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"Once again a book by Laura Davis has changed my life. I think everyone needs to buy this book."
Veronica Swain
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Laura Davis on the Road to Reconciliation
Here's a wonderful interview with Laura Davis by Cat Saunders, author
of Dr. Cat's Helping Handbook, a great healing sourcebook. The interview,
entitled "On the Road to Reconciliation" was originally published
in The New Times (May 2003).
(Click
here for complete article)
|
 Harold McFarland, Midwest Book Review
We all become entangled in an estranged relationship from time to time.
Often there is a big hole in our lives where a relationship once flourished.
Feelings are hurt, opportunities lost, time passes and more special times
are missed because of the estrangement. When do you find that enough is
enough? When you have decided that the cost of the estranged relationship
is too high, how to you go about reconciling? What if the other person is
not ready to reconcile? How do you bring peace back to your life? These
are all valid questions and here, finally, is a book on how to deal with
these and other questions. Here is a book that details how to get past the
barriers and start onto that road to reclaim that which was lost.
The book is filled with examples of minor differences that have caused complete
separation to the much more serious problems of estrangement due to child
abuse and similar very serious problems. She details her process of reconciliation
with her mother after not speaking for ten years. She also details how others
have moved to the point of reconciliation and what they have done. She starts
by pointing out that all the 'knowledge' that she had gained over the years
was not necessarily correct. Must you forgive the other person first? Conventional
wisdom is 'yes' but she gives examples of people who have reconciled without
forgiveness. Do you have to discuss the issue completely and get everything
out in the open? Conventional wisdom is 'yes', yet she gives examples where
reconciliation was possible only because they agreed not to discuss it between
them. We are not dealing with a cookbook where you can say the process of
reconciliation is step one, step two, step three. We are dealing with people
and emotions and what is required for reconciliation is whatever the two
people involved require.
Reconciliation is a very personal process.
What types of reconciliations are discussed? Reconciling with a drunk driver
who killed your child, a man shot by and then reconciled to his assailant,
a young man who vandalized a church because of highly charged ethnic feelings
but was reconciled to the church members. Extreme examples that sometimes
are hard to understand how a person can rise to that point of reconciliation.
But the world is a better place because people can.
The last of the book contains a simple test that the reader can take to
determine if they are ready for reconciliation.
Part of the process is based on being ready to reconcile and having the
common ingredients that make reconciliation successful. These common ingredients
include time, maturity, discernment, compassion, honesty, determination,
courage, listening and accountability.
If you are entangled in an estranged relationship or know someone who is
then this book should be required reading. If you are ready to reconcile
a relationship but don't know how then find the courage in the examples
in this book. If the cost of being apart has become too great then learn
how to quit paying the costs. An indispensable book for those who are ready
to move on with their life after an estranged relationship or those who
want to help prevent an estranged relationship in the first place when possible,
it is a highly recommended read.
|
 Jill Lightner, Amazon.com
We've all been advised to forgive and forget, but rarely has anyone suggested
a way to reconcile without necessarily forgiving. I Thought We'd Never Speak
Again does. It covers every sort of contention, from seemingly minor differences
that can escalate over time to larger issues of abuse, neglect, and dysfunction.
Author Laura Davis (The Courage to Heal) once again comes from a very personal
place in this book; she has slowly renewed relations with her mother's family
after 10 years with no contact. As she interviews people and shares their
stories, she uses the wisdom they've gained to illustrate numerous ways
to reconcile--sometimes involving forgiveness and sometimes not. From the
family who lost a member to a drunk driver or drive-by shooting to generations
of kids on opposite sides of racial, religious, or political issues, the
process of coming to peace is a lengthy one, marked by both pain and rewards.
Useful for adults who are dealing with personal issues or families trying
to move beyond the emotional aftermath of 9/11, this loving and thoughtful
book examines how we can all work together to achieve understanding.
Library Journal
Davis is coauthor of The Courage To Heal, about surviving childhood sexual
abuse. Inspired by her reunion with her estranged family, this exploration
of reconciliation features interviews with people who have made amends with
others from crime victims and their perpetrators to Israeli and Palestinian
girls. Before she sat down to write, Davis sifted through the narratives
to see whether she could find the "right" or "best" way to reconcile, but
she discovered instead that there are as many ways to do so as there are
human beings. So that readers may see how people with deeply held, diametrically
opposed beliefs can still come together, Davis also shares the story of
her reconciliation with her mother, who continues to believe that her daughter
is a victim of False Memory Syndrome. Recommended owing to the depth of
the examples and Davis's optimism.
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 Donna Robin Lippman, New York's Incest Awareness Foundation
Laura Davis, so deeply trusted by our community, presents us with yet another
cutting edge book: I Thought We'd Never Speak Again: The Road from Estrangement
to Reconciliation. It is inspiring, challenging and down-to-earth, as are
all of Laura Davis' writings that we in the incest recovery community know
so well. Reconciliation is not the first thing most survivors want to talk
about. Upon first hearing of the topic of this new book, I was taken aback.
Survivors first and foremost need to reconcile with ourselves. The idea
of seeing family members, who are entrenched in vicious denial, is loathe
to us. How do we take the leap all the way to reconciliation?
Gently, with warmth, strength and clarity, the book acts as a guide. One
after another, stories tell of lives that were traumatically changed forever,
describing how the process of reconciliation does lead to full, satisfying
lives. Many of the people in Laura's stories are victims of violent crimes
other than sexual abuse, like a gunshot wound or death by a drunk driver.
