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Review
From the Newsletter
for Certified Family Life Educators of the National Council on
Family Relations
Winter 2003
Setting YourSelf Free:
Breaking the Cycle of Emotional Abuse in Family, Friendships,
Work and Love
SaraKay Smullens has authored a
definitive work for those who feel held captive and struggling to
shed the shackles of emotional abuse. Smullens has over twenty
years as a marriage and family therapist and her broad experience is
revealed in Setting Yourself Free: Breaking the Cycle of
Emotional Abuse in Family, Friendships, Work and Love.
This practical informative book comes from the very core of Smullens'
personal experience as a victim of emotional abuse.
It is the conviction of this author
that, in spite of what individuals have suffered, it is possible to
overcome and assertively progress in a positive manner, "if and only
if they are brave enough to face reality." According to
Smullens, most emotional abuse begins in childhood and the
individual continues in the cycle well into adulthood, often without
recognizing one's personal responsibility for continued emotional
abuse.
Setting YourSelf Free provides
evaluative exercises for one to complete in privacy and then compare
personal experiences with those of the author and other persons who
have come to Smullens in an effort to break the control of abusive
cycles in their lives. Confidentiality is maintained by
changing names and places in the examples provided. These
examples assist the reader in recognizing circumstances they may
readily identify with.
Smullens provides the reader with
professional data about parents, siblings, friendship, love
relationships, the workplace, and how to start healing. Even
more importantly, this counselor explains in easily understood
language, how people can find themselves overwhelmed in enmeshment,
overprotection, rage and neglect, and abandonment. Every adult
should take the opportunity to read this book for a clearer
understanding of themselves and to recognize that the burden of
guilt many of us carry is far from justified or necessary. Not
only will this book make a wonderful gift, but it should be required
reading for employers and supervisors as an aid to understanding
fellow workers, friends and employees.
The most significant gift provided in
Smullens' Setting Yourself Free is the opportunity for the reader to
do a life-review at one's own pace with the assistance of a highly
credentialed therapist who has personal understanding of the issues.
Without question, every psychological counselor, therapist and
pastoral counselor should have this book for their own professional
improvement. For those who make their library available to
clients, SaraKay Smullens' Setting YourSelf Free is required
reading. her work in this volume will surely become a classic
in assisting victims of emotional abuse, and the professionals who
treat them, come to a positive outcome in their personal lives.
I was so impressed with the
professional and compassionate concern revealed in Smullens' work
that I read it through in the first sitting. Since then I have
read it two more times and have learned something new every time.
I believed any reader will do the same. SaraKay Smullens has
opened the doors that for decades have held victims of emotional
abuse. Every person who seeks for a way out of the abusive
cycles identified in this professional work will find the courage
and way to break free.
........................................
Reviewed by Edward D.Nelson, DPhil,
CFLE. Dr. Nelson holds a BA in psychology from Tennessee
Wesleyan College in Athens, Tennessee. After completing a
Master of Divinity at Candler School of Theology at Emory University
in Atlanta, Georgia, he earned his doctorate at Oxford Graduate
School in Dayton, Tennessee.
His research in the area of Child
Abuse and Family Violence earned him the Chancellor's Award for
outstanding research in 1999. Dr. Nelson continues in writing
and research and is a minister in the United Methodist Church.
Dr. Nelson is a professor of Ethics and Society. The
Development of Marriage and the Family, and The Psychology of Aging
at Oxford Graduate School. He enjoys reviewing books and is
currently authoring a graduate level textbook on Aging and the
Elderly in a Post Modern Society. He can be reached through
e-mail (enelson@ids.net) or
his office at (865) 354-0753. |
