Repair Your Life

Blank book on blue background

Have you been REPAIRed?

 REPAIR – A Program for Recovery from Incest &
Childhood Sexual Abuse : Second Edition
by Marjorie McKinnon

Read a review of this book
See the Table of Contents

Purchase the book from the publisher

 The audiobook edition is now available

 


 Amazon.com’s Five-Star Reviews for REPAIR Your Life

“Incest and childhood sexual abuse are amongst the great social taboos of all time. As a result, we act as if they are rare aberrations, infrequently mentioned in a newspaper article about someone far from our part of town. Unfortunately, both are demonstrably common even in the ‘best of families’. The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study of 17,337 middle-class American adults found a self-acknowledged prevalence of childhood sexual abuse in 28% in women and 16% in men when routine inquiry was carried out. Sadly, this high prevalence concealed by shame and secrecy usually causes these individuals unconsciously to seek relief in various coping devices like food, alcohol, nicotine, promiscuity, and street antidepressants like methamphetamine. Although these coping devices often end in biomedical disease and shortened lives, their underlying causality typically remains unrecognized.

Repair Your Life’ will be of major help to these many hidden people, if they find their way to this book. It is one of several significant books by a woman who writes openly and perceptively, using her own experiences to take us down her path to an ultimately fulfilling life. This example of someone speaking intelligently and freely about the ordinarily unspeakable is a powerful starting point for those fortunate individuals who will find self-help here when so little else is visible to them. This is an important book.”

Vincent J. Felitti, MD
Co-Principal Investigator of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study, ongoing collaborative research between the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program and the Centers for Disease Control.

A renowned physician and researcher, Dr. Felitti is one of the world’s foremost experts on childhood trauma. Leading the charge in research into how adverse childhood experiences affect adults, he is co-principal investigator of the internationally recognized Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE), a long term, in-depth analysis of over 17,000 adults.

Above is the ACE Pyramid.


“As it turns out- I only needed ONE book!”
February 22, 2010 – By Two Healers (Austin, TX)
My fiance and I are both incest survivors. She has well over 200 psychological and self help related books. Half way through Repair she simply said “As it turns out, I only needed ONE book!” This book has and is a huge part of our individual healing process and continues to be. If you are reading this, most likely you have covered the same paths that we have. It’s a hard journey of not feeling worthy of love. Of sabotaging your happiness and your relationships. We could fill this entire review of stories of struggles or how we almost destroyed ourselves, but I think it’s most productive to say, if you want to heal and to have peace – get this book.

Very helpful book!
June 17, 2010 – By S. Burdine (Kentucky)
A great book. I would highly recommend for abuse survivors or others who are helping survivors with recovery process. I am thankful I found this book.
Lauri C. Coates – (MASCOUTAH, IL United States)

Invaluable Recovery Assistance For Survivors of Sexual Abuse or Incest
November 30, 2009
If you or someone you care about is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, this book should prove invaluable to your recovery. Most people realize that childhood sexual abuse is traumatic, but not everyone understands or recognizes the serious and often life-long effects. 

The author of this valuable book, Marjorie McKinnon, has written extensively how survivors can work to move beyond the trauma of abuse. With hard work and patience, it can be done. She pulls no punches, and never trivializes the difficulty of dealing with this problem. She has set the program forward with a really useful acronym, REPAIR, to illustrate the steps a survivor and their friends and family or therapist needs to take to begin the process of healing. Written in a style that is very easy to understand and to follow, the survivor will work through 6 different steps to recovery. 

Numerous therapists have recommended this process, and I believe it could be an invaluable tool both for professionals and caring friends and family members of survivors. Any one wanting to move beyond the trauma of incest and childhood sexual abuse can find hope, healing and care within these pages. Information is also given about support groups and finding them, an invaluable resource that many people are unaware are available to them.
Michelle M. Neufer, LCSW – (Fresno, CA)

I am a mental health therapist in private practice. I just read REPAIR Your Life. This is a MUST read and a MUST do for those who have suffered the pain of a childhood sexual trauma. Marjorie McKinnon uses simple language with practical advice and clear steps on how to recover and heal. Don’t waste time… Run to a bookstore and set yourself free.
Linda J. Schiller-Hanna – “Blessed One” (Northeast Ohio)

I read and reviewed The Courage To Heal many years ago. I mentioned then how difficult it was to work through and complete… despite its powerful ability to open up the painful past. This book is more user-friendly and not so upsetting. It’s possible that further along in my recovery is part of that as well, however. I think it’s a very good place to start. The author makes a lot of sense out of a senseless experience. Well worth the price. Recommended without hesitation.

