Way of Escape is a true life-long story that starts with the rape of a four-year-old girl. The very people she should have been able to trust and run to for help, betrayed her and introduced her to a realm of repeated sexual violation and other forms of ritual abuse. The incidents of her early life defined her self-concept and dictated her life course. It portrays some of the abusive and ritualistic events in her life; some are described quite graphically; all are demonically inspired and represent the potential for evil in the hearts and minds of mankind. The book's purpose is not to place blame on any group or individual, but to give credibility to survivors of abuse, and through the life of this little girl, offer reassurance that God is real. He is faithful and will always provide a way of escape - even when it is physically impossible to break free. God lovingly separates our consciousness and physical perceptions from the inescapable abuse. He allows us to “leave” while still being physically held captive – to dissociate ourselves from the painful situation. In the realm of psychiatry, dissociation is labeled as a “disorder” – Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder). When there is no power or means to physically flee from a situation, how can being able to mentally and emotionally “leave” and preserve one’s self be called a disorder? In an inescapable abusive situation, fear and physical pain are the most horrific aspects of the victimization. How then, can it not be a blessing of God to escape to a place of psychological refuge where there is no pain, no fear? If someone being assaulted were able to run away to safety, would they not be considered resourceful, heroic, and extremely fortunate? Why then is this inward escape viewed with skepticism, or condemnation? The victim desperately strives to neutralize the terror and prevent the physical and emotional pain. Any method by which this is achieved must be applauded as inventive, and courageous. In cases of childhood sexual, satanic, or repetitive trauma, dissociation is an effective method of survival. Just as the abusive events are sequestered away from the conscious memory, non-traumatic segments of one’s life are also hidden away - inaccessible. There may be limited memory of milestone events: early childhood, school years, significant relationships, weddings, childbirth, professional experiences, emotional losses, or joyous events. Looking back on life seems like the replay of a video from which segments have been removed and the remaining scenes re-attached in non-sequential, random order. There are parts of the plot that don’t make sense because there is nothing connecting them to the original story. God promises to give back the lost scenes, the experiences that were stolen from us for the gratification of others. He splices back together the soul that was fragmented so events can be remembered and reprocessed in their entirety, without re-experiencing the emotional and physical trauma. Above all, Way of Escape is a story of redemption. From the sexual betrayal, disillusionment and ritualistic abuse of a small child, through her fragmented, emotionally volatile youth and early adulthood, God is faithful to bring about reclamation of innocence once lost, and restoration of a shattered soul. The journey is laborious and emotionally challenging, but through the counselor’s skilled and compassionate dedication, God’s unconditional love and wisdom, and the willingness of the broken human spirit to be healed, the chains of bondage are broken and wholeness is restored. The author’s hope is that the shame, guilt and destructive life path that often result from emotional trauma be resolved and replaced with a positive self-concept, absence of self-persecution, and a future of hope and freedom from the past.

This book explores the social and political implications of what the authors identify as the decline of the social contract in America and the rise of a citizenry that has become self-centered, entitled, and independent. For nearly two decades, America has been in a “cultural war” over moral values and social issues, becoming a divided nation geographically, politically, socially, and morally. We are witnessing the decline of American Democracy, the authors argue, resulting from the erosion of the idea of the social contract. Especially since the “baby boomers,” each successive generation has emphasized personal license to the exclusion of service, social integration, and the common good. With the social contact, the larger general will becomes the means of establishing reciprocal rights and duties, privileges, and responsibilities as a basis of the state. The balkanization of America has changed the role of government from one of oversight to one of dependency, where individual freedom and responsibility are sacrificed for group equality. This book examines the conditions of this social fragmentation, and offers ideas of an American Renaissance predicated on communicative idealism.

This pioneering book is the first English volume on Korean memories. In it, Mikyoung Kim introduces ‘psycho-historical fragmentation’, a concept that explains South Korea’s mnemonic rupture as a result of living under intense temporal, psychological and physical pressure. As Korean society has undergone transformation at unusual speed and intensity, so has its historical memory. Divided into three sections, on lingering colonial legacies, the residuals of the Cold War and Korean War, and Korea’s democracy movement in the 1980s, Korean Memories and Psycho-Historical Fragmentation aims to tell multi-layered, subtle and lesser-known stories of Korea’s historical past. With contributions from interdisciplinary perspectives, it reveals the fragmentation of Korean memory and the impact of silencing.

