Father-Daughter Incest: With a New Afterword by Judith Lewis Herman

Father-Daughter Incest: With a New Afterword Reviews

• 
  Melody Newby

  My heart hurts.... it hurts so much especially after reading this amazing yet heart wrenching text. I would urge everyone to read this book and read it as soon as you can.
  
  "Female children are regularly subjected to sexual assaults by adult males who are part of their intimate social world. The aggressors are not outcasts and strangers; they are neighbors, family friends, uncles, cousins, stepfathers and fathers. To be sexually exploited by a known and trusted adult is a central and formative experience in the lives of countless women."
  
  My heart aches and yet I don't want to turn my eyes away from what is a significant common occurrence: childhood sexual abuse. This book focuses specifically on father-daughter incest. The writer and a friend of hers discovered many of their clients in their clinical practice to have been sexually exploited or seduced by a father, step father, uncle, brother....However, the writings on this subject were very few and some toxic to the nature of this relevant social issue ( for example, placing blame on the victim and dismissing women's memories of a traumatic event).
  
  The book was comprised of three parts. The first part definitely pulled me in as a Cultural Studies lover. A discussion of literary and academic/psychological instances of father-daughter incest. Cinderella is known as a story which vilifies step mothers and women in general. In other versions of Cinderella, her mother dies and her father begins to pursue her romantically. He is the villain.
  
  Freud discovered that many of his hysterical female patients recounted memories of being sexually assaulted by their fathers, however, he retracted this statement. He refused to identify fathers as sexual aggressors...especially since they were respectable men in the community. Thus, he developed the seduction theory in which the woman fantasizes about her father sexually and therefore become hystrical.
  
  The second part of the book discusses the writer and her research partner and colleague's case study group and research findings.
  
  The patterns identified among women who have been sexually assaulted by a trusted male adult (women are significantly less likely to sexually exploit a child) depict a very traditional and patriarchal family structure. The father is overly dominant and the mother is passive and powerless. Sometimes, the mother is incapacitated in some way whether due to illness, loss of reproductive freedom (a mother who has had too many children, possibly due to religious beliefs that forbid birth control) and dependent on the father. She may be vulnerable.
  
  Herman points out that feminism is key to effecting change by removing the current toxic patriarchal structure and introducing a societal model of power where the sexual division of labor among men and women are equal. Historically, the women's movement has been deeply involved with the rights of children (women's rights also advocated for the child labor laws we now have today).
  
  The structure of the nuclear family needs to change. Although it is indeed changing with single mothers heading more and more households, fathers must share in the childcare duties equally. The logic is that men who have taken a nurturing role in their children's development are less likely to exploit them.
  
  The topic of the family secret is common among incest survivors. Daughters hold the family together by keeping the incest secret: that her father fucks her. Once the secret is out, often there are dramatic events to follow. Women have often been blamed especially under older psychotherapy theories (Freud for example) with the question, "So, what did you do to seduce your father? What did you do to deserve it? Did you send the wrong signals?" There is this ideal of the the all-powerful alpha-male Father figure who can do no wrong that tenaciously grips our society.
  
  The daughter is often confused since she often received special treatment from her father and actually enjoyed his presence-in many cases. Another significant pattern found was the estrangement of the mother from the daughter involved in the secret of incest. The mother-daughter relationship has been identified as important in the healing process of an incest victim. Women who have been sexually abused are angry at their mothers for being unable to protect them. Some mothers of victims avoided such information, while others either didn't know or were aware and did nothing. These women had lost power themselves and remained dependent on an aggressive, and dominant man. Often the mothers failed to protect their daughters because she could not protect herself from these types of men.
  Mother and daughter must explore reuniting and working on a healthy relationship together during the healing process. On a larger scale, women must unite together to fight patriarchy.
  
  The last section of the book involves therapy options and the coming out of the incest secret and how it is received by the public, the laws surrounding father-daughter incest and the involvement of community organizations such as the police, social workers, and religious institutions.
  
  There is discussion on the perpetrators. These fathers range from a variety of ethnic and professional backgrounds. They are often aggressive and prone to violence and see women and children as property. They deny to their death beds that they had ever touched their daughters, when in reality most incestuous fathers had sexually molested other children outside of the family as well.
  
