Through an intensive clinical study of 40 incest victims and numerous interviews with professionals in mental health, child protection, and law enforcement, Herman develops a composite picture of the incestuous family. In a new afterword, she offers an overview of knowledge that has developed about sexual abuse since this book was first published.

Through an intensive clinical study of forty incest victims and numerous interviews with professionals in mental health, child protection, and law enforcement, Judith Herman develops a composite picture of the incestuous family. In a new afterword written especially for this edition, Herman offers a lucid and thorough overview of the knowledge that has developed about incest and other forms of sexual abuse since this book was first published. Reviewing the extensive research literature that demonstrates the validity of incest survivors' sometimes repressed and recovered memories, she convincingly challenges the rhetoric and methods of the backlash movement against incest survivors, and the concerted attempt to deny the events they find the courage to describe.