Many are incest survivors. The stories are as much miraculous as they are
real, describing the many ways hurt can be transformed into healing.
People like you and me, people whose lives were put on hold after horrific
trauma, find ways to climb out of the hole of despair, find ways to express
themselves and have that irreplaceable satisfaction of feeling heard by
the person who hurt or denied them, leading to a long-awaited sense of real
relief. It is fortuitious that it is Laura Davis who is leading us through
this most difficult and final aspect of healing.
Reconciliation is not forumlaic; its unfolding varies from situation to
situation. The most desirable experience is when two parties reconnect and
meaningfully participate in each other's lives. Obviously, this is not alway
possible. For many survivors the opposite type of reconciliation is available;
the realization that no viable relationship is possible, leaving the only
choice to nurture peace within oneself.
As I read, I experienced a deep workout of my emotional muscles, like getting
really good massage. Challenging the status quo, making changes in how one
sees oneself deeply and finally, promises relief that can last forever.
In addition to carrying the unbearable pain, confusion, shame and guilt
of having been so deeply violated, incest survivors carry the burden of
having to deal with families that "just don't get it." Even the best of
friends are often at a loss as to just exactly how to be supportive. Incest
survivors suffer the consequences of the "just get over it" syndrome to
which survivors of non-sexual violent crimes are never subjected. We endlessly
find ourselves burdened by having to explain every aspect of our violation,
and to structure our healing ina way that no other community of crime victims
does, adding tonnage to the already heavy legacies we carry.
Reconciliation for you may or may not mean bringing previously outcast people
back into your life. It does mean acknowledging all of yourself, of getting
to know yourself by examining the very challenge that for so long has undeniably
had to remain unopened. For incest survivors, as apparently for survivors
of other trama, an incubation period is necessary. Most important is your
willingess to explore yourself. I Thought We'd Never Speak Again is a resource
that merits reading and rereading. It acts as a respectful guide as much
as a well-written story. I welcome Laura's unabashed positive energy and
her clear determination that there is, after all is said and done, life
after incest recovery.
|
 Veronica Swain, South Carolina Victim Assistance Network
Most of us know Laura Davis through her work on behalf of survivors of childhood
sexual abuse. Her groundbreaking book The Courage to Heal was written in
the days when childhood sexual abuse was simply not discussed; no one was
writing about it and no one suggested publicly ways to deal with the pain
of that experience. I got my hands on The Courage to Heal when I was in
the beginning stages of my own healing from childhood sexual abuse, read
it from cover to cover, finished it, turned right back to page one and read
it all over again. It changed my life and gave me a huge perspective on
how other people coped with the trauma they experienced, and gave me tremendous
insight into how to begin to heal this broken part of my soul.
Well, Laura's done it again. She's begun a new mission and has discovered
a new avenue to help people recover--not from sexual abuse, but from the
pain of broken relationships.
My own family is experiencing the sorrow that comes from people having a
falling out and consequently refusing to speak to each other. For two years
now, our holidays have been fractured, family members are missing and are
missed, and everyone is suffering--some because they've made the choice
to exclude people from their lives, some because they've felt excluded.
Laura's new mission is to explore this experience and help people through
it. She's traveling around the country with one goal in mind: to help launch
a national reconciliation movement. Her new book, I Thought We'd Never Speak
Again: The Road from Estrangement to Reconciliation, landed on my desk about
two months ago. I read it from cover to cover, finished it, and turned right
back to page one and read it all over again. Then I sent copies of it to
everyone in my family. Because of Laura's new book, our family now has a
tool to begin thinking about how this rift should be healed, could be healed,
and how to go about doing it. I think everyone needs to buy this book. Once
again, a book written by Laura Davis has changed my life.
|
 Vanessa Bush, American Library Association
Based on interviews with people who have suffered estrangement from friends
and families for a variety of reasons, Davis explores the myriad ways people
become estranged and find their way back to healthy relationships. Davis
doesn't offer easy answers or specific rules for reconciliation, but she
lays out the experiences of a wide range of people, their grievances, and
their eventual efforts to make peace. The common ingredients she does identify
include maturity, discernment, compassion, honesty, and accountability,
among others. Davis identifies a continuum of reconciliation, from the deep
and transformative to the utilitarian agreement to disagree, and distinguishes
between reconciliation and forgiveness. She includes first-person accounts
of estrangement caused by family disagreements, as well as accounts of crime
victims meeting the perpetrators, war veterans returning to Vietnam, and
reconciliation efforts between children of Holocaust survivors and children
of Nazis. A fascinating look at how we reconcile our differences.
Publishers Weekly
Families, partnerships and friendships can break up over what appear to
be surmountable conflicts, and efforts at damage control are often unproductive.
Davis (coauthor, The Courage to Heal), a counselor to survivors of childhood
sexual abuse, does an excellent job of mapping out an effective reconciliation
process. She explains how to rationally assess the possibility of success,
recognize the value of partial reconciliation and establish the rules of
engagement. Throughout the book are riveting first-person stories by a neglectful
mother who made amends with her grown children, a man who organized a reconciliation
workshop between children of Holocaust victims and children of Nazis, and
many others that illustrate how compassion, honesty and the ability to listen
are indispensable.
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