  "For every Saturday our father beat us, we were given the chance to ask his and God's forgiveness the very next day. For God, the Father, and our father seemed to be one. At the very least, our father, from up high in his pulpit, in his black velvet robes with the purple satin vestments, projected the image of God to us. We hungrily accepted Christ into our hearts and our mouths. Communion was a problem because when my father said, 'This is my body which is given for you', and put the bread in his mouth and commanded us to 'Eat ye all of it,' I felt sick and confused, not remembering all those times he'd forced his body into my mouth."
  
  I enjoyed the discussion on the advantages and the disadvantages of private therapy vs group therapy. Herman appears to support group therapy over private therapy. In some successful models of group therapy, there are three phases. The first phase, the victim learns to talk about her memories and her experiences. The second is a form of psychodrama where victims relive and act out past childhood memories, allowing themselves to feel the pain again. The last phase is the 'aftercare'. Sometimes this involved confronting abusers.
  Often incest victims closed the circle of self help by helping other women. The victims transform from victim to survivor at the end of their therapy journey. A common statement among survivors is that, the memory of incest will always be there but after therapy, it just doesn't bother them that much anymore.
  
  Now that we have progressed so far with the assistance of sexual abuse survivors, it is too late to ever remain silent.
  
  There is so much more to this book. Read this. In all honesty, I cried when I started writing this review....I am not an incest survivor myself but the thought of the magnitude of such a crime and how it harms children and women moves me to tears. Men are affected as well although Herman points out that boys are sexually abused primarily by *men*.
• 
  Schizanthus Nerd

  I didn’t originally plan on reading this book. I was actually wanting to read Herman’s
  Trauma and Recovery, which I’ve heard spoken of as one of the go to books about trauma. I’m not sure if this is a geographical problem or not but when I went to buy a Kindle copy of that book I discovered it didn’t exist. I then decided to see what else Herman had written and came across this book, which was available on Kindle. Thinking there’d probably be significant overlap between the two I decided to dive right in. Without having read Trauma and Recovery yet I can’t say for sure but I’m guessing they’re quite different books.
  
  Although I’ve read quite a few fiction and non-fiction books about sexual assault, I haven’t read a great deal specifically about incest. I often feel as though the gears move almost imperceptibly slowly where sexual assault is concerned, from the attitudes that surround it to practical help for survivors and reforms to the legal system.
  
  I usually read recently published books that explore sexual assault so to encounter things I take for granted as revolutionary ideas was a whole new experience. At once a history lesson and confirmation of how important early studies into taboo subjects are in shining light into the darkness, this might not have been the book I was expecting to read but I still took a lot away from it.
  
  Much of the information I came across in this book, which was groundbreaking when it was first published in 1981, read to me as either common sense or confirmation of information I’ve already come across. I found that encouraging because it proved we are actually making progress, even though it doesn’t always feel that way.
  
  This book came about as a result of two women, Lisa Hirschman and the author, speaking in 1975 about the patients they’d both encountered who had disclosed a history that included incest. Both women contributed to the research but it was Judith Lewis Herman who eventually wrote this book.

  Since nothing satisfactory seemed to have been written about father-daughter incest, we were finally driven to write about it ourselves.

  This book is divided into three parts:
  
  1. Using “survey data, clinical material, anthropological literature, popular literature, and pornography”, the author takes a look at the history of how society has dealt with incest. Spoiler: not well at all. From Freud lying about his own findings to pretty much anyone who could have have a positive influence on the lives of survivors instead discrediting, disbelieving and downright pathologising them, it’s a wonder survivors have had the courage to speak at all.

  I know I don’t want to hear it. I have no idea what to do with these cases. And I don’t think I’m unusual.

  Quote from a therapist
  
  2. The author and Hirschman conducted their own clinical study, interviewing forty survivors of incest and twenty women whose “fathers had been seductive but not overtly incestuous”. Yes, I cringed every time I read the word ‘seductive’ in this context.

  Consumed with inner rage, they nevertheless rarely caused trouble to anyone but themselves. In their own flesh, they bore repeated punishment for the crimes committed against them in childhood.

  3. Dealing with the “social responses to discovered incest”, this section explores crisis intervention, family treatment and prosecution. This section also talks about prevention.

