The Flying Child – A Cautionary Fairy Tale for Adults is now available for pre-order.
Thank you ZunTold for recognising Child Sexual Abuse (and its impact) is a subject that needs shouting about – and for believing in the book.
I particularly want to thank my publisher, Elaine Bousfield for her hard work and dedication in making this book come to fruition. As some survivors will know, publishing books about this subject is not straightforward, for many reasons. There have been moments where I’ve found the process overwhelming and difficult, and by proxy this will have been tricky for her too. I think we have both learnt a lot along the way, muddled through at times and I appreciate how patient she has been throughout. I have had more control over the outcome than I perhaps would have done elsewhere, and I’m grateful for that.
Elaine believes in me, in Pat, and is open minded in her understanding that when it comes to the support of CSA survivors, it’s not as simple as ‘one size fits all.’
For those who hold the authority to influence survivors’ lives – psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, teachers, researchers, nurses, doctors, midwives – this book provides education about the harms of Child Sexual Abuse, the power of working relationally, and creative ways to challenge the silencing of abuse. Overall, this book is a call to action to transform our current systems and practices so that they support Child Sexual Abuse survivors to heal, rather than re-enforcing its harms.
Dr Síofra Peeren, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology
and Neuroscience, King’s College London
ZunTold’s ethos is to harness the healing power of people’s stories and I believe there is much to be learned from the narration of personal experience. When we walk in another’s footsteps we can better understand the potential for causing further harm, the barriers that stand in the way of meaningful and sustained support, and the ways in which we can, as individuals, make a very real difference to the lives of those who have suffered in this particular way.
This book documents my journey and allows the reader to make the links between Child Sexual Abuse and how we might begin to survive it. It highlights what helped me to live a life beyond CSA – but it is just one story. Books like The Flying Child should be everywhere we turn. We cannot keep brushing the subject under the carpet. There are an estimated 11 million CSA survivors in the U.K. 11 million different stories of abuse and survival. Many different experiences of seeking support, of perhaps experiencing further harm – many different needs to be met (and many different ways of meeting them). My wish is for this book to stimulate much needed debate and conversation about how we begin to do that in a way that doesn’t cause harm. One of the first and most important things we can do, in this respect, is to engage with personal testimony.
It was the use of metaphor in the book that I feel will have the most profound impact on my practice – in our work with children, some as young as 3, the therapists try to find creative methods to give them a voice; a way to explore their muddles and worries. The concept of fairytale enables the child’s story to be told through characters that represent their subconscious thoughts and feelings and make sense of them at their own pace.
Thank you so much for removing the shroud that hides child sexual abuse, that prevents children and adults from engaging in the right support and the right time. I feel this book will enable healing for many.
Clare Sullivan, Barnardo’s Bridgeway Project
You can pre-order from Waterstones here, WHSmith here, Telegraph Bookshop here and Amazon here.
