses dims. Alice Miller demonstrates that this centuries-old tradition also finds expression in Freud's notions of "the Oedipus complex" and "infantile sexuality" - his drive theory - which put the blame on the child. Freud maintained that his patients who claimed to have been sexually molested as children were only "fantasizing" as a defense against their own sexual desires for their innocent parents. This theory helped to conceal the fact that sexual abuse of children occurs frequently and results in later emotional disturbances in the victims of such abuse - because they are not allowed awareness of it. In fairy tales, works of literature, and dreams, Alice Miller maintains, the truth about childhood can emerge, precisely because it is not recognized as such. Detailed examples from Kafka, Flaubert, Beckett, and Virginia Woolf offer proof of her thesis and illustrate her understanding of human creativity.

Daughter of Narcissus by Lady Colin Campbell is a stunning analysis and revelatory memoir of her own dysfunctional family positioned at the heart of upper class Jamaican society from the middle of the 20th century to the present day. Addressing the extreme narcissistic personality disorder of her mother, Georgie Campbell s latest book is both a personal, individual record and a penetrating study of this psychological disorder and how it affects and scars all members of the immediate family. Departing from her former studies of contemporary high society, Georgie Campbell has turned her intelligence and insight onto her own past, exposing the emotional truth beneath her family façade of class and privilege. The book interweaves private memories of her mother s destructive behaviour with a detailed analysis of the underlying realities and fantasies of the narcissistic personality. With disarming clarity and hard learnt wisdom, she shows us what motivates the behaviour sof the narcissistic female as she plots and schemes, destructively setting father against children, sibling against sibling and grand-parent against grand-child. The depth of her work can be seen in her inclusion of recent scientific/medial research on the subject, the extensive bibliography and her endorsement by the eminent Dr Anna Brocklebank, who has practised psychiatry and is the legal and medical adviser to the renowned Institute of Clinical Hypnosis. In addition the author interconnects the sociological, political and personal in startling ways. As she covers the end of the British Colonial Age and the rise of a new liberated generation in the 1960s and 1970s, she reveals how these cultural movements impinge on the dynamics and desires within the family Set against a backdrop of wealth and privilege, concealing the destructive and shocking behaviour of the disordered personality, Daughter of Narcissus is disarmingly honest, informed and sometimes disturbing. This compulsive book is not only a fascinating history of one socially prominent international family, but also a uniquely detailed study of narcissism, its manifestations and effects and how to survive them in order to lead a purposeful and affirming life.

From a renowned investigative reporter, the true story behind a horrifying Internet abuse epidemic - and the heroes who are out to stop it. The Internet has helped make child abuse terrifyingly common - it is the new face of crime in the 21st century. There are tens, probably hundreds of thousands of children whose sexual abuse has been electronically recorded and distributed on the Internet. As Julian Sher reveals, the men perpetrating these crimes include lawyers, priests, doctors and politicians. They pick their victims from the streets of Bangkok to Boy Scout troops in England, while the police - from a crack image analyst with the Toronto police to an FBI agent who poses as a thirteen-year-old girl online - work desperately to nab the predators. One Child at a Time goes behind the headlines to show how law officers are fighting back against this tide of abuse, from daring rescues in homes to the seizures of millions of dollars in the offshore bank accounts of the porn merchants. In riveting detail, Julian Sher shows how clue by clue, and image by image, investigators are using cutting edge tools, turning the technology of the Internet against the perpetrators as they race to find and rescue the victims - children who otherwise have no voice. This important book explores the ramifications of a worldwide struggle, from the need for updated legal powers to the unexpected effects the Internet has had on our social fabric. It also includes a full list of resources for concerned parents. Though sometimes harrowing, One Child at a Time is alsoinspiring - and never less than absolutely relevant. In their efforts to rescue the child victims of one of today's most pervasive and insidious crimes, police must be creative, dogged and go well beyond the borders drawn on any map. . . Canadian cop Paul Gillespie changed the way that police around the world tackle Internet porn. He decided that if the system was broken, he was going to send an email to Bill Gates and ask for help. Gates not only answered, but Microsoft ended up kicking in millions of dollars, working with Gillespie's team to develop the Child Exploitation Tracking System, a searchable database to track and investigate Web predators and their victims. It soon spread across Canada, and then to the UK, Australia and the U.S. Older men pretend to be young and caring, luring lonely young girls in chat rooms. But when they show up to meet their victim, they discover the FBI is waiting to arrest them. Emily Vacher, one of the FBI's top Internet undercover operatives, specializes in trapping the predators at their own game of deception. The photos of the child's abuse were everywhere on the Net, but no one knew who or where she was. In a frantic 36-hour hunt, using CSI-type sleuthing to find clues in the pictures, Canadian, American and European police rescued a girl from North Carolina. Jim Gamble, one of the most senior police officers in the UK, has spearheaded the creation of a Virtual Global Taskforce to patrol the web 24/7. It was time for a sheriff to tame the wild, wild Web, Gamble decided. Now children have a redreport abuse button on chat room software and browsers they can click any time they feel threatened. It is time for the children's stories-too often hidden in the dark corners of the Web-to be told. Their torment has been etched in their memories-and the memories of the police officers dedicated to rescuing them. It is what scars them. But it is also what spurs them on. Because they know behind every picture or video lies a little, frightened child. Detective Sergeant Paul Gillespie of the Toronto Police's Exploited Child Unit can't shake the lingering echoes of some of the worst videos he has seen of shackled children: Sometimes, he says, you can hear the children cry. --from One Child at a Time

Lauren Book, now 25, was 11 years old when her new nanny, Waldina Flores, joined the family. For the next six years Lauren endured daily sexual and physical abuse. "I was a people pleaser," she says. "I was beaten every day...Waldy was very smart, like all predators are. She hit me and bruised me where my parents wouldn't look. When you are 13 and 14 parents never look at their children's stomachs or lower backs or butts or upper thighs." Lauren is the oldest of three children; her father, Ron Book, is a prominent Florida attorney and lobbyist. In 2002, after being encouraged by her boyfriend, Lauren confessed to her therapist, who in turn called her parents. Her father fired Flores. She fled to Oklahoma and was arrested one month later while coaching a 10-year-old girls' soccer team. While in prison, Flores wrote love letters to Lauren asking for money and ultimately was sentenced to another 10 years on top of the initial 15 years. Since then, Lauren and her father have successfully mounted a legislative onslaught against predators; the many laws they are responsible for include the right to get 48-hour access to predators' HIV test results, a ban on molesters from ever contacting their victims or families, passed legislation to create a statewide network of sexual assault treatment centers, and the controversial act that barred predators from living 2500 feet from public places where children gather such as schools, parks, and playgrounds. Lauren's memoir is a book about hope in the face of extreme adversity. While it deals with a tremendously sensitive and "dark" subject, the hope that it delivers to readers carries an everlasting positive impact. Her story will empower readers to address abuse issues in their own lives and move them to understand the resulting deep emotional matrix that results from abuse and the incredible power of an individual's ability to recover and embrace life.

Book by Newman, Fran, Landsberg, Michele