  As long as fathers rule but do not nurture, as long as mothers nurture but do not rule, the conditions favoring the development of father-daughter incest will prevail.

  The studies referred to throughout the book are mostly from the 1970’s and those discussed in the afterward, which was written in 2000, were predominantly published in the 1990’s. I’d be interested, now that another twenty years have passed, to find out what else has been learned, confirmed or disproven.
  
  Although I’m cautiously optimistic that we’re still moving in the direction of more openness and less stigma for survivors of incest, I’m also very much aware that this topic remains taboo. It was telling for me when I compared the Goodreads statistics of this book and Herman’s Trauma and Recovery.
  
  At the time of writing this review, Trauma and Recovery has almost 11,000 ratings and over 450 reviews. This book, in contrast, has just over 100 ratings and about a dozen reviews. I wonder if so few people have read this book, which was first released about a decade prior to Trauma and Recovery, or if many readers have chosen not to add this book to their Goodreads shelves, not wanting to admit they read a book about this topic…

  The abuses have gone on for too long. Too many survivors have disclosed their secrets. It is too late now to go back to silence.

  Content warnings include mention of abortion, addition, alcoholism, death by suicide, domestic abuse, foster care, mental health, neglect, physical abuse, self harm and sexual assault.
  
  Blog -
  https://schizanthusnerd.com
• 
  danielle

  this book was difficult to read due to nature of the subject. however, if you can get past that you learn a lot about the typical family structure that incest occurs in, characteristics of the father and the mother if she is present, and typical characteristics that children who are being sexually abused will display.
  
  the book describes how to respond to news of incest. Herman firmly believes that the father should be removed from the family rather than the daughter and talks about the importance of maintaining normalcy for the daughter, re-establishing a stronger mother-daughter bond if possible, and in very specific and well monitored situations re-incorporating the father back into the family.
  
• 
  Sara

  This book was difficult to read because I know someone that has been through this situation, but it also helped me to understand some of her actions and why she had some of the psychological reactions she did. When you know someone that has been through this situation, that makes this book difficult to read, but it will help you to understand. It is also a book that, from a clinical perspective, would likely help someone that works with clientele that have experienced this type of abuse, which is sadly the most common type of sexual abuse that is perpetrated upon women.
• 
  Nancy

  Father-Daughter Incest is a remarkable piece of feminist scholarship without being dogmatic or isolating. I really appreciate how comprehensive this book was on the topic of incest. It integrates rigorous clinical studies, socio-cultural history, analysis and critique of the justice system and social services, and of course the psychology of not only incest victims but also all individuals adjacent to the incest victim. By tackling the issue at so many angles, Herman gives due to complexity of incest at the individual, community, and structural level. While I am no expert at any of these disciplines, Herman’s writing is readable for novices trying to understand the systems that exist, which, intentionally or not, disenfranchise survivors of sexual abuse.
  
  Further, I find that Herman suggests some rather radical solutions, in particular the recommendation for restorative justice. While many, like myself, may be fine with the idea of a pedophile rotting in solitary confinement for life, Herman argues for an approach that is healing for the victim and community rather than a vindictive one. Although the support priority belongs to the victim, resources should be directed to rehabilitating criminals as long as they are determined to have the capacity to reform. The aim is to prompt offenders to recognize the harm they’ve caused and prevent future abuse. Punitive measures will be in place in the instance of relapse and serve as a deterrent. Unfortunately, it’s hard for me to reach this degree of compassion for those who have committed such inhumane transgressions, but at least it helps answer the question Angela Y. David failed to properly address in “Are Prisons Obsolete?” I will acknowledge that what I perceive as justice may not be the same as what victims of incest feel is appropriate, particularly if the offender was a trusted family member. In abusive parent-child relationships, it’s difficult for children to fully resent or abandon their parents.
  
