In this major new book, Mary Hamer offers a new perspective on
incest, making a link with the scandal of sexual abuse on the part
of priests. She places sexual abuse in the context of the whole
social order. Hamer's novel and innovative approach challenges the
taboo on clear thinking around the subject of incest. She
demonstrates the inherent contradictions in official accounts of
the subject, from genetics and anthropology to law.

Drawing on the work of American psychotherapist Judith Herman,
she invites readers to focus on the neurological damage caused by
traumatic experience, arguing that it is the overwhelming of one
person by another that constitutes abuse, and it is this which
causes the damage, not the fact of a close relationship.

She brings together, in accessible form, key descriptions of the
effects of abuse from analysts Sandor Ferenczi, Estela Welldon and
Valerie Sinason

She revisits the two real-life cases of Father Porter from
Massachusetts and Sappho Durrell, daughter of the British writer
Lawrence Durrell. She also draws on the work of artists and
filmmakers to explain the way film and literature have helped to
preserve our understanding of abuse and of its place in the
world

Films and novels featured: Murmur of the Heart, Art
for Teachers of Children, Suddenly Last Summer,
Through a Glass Darkly, Lolita, The Bluest
Eye, The God of Small Things.

Includes 16 film stills