Released by Loving Healing Press, Repair Your Life is now available through barnesandnoble.com, amazon.com and all the other major book distributors. Repair is being used in our chapters as a model for recovery. After working this program, Marjorie went from being suicidal, married to her third abuser, and living part time in a women’s shelter to being the happiest person she knew. Her motto after completing the Repair Program was, “If I’d known life was going to turn out this good, I would have started it sooner.”
B. K. Moe

It Works !!!!
May 18, 2009
Hi Margie, 
This is Brenda, I’m a Lamplighter in International Falls. I met you when you came to our group while you were here about 1 year ago. This month marks our 2 year anniversary of Lamplighter’s. 
I just want to thank you for your book and support. My life has changed so much in the past year. I’m right smack dab in my healing process and I’m so happy. It does work! 
I have been writing my story and also telling my story. I’ve recruited many women to our group. I want to support and empower our members to let them know that you can recover and that life can get better. 
I’m currently in my first intimate relationship, which I’ve never had before now, and I’ve found myself feeling, feelings I have never felt before. It feels wonderful. I trust my feelings and my new boyfriend is a God send. I really kept my faith through the past 2 years, and I lanced my wounds, which were so hard to do, and I’ve been feeling everything. 
It still is an ongoing process, but I feel as though I am on the bridge and I want to thank you for that bridge. 
I’m very grateful, Thank you Margie! 
I’m so proud of all the Lamplighter’s that have started groups throughout the country. Such brave and courageous women!
Jaunita Rasmusson

Fantastic Recovery Book!!
April 13, 2009
Repair – a recovery journey from childhood sexual abuse. I am a victim advocate and have used this book with survivors I work with. I never get tired of readers saying to me “…. this is so what I have been experiencing” It is set up in such a way to let the reader go at their own pace. Details warning signs and it provides such incredible tools in a journey that otherwise is so dark and lonely. It truly is a miraculous book providing its readers with a glimpse of hope for the future.
Maria Edwards

A helpful guide to recovery
March 15, 2009
An American Authors Association review: 

As we all know, many adults who were sexually abused as children, never received any help or therapy for this abuse. The result, as pointed out in this book, often results in picking an abusive mate and the cycle continues. 

As Ms. McKinnon did so well in her book, Repair for Kids: A Children’s Program for Recovery from Incest and Childhood Sexual Abuse, she points out what it takes to recognize and recover from the damage done to a person as a child. Though certainly more detailed than the children’s books, the steps are similar though developed further for the use of adults. 

The author reveals her own experiences to let the reader know that she truly understands what they are going through and that also knows the best way to overcome what the childhood abuse has done to her. 

Highly recommended.