  Another compelling suggestion Herman makes (that I myself do not perceive as radical) is the general restructuring of the family unit. In a traditional family, there’s a dire imbalance of power between the mother and father. Mothers of incestuous families, due to economic or physical debility, are not easily able to divorce themselves from the support of the father and remove their children from harm. Certainly advancements made by feminists have helped women to not be at the total mercy of an authoritative partner, but there are limitations as well. Men need to learn to engage in what is typically seen as “women’s work” (eg child rearing, housekeeping— both unpaid labor), otherwise women will essentially be working two jobs. I feel my braincells melting as I’m involuntarily remembering a conversation with an idiot telling me being a housewife is “so easy” and that feminism has solved all our issues. Certainly nurturing your children can be a very rewarding experience, but it’s literally a full time job. Consider the fact that there are services for babysitting, cleaning, cooking, driving, and managing schedules. These are all real jobs. You just expect your wife to do it for free without complaints.
  
  While Herman does mention old school pornography (dirty mags) in passing, I would be interested in what she has to say about the porn industry in detail at its current state versus in the 1980s when this was published. Over the years I’ve grown less supportive of the stance that all kinks and sexual desires are permissible, especially if the kink is rooted to violence that occurs outside the confines of fantasy. Like, why do porn studios work so hard to normalize incest and the infantilization of women when in real life this stuff is usually unsexy and traumatizing? You are teaching people to become desensitized to these images and ultimately aroused by them. As Herman details through victim interviews and testimonies, there are people (mostly men) who approach incest victims with an uncomfortable eagerness. In the victim’s personal life, men may want to be with a woman they see as “damaged goods,” because they believe the sex will be more salacious. Even male professionals, like their therapist or psychiatrist, may pursue sexual relations with them because they see them as “sexually deviant” or more accessible due to their past. I was disgusted by the statistic that 70% of mental health professionals know a male specialist who has slept with their female clients. Obviously this behavior is rooted in a culture where women are seen as sexual objects that men are entitled to. As much as a failure I think Freud is, his Madonna-Whore dichotomy makes a lot of sense here.
• 
  Nele

  easily the most radicalizing book i have read to date, herman's analysis of the social structures that not only enable familial child abuse but make it inevitable is convincing and shocking and fills me with deep rage on behalf of all women and children that ever lived 💯 the occasional bouts of bioessentialism aside, her insights into the psychology of survivors are deeply empathetic without being sensationalist and her advice concerning the treatment and healing of not just the victims but their whole families was really interesting, especially the emphasis on the mother-daughter bond. also i know it was the 70s but the statistics she cites re: domestic abuse and therapeutic malpractice made me SICK. much to think about
• 
  Long Soul System

  Even though this is an early version of the Trauma and Recovery one, this is an excelent stand alone, and also a hard read.
• 
  Ashraya

  This was difficult to read, but absolutely worth it.
• 
  Boszka

  Very interesting and thoroughly researched.
• 
  Heidi

  Very interesting report on research that was conducted in the US in the late 1960s. Incest is viewed from all angles (offender, victim, family, society, health care workers). Different approaches are described on how to try help all parties involved. Astonishing how different society as a whole was only some 50 years ago. I read this book because recently a well known Flemish writer made public that she was sexually abused by her father as a child. She said reading this book was an eye opener for her.
• 
  Susan

  I confess. I did not actually finish this book, so my rating isn't really fair. However, I have now quit my job and lent it out, and it's not something I'm likely to return to for...you know, leisure reading. So, here's my abbreviated review:
  I was looking forward to this book because of the extreme competence of Judith Herman's TRAUMA AND RECOVERY, which I consider a must-read for anyone doing trauma work. I was hoping this book would be equally helpful in working with incest survivors, since I felt somewhat out of my element. I don't know if this book would be helpful or not in this area. I never got past the second chapter. It was grueling. Herman spends the first chapter painstakingly convincing the reader that incest is a real problem, though detailed case examples and heartbreaking statistics. Apparently the book was first published in the 1980s, and maybe the prevalence of incest really was in question back then. I really didn't need to be convinced of this--I'm already a believer--and I probably should have skipped the beginning and moved on to practical application and treatment. As it was, I just gave up on the book. I guess I just want to warn the next person who attempts to read this.
• 
  Lily

  This book is a must for practitioners who work with survivors of incest. Though it was first published in 1981, it still gets the dysfunctional family dynamics common to incestuous relationships right.
  
  This is also an excellent source for survivors, when they are ready.
• 
  Kelley

  Incredibly interesting. Judy Herman is brilliant.