'Profoundly honest, unflinching in examining her own history as a thinker and clinician, Ingrid Pedroni challenges us to see where we have been and where we have failed, each of us.' Donna Orange, from the Foreword Ingrid Pedroni is multicultural to her core. Fully fluent in German, Italian, and English, she took that multilingual outlook to the varied world of psychoanalysis. Beginning her journey with a Jungian analysis, she later read The Restoration of the Self by Heinz Kohut and discovered a theoretical and clinical framework consistent with her Jungian experience. Thus began her engagement with different theoretical dimensions and clinical settings. Beyond Fragmentation is a masterly overview of the result of her open-minded exploration of not only traditional and contemporary psychoanalytic schools of thought, but also systemic family therapy, plus modern anthropology, theatre, and literature. Part I explores the integration of different theoretical and clinical models, with special reference to self psychology and relational psychoanalysis. Part II outlines significant areas of experience that build the sense of self and how it is represented in intra-psychic and inter-relational dimensions. Part III focuses on couple and family relations, their evolution over time, and how they represent an essential part of the self. The final part deals with the treatment of cultural diversity, the universality of attachment bonds, and the extreme specificity of their cultural expression. Throughout the book are clinical and theoretical concepts derived from authors such as Adler, Jung, Rank, Fromm, Ferenczi, Klein, Winnicott, Loewald, Bowlby, Bion, and, of course, Freud. The clinical examples illustrate how it is possible to weave together the various threads of theoretical thinking and clinical practice not only in the many diversified psychoanalytic schools, but also in the larger field of the psychotherapies. The varied themes covered include gender, couple relations, family therapy, spirituality, cultural diversity and integration, migration, transcultural psychotherapy, and collective trauma. This book is essential reading for trainee and practising clinicians, and may well help them to find their own integration of therapeutic experiences. Professionals active in social, educational, and psychological fields will also find much useful and engaging information to help them in their work.

Christian ethics is threatened today by two opposite dangers: on the one hand, violence by moral and religious fanatics and on the other hand, too-easy forgiveness and cheap grace. The main challenge of Christian ethics in the present context is how it can invite people to react powerfully against moral evil without becoming fanatical on the one hand, and how it can bring the Christian message of forgiveness and reconciliation without creating in people an attitude of moral indolence on the other hand. Such questions call for a wrestling with the dilemmas between justice and forgiveness. It also asks for dealing with tensions like taking the perspective of victims and of perpetrators and choosing between remembrance of the past and a common hope for the future. In eight contributions, internationally recognised scholars in the field of Christian ethics offer ways to approach this tension and to integrate both moral passion and mercy. Topics such as tolerance, radicalism, terrorism, forgiveness, non-violence, etc. are discussed from a Christian moral viewpoint. In a world so deeply shaken by forms of immense individual and collective evil, these are very delicate yet pressing matters. Readers will find in this book new perspectives to deal with these moral dilemmas and tensions in such a way that Christian ethics does not cool down into moral mediocrity nor become inflamed into moral terror, but can place itself in the service of justice and peace.

After the overthrow of the Qadhafi regime in 2011, Libya witnessed a dramatic breakdown of centralized power. Countless local factions carved up the country into a patchwork of spheres of influence. Almost no nationwide or even regional organizations emerged, and no national institutions survived the turbulent descent into renewed civil war. Only the leader of one armed coalition, Khalifa Haftar, managed to overcome competitors and centralize authority over eastern Libya. But tenacious resistance from armed groups in western Libya blocked Haftar's attempt to seize power in the capital Tripoli. Rarely does political fragmentation occur as radically as in Libya, where it has been the primary obstacle to the re-establishment of central authority. This book analyzes the forces that have shaped the country's trajectory since 2011. Confounding widely held assumptions about the role of Libya's tribes in the revolution, Wolfram Lacher shows how war transformed local communities and explains why Khalifa Haftar has been able to consolidate his sway over the northeast. Based on hundreds of interviews with key actors in the conflict, Lacher advances an approach to the study of civil wars that places the transformation of social ties at the centre of analysis.

Shows how Benjamin's thoughts regarding the individual's experience of the material world make significant contact with post-Freudian psychoanalytic theory. Elizabeth Stewart is Associate Professor of English, Yeshiva University, New York, USA. She teaches courses in European modernism, post-colonial literature, literature and philosophy, and literary and cultural theory. She is the translator and editor of Lacan in the German-Speaking World (SUNY 2004).

Cast on Yourself a Living Spell of Becoming with this Love Song to Witches We are emergent, embedded, arising, collapsing, changing beings in all worlds at all times. You will find that it takes that leap—that fall, that breaking apart of what is considered to be certain—to dance with the queer cunning current of witchery. This book is offered as a spell of becoming that you cast on yourself with every step—a living spell of you and your intimacy with the life-force and the mystery. You will dance with your demons and make pacts with your spirits and gods. You will sing yourself back to life by letting yourself be sung and danced through the eye of the needle by all that calls you to this work. If you take the risk, you will learn to capture the glorious essence of magic and navigate witchcraft with your own heart. Includes a foreword by Courtney Weber, author of Hekate: Goddess of Witches

AJN Book of the Year 2008! This concise, quick-reference handbook addresses common psychosocial and psychiatric problems as they are most commonly encountered—in conjunction with a patient’s medical problems. It’s the resource your students can turn to identify symptoms of mental health disorders and know how to intervene quickly and effectively to keep patients safe.