The therapist also expresses how quickly Helen was able to work through her demons as shown by following excerpt:

"Helen spent only a year in intense psychotherapy with me. The average length of treatment time is somewhere between five and ten years. She was highly motivated and followed her gut instincts in making therapeutic decisions for herself. She read. She wrote. She practiced suggestive directives. She attended a national conference for adult survivors. Her art work was another vehicle for self-understanding. She used relaxation techniques when feeling panicky. She begin to fill her new "house" by acknowledging and fulfilling needs of her integrating selves. Decisions Helen made for herself rather than against herself were catalyst toward wholeness."

As you can see, by above excerpt, healing from incest or any other form of childhood abuse can be done with hard work and determination. I would recommend this find piece of work to anyone who has suffered pain and anguish of child abuse or to anyone who wants to discover how they can make changes in their own life that can help them move forward to living life to its fullest.

Copyrighted 2005: Faye Brown. All Rights Reserved. Faye Brown is author of upcoming novel, Strange Fruit In A Small Town. Her website address is: http://www.newnovel.bravehost.com Her blog address is: http://www.fayebrown.blogspot.com.

Letting Go Of Wooden Apples

Like that little monkey, we sometimes carry things that seem too valuable to let go. A man carries an image of himself as "productive" - carries it like a shiny wooden apple. But in reality, his busyness leaves him tired, and hungry for a better life. Still, letting go seems crazy. Even his worries are sacred apples - they prove he's "doing everything he can." He holds onto them compulsively.

This is a hard thing to see. We identify so strongly with our things even, feeling pain when our cars are dented. How much more powerfully do we identify with our beliefs and self-ideas? Yet they don't always feed our souls, do they? And we become tired of defending them.

How else could story end? The monkey might be found dead of hunger, under a beautiful tree, with fruit within reach, but still grasping his wooden apples. I chose to end it with him letting go, because only with open hands can we recieve.