ONE PARAGRAPH PER CHAPTER – Chapter 6: Modus Operandi

Published January 28, 2017 by Nan Mykel

From FALLOUT: A Survivor Talks to Incest Offenders (and Others) by moi:

THE SECRET – The goal of grooming is not only to build the child’s trust, but also to ensure that she will keep the secret. At the moment of the incestuous assault, the victim not only has her lifelong schemas about the world trashed, but is given “the secret” to carry, hidden from everyone else in the world. Having the secret gives her the uninvited power to destroy the family and her father, and drives another wedge into the already troubled relationship with her mother. At that moment, with reality unraveling, keeping the secret means that she is now an accomplice. Carrying the secret adds to her sense of isolation and being different from everyone else. All the while, she is fighting the shame of her out-of-control body’s response. (p. 75)

ONE PARAGRAPH PER CHAPTER – Chapter 5: Hurdles in Treatment

Published January 27, 2017 by Nan Mykel

From FALLOUT: A Survivor Talks to Incest Offenders (and Others) by moi:

I observed that it is not at all unusual for men with both sons and daughters to be convicted of molesting a daughter, while denying any molestation of a son. I suppose sons are more reluctant to report than daughters, feeling that it casts aspersions on their masculinity. When one man’s family (excepting the admitted victim) visited him in prison, the father made fun of the length of his son’s hair, and asked him if he wanted a bobby pin. The young man in question had been reported to be depressed and self-mutilating. Later, after I had queried the father, the son wrote a letter assuring me that his father had never molested him. (p. 68)

I Will Write a Different Verse…

Published January 26, 2017 by Nan Mykel

For d’Verse:

I WILL WRITE A DIFFERENT VERSE

…than the one running out of my ears,

streaming from beneath my spectacles,

filling my basin and potty:

O beautiful, for spacious skies,

for amber waves of grain!

No hand-wringing. Let’s pretend

freedom’s train is around the bend.

Let imagination have its way

and take us to a better day.

Amen.

A QUIZ FROM TREATMENT-CHAPTER (p. 59)

Published January 26, 2017 by Nan Mykel

From FALLOUT: A Survivor Talks to Incest Offenders (and Others) by moi:Mary and her husband live on the south bank of a river. Her husband wants her to stay at home and not cross the river to the town. She wants to go to town. There is a bridge across the river, but men have been robbing and killing people who cross the bridge, and Mary’s husband won’t give her money for the ferry. Mary begins saving the grocery money for the ferry and crossing the river to town on the ferry while her husband is away. Finally, she meets a man in town and takes him as a lover. She crosses the river more frequently and he gives her money to get back home. He gets mad at her one day and refuses to give her the return fare home. She asks the ferryman to let her charge the return trip but he refuses, saying it is against company policy. Finally, she crosses the bridge and is killed.

Q- Whose fault is it that Mary was killed? (Answer on Feb. 1).

I’d like to give credit for the above but it was shared by so many presenting at training conferences I don’t have it.

Take a deep breath before you read this one

Published January 25, 2017 by Nan Mykel

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 06: Oklahoma Attorney General and President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scott Pruitt, meets with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), on Capitol Hill January 6, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) — Scott Pruitt is nominated to head the Environmental Protection Agency

No press releases will be going out to external audiences.

No social media will be going out. A Digital Strategist will be coming on board to oversee social media. Existing, individually controlled, social media accounts may become more centrally controlled.

No blog messages.

No new content can be placed on any website. Only do clean up where essential.

And while the flow of information out of the EPA has been locked down, it’s far more than press releases that have ceased to flow.

EPA staff has been instructed to freeze all its grants ― an extensive program that includes funding for research, redevelopment of former industrial sites, air quality monitoring and education, among other things ― and told not to discuss this order with anyone outside the agency, according to a Hill source with knowledge of the situation.

ONE PARAGRAPH PER CHAPTER – Chapter 4: Treatment

Published January 25, 2017 by Nan Mykel

The field of sex offender treatment is still young and was in its infancy in 1986, when our program began. As staff we diligently read master pockets and took lengthy histories, searching for etiological clues that might suggest the best treatment approaches. We turned to the research, the professional literature and professional organizations, even became clinical members of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers. We attended annual conferences. We ordered books, had a victims’ group visit the program, attended training workshops, watched Oprah and Geraldo, and developed a mneumonic device to aid the overlearning of child sexual abuse. We came to realize that we could not think in terms of a cure for sex offending, only of decreasing the likelihood that the men would reoffend.

ONE PARAGRAPH PER CHAPTER – Chapter 3: How Could I Do It?

Published January 25, 2017 by Nan Mykel

From FALLOUT: A Survivor Talks to Incest Offenders (and Others) by moi:

Medusa still frame Since behavior is largely a product of thinking, the deviant thoughts of sex offenders are of utmost importance. Incest offenses in one study were found to possess deviant attitudes in three domains: sexual entitlement, perceiving children to be sexually attractive and sexually motivated, and minimizing the harm caused by sexual abuse of children (Hanson, Gizzarelli, and Scott, 1994). My father had thinking errors in all three domains.

ONE PARAGRAPH PER CHAPTER-Chapter 2 : Why Did I Do It?

Published January 25, 2017 by Nan Mykel

Medusa still frame

From Fallout: A Survivor Talks to Incest Offenders (And Others), by moi.

Four major factors that contribute to molestation have been proposed and widely accepted (Finkelhor, 1984). They are sexual arousal, preferring children emotionally, being blocked from an adult relationship, and failure of the offender’s inhibitions. A reliable assessment of the offender’s dynamics is often difficult. Information is provided to the offender in treatment, however, and he is invited to consider the information and share with his group which dynamics he thinks apply to him. Similarly, this book can help any unapprehended molester ferret out his own patterns. Survivors may also use the material to make some sense of their experience. (p 34).

ONE PARAGRAPH PER CHAPTER- “Who Am I?” Chapter 1

Published January 25, 2017 by Nan Mykel

From Fallout: A Survivor Talks to Incest Offenders (And Others), by moi. Medusa still frame IS THIS YOU? It appears that males, with their testosterone, macho culture and possible genetic influences, may be reluctant to disclose that they have been abused. I realize now that admitting that they have been damaged by sexual abuse is tantamount to admitting vulnerabilty, a trait not in keeping with the offender’s self image. (p 23)

ONE PARAGRAPH PER CHAPTER- Introduction

Published January 23, 2017 by Nan Mykel

From Fallout: A Survivor Talks to Incest Offenders (And Others), by moi.

From time to time I wondered how my father or grandfather would have fit into our prison group. Would they have denied their culpability? My grandfather would deny his molesting behavior and perhaps convince himself that he was blameless. I can imagine him complaining–as I have heard more than one offender do–that “It’s gotten so you can’t even give your grandkid a hug any more.” I do not believe that treatment would have deterred my grandfather. My father would have been more honest, but both would have denied that any damage had been done. (p 16)

Medusa still frame