Wounded Heart- A Companion Workbook for Personal or Group Use Description:

Wounded Heart: A Companion Workbook for Personal or Group Use review:
5 stars (Great resource for helping!) - This book and the accompanying workbook are great resources for the support groups I have led for the past 5 years now. There are many women whose lives have been changed as a result, including my own.
5 stars (Brought great healing) - Last year, I worked my way through the book and study guide. When I first began reading the book, I wanted to throw it across the room, and was angry that the author would even insinuate that I was sinning. Well, he was right. I was so filled with self-contempt and rage, and so chained up in the prison of abuse, that I would almost rather rail at him and run, than admit that I was existing in a state that was eating me up, inside and out. I had been holding myself separate from God, not allowing Him to bring healing for the past horrors in my life, dead from the numbness I had created to protect myself from pain. Through this study, and the pain, tears and difficult struggles that accompanied it, great healing has been taking place in my life. I am thankful for Dr. Allender's obedience in writing this study, and I am grateful to our Lord for using it to begin my journey of restoration and healing. I can highly recommend this book to someone who is tired of living a life behind the prison walls of childhood sexual abuse, someone who is willing to go through the pain of 'looking at' the abuse one last time and grieving for the child that was destroyed inside himself/herself. If you are willing to finally lay all of the pain and hurt and shame and rage down on God's altar, this book may be what you are looking for.
5 stars (Diagnosing and Treating the Wounded Heart) - "The Wounded Heart" is a classic text on the understanding and treatment of the sexual abuse victim. Dan Allender writes from a foundation of biblical insight, psychological research, and counseling experience.



Allender is quick to defend abuse victims and to help them to understand that they were not guilty for their abuse. At the same time, he refuses to leave the victim a victim. Instead, "The Wounded Heart" provides the spiritual diagnostic categories necessary to help victims move to victors by exploring how they may have responded to the abuse in less-than- healthy and less-than-godly ways. He labels these responses "sinful relational styles"--learned, self-protective patterns that victims choose in order to handle life self-sufficiently.



Because of Allender's emphasis on sinful relational styles, victims looking for empathy and therapists wanting training in empathic responses may be disappointed. Diane Langberg's "On the Threshold of Hope" and "Counseling Victims of Sexual Abuse" offer more in this area of "sufferology." Still, for biblical insight into the heart issues surrounding sexual abuse, "The Wounded Heart" provides the healing cure.



Reviewer: Dr. Robert W. Kellemen is the author of "Soul Physicians: A Theology of Soul Care and Spiritual Direction," "Spiritual Friends: A Methodology of Soul Care and Spiritual Direction," and the forthcoming "Sacred Companions: A History of Soul Care and Spiritual Direction."