A straight-forward path to recovery
February 17, 2009
REPAIR Your Life: A Program for Recovery from Incest & Childhood Sexual Abuse by Marjorie McKinnon is an easy-to-follow guide to enable those abused to head down the path to recovery. She states “the purpose of this program is to send you into the world with useful tools for recovery. You will not read this book and get healed immediately. It contains exercises as well as thought-provoking questions that will plant seeds. These seeds will turn into blossoms, giving you direction and guidance in a world that at times will seem dark.” (p.27) McKinnon, however, is not a therapist, and unlike some of the professionals in the field, she had been abused and has had a successful recovery. What better person to learn from than one who has been through the same situations and has gone through the journey of recovery with positive results? McKinnon begins the book by chronicling her own personal experiences with incest and the recovery process. She presents her story as “a classic example” and mainly focuses on the resulting ramifications of being abused. For her, the abuse led her to enter abusive relationships, wreaked emotional havoc on her life, and caused her to have a poor self-image, among other things. Her own recovery was approximately a five-year process, and from her experiences she developed the REPAIR program based on the steps and techniques that worked best for her. REPAIR consists of six different stages: Recognize, Enter, Process, Awareness, Insight, and Rhythm. McKinnon devotes a chapter to each stage in an attempt to successfully guide the reader through the transformation process. The information in the book is presented in a direct manner, which is very easy to comprehend. The writing does not consist of a lot of technical terms that are hard for the average person to understand. The book is written by a regular person, and intended for an average, regular person to read. This is one thing that makes McKinnon’s book stand apart other books addressing this same topic. “REPAIR Your Life: A Program for Recovery from Incest & Childhood Sexual Abuse” is a book that would be beneficial to anyone who has suffered from sexual abuse, anyone who knows someone who has been abused, and those individuals who deal with victims on a regular basis.d by the writer’s willingness to explore how her abuse, and the aftermath of her abuse, has impacted her children. Also, I like the drawings and the encouragement to journal on various topics throughout the book. The resource section is fairly detailed and there is a topic index.

Reuters Review
Repair Your Life: A Program for Recovery from Incest & Childhood Sexual Abuse
POSTED: Tuesday, May 06, 2008
FROM BLOG: Reader Views – Book reviews, for readers, by readers. The following blog post is from an independent writer and is not connected with Reuters News. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not endorsed by Reuters.com.

“Repair Your Life” offers victims of incest and childhood sexual abuse the tools to help them overcome the shame and trauma that they encountered as children. It teaches you how to become the person that you were meant to be. So many survivors of abuse get trapped in non-ending cycles of being in unhealthy relationships, having addictions and making poor choices. Often the children of these survivors become victims.

Ms. McKinnon has developed a six-stage program called REPAIR. It stands for: Recognition, Entry, Process, Awareness, Insight, Rhythm, and Post-Recovery. She dedicates a chapter to each stage and offers some writing exercises to go along with them. By going through this process you will be able to transform yourself from a victim into a survivor. She teaches you to be aware of how the abuse is affecting you as an adult. She tells her own personal story. I felt very grateful that she shared so much of herself because no one reading this book will be able to tell her, “But you don’t understand.” She clearly does and by overcoming her abuse, she sets an example to the rest of the world. Incest and childhood sexual abuse survivors can be whole, healthy and happy.

“Repair Your Life” has a holistic approach to recovery. Going beyond the six stages for recovery, Ms. McKinnon also discusses how to be healthy and whole — things that victims are not taught. This includes learning how to set boundaries, and take care of your health. She reminds us that we are special and that we need to honor our bodies with healthy care.

The whole book really impressed me; however, there were two things that really had a personal effect on me. The first thing was her discussion of shame. Incest survivors tend to get trapped in feelings of guilt and shame. She makes it clear that the abuse was not their fault and that the blame should be placed where it belongs which is on the abuser’s shoulders, even if they were victims themselves. It is amazing how much damage carrying around a lifetime of shame can do to someone’s soul. The other thing that stood out to me was that she said that predators look for obedient children. So many people that I know that have been abused have had other predators seek them out. This makes the victim feel like they are marked with something that tells the world that they deserved to be molested. I have heard this expressed many times. When Ms. McKinnon mentions that predators look for obedient children, it answered that question for me. They look for children that look like they will do what they are told. That makes much sense, and it lets the survivor know that they didn’t have something “written on their back” identifying them as deserving to be abused.

“Repair Your Life” is a must read for all survivors of sexual abuse. It should also be read by friends and family members close to the survivor. Counselors will also greatly benefit from the book. “Repair Your Life” will give you tools and resources to help you on your journey of recovery. Repair Your Life: A Program for Recovery from Incest & Childhood Sexual Abuse

Marjorie McKinnon
Loving Healing Press (2008)
ISBN 9781932690521
Reviewed by Paige Lovitt for Reader Views (4/08)

Please email your comments to margie@thelamplighters.org

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