Women who hurt themselves

Many books have described victims of rape and battering, but scant attention has been paid to another form of harm increasingly common among women. Here at last is a book that provides help for the thousands of women who secretly inflict violence on themselves. Filled with moving stories, this powerful and compassionate book is the first to focus on women who harm themselves through self-mutilation, compulsive cosmetic surgeries, eating disorders, and other forms of chronic injury to the body.

Lee, a successful, married businesswoman, cuts herself and is addicted to pain medication . . . June, a single mother coping with poverty, is an alcoholic . . . Karen, a young nurse, is bulimic . . . Nancy, a wealthy suburban woman, diets incessantly, takes many prescription drugs, and has frequent surgery. What do these women have in common?

Dusty Miller, who has successfully treated hundreds of such patients and has published widely on the subject, argues that the hallmark of their condition is a childhood history of failure to receive adequate protection. Trauma Reenactment Syndrome, as the author calls it, is a cluster of behaviors and problematic relationship patterns common to women who were abused, violated, and neglected as children.

TRS women carry a double burden of secrets: the secret of what happened to them as children and of what they do in private as adults. Miller shows how these women turn their pain and rage against themselves, reenacting both the abuse and the lack of protection.

. Frequently misdiagnosed and often mistreated as alcoholism, drug abuse, or biologically based mental illness, Trauma Reenactment Syndrome is resistant to traditional twelve-step treatment programs and psychotherapy. When these therapeutic approaches fail, TRS women blame themselves - and continue the pattern of self-destructive behavior.

This book presents for the first time Dusty Miller's successful three-stage therapeutic program that empowers women to escape from the trap of anguish and shame - and begin to heal.