Reviews by: Professionals | Readers | Reviewers

What Professionals Are Saying

"Because I Love You is a courageous memoir, and author Joyce Allen admirably accomplishes several goals…. She traces how her life was seriously impacted and nearly derailed by incestuous abuse by her father at an early age, (and) documents her personal struggle to find understanding and expertise in helping her overcome her complicated and extensive posttraumatic and dissociative reactions.
"With enormous determination, she conducts a detailed examination of her father's life and learns of his extensive pedophiliac history and its possible origins and motivations. And, finally, she examines the silence that so often accompanies abuse that is perpetrated by a family member, friend, or acquaintance, a silence often based on denial and loyalty that has the inadvertent effect of allowing abuse to continue undeterred.
"This is a compelling look at the intergenerational dynamics of sexual abuse
and its tragic consequences, and the need for improved and more effective
intervention. It is also a testament to human resilience and renewal."
- Christine A. Courtois, Ph.D., Clinical Director, The CENTER: Posttraumatic Disorders Program, The Psychiatric Institute of Washington, and author of Healing the Incest Wound: Adult Survivors in Therapy; Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse: A Workshop Model; and Recollections of Sexual Abuse: Treatment Principles and Guidelines

"…traces the seemingly inevitable outcome [of incest] as it's impact reverberates throughout the family almost fifty years later. Anyone who has survived sexual abuse, who works with or even knows abuse survivors, should read this very moving journey from child victim to adult survivor. It offers hope even as it reminds us how secrecy and silence perpetuate this most destructive pattern."
- Mario J.P. Dennis, Ph.D., Shenandoah Valley Sex Offender Treatment Program

"On behalf of our program, we are very impressed with Because I Love You, and have ordered multiple copies for our facilities. It offers invaluable information to victim as well as offender treatment communities. I actively and highly recommend the book to both groups.
"Our research in Colorado regarding sexual offenders is revealing far more offenses than previously suspected, and of a far broader variety. Because I Love You helps show this breadth of offending more clearly, and spotlights how, because of silence-keeping, often no one saw what was happening. I admire Joyce Allan and her mother, and their courage in taking the journey required to write the book.
"I recently conducted a training for child protective workers in Colorado. I brought this book to the training and recommended it to the audience. Thanks again for your important contribution!"
- Peggy Heil, Program Director, Sexual Offender Treatment and Monitoring, Colorado Department of Corrections

"We are using Because I Love You as part of our victim empathy and psychological education program. Our clinic serves youthful perpetrators, is co-located with a psychiatric hospital, and we read one or more chapters of the book aloud each week. Most of these boys are themselves sexual abuse victims. It is amazing to watch a group of A.D.H.D. 12-14 year-olds suddenly grow silent and immersed. They are riveted by Joyce's story, and also are learning new words, new feelings, as they pass the book around and share in the reading."
- Thomas Faragher, The Daybreak Program, Poplar Springs Hospital, Petersburg, VA

"Joyce Allan has written a compelling personal account of familial
incest. Without excusing misconduct, she shows empathy, understanding and compassion for all involved."
--Fred S. Berlin, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Director, The National Institute for the Study, Prevention and Treatment of Sexual Trauma

Reviews by: Professionals | Readers | Reviewers

What Readers Are Saying

• "I never read books and I never write letters. But after encountering Because I Love You I want to write and thank you. Both my ex-wife and my ex-girlfriend were sexually abused as children (and) your book has helped me understand something that I will never understand. I am passing it on to my daughter, who is eighteen and trying to understand and help her mother."
• "Your book had to be written, so that everyone involved will comprehend more fully the damage child abuse does to the individual child long after the abuse stops. It will prevent other children from undergoing the horror you lived with all those years."
• "Your book is my bedtime reading right now, and (the way it is presented) is a comfort in many ways. I like how you investigate the crime scene and the people involved. The style is super. One minute I'm crying, then laughing, then feeling mystery."
• "I have discovered some new things about myself, because you wrote them about your family. I have almost no childhood memories, but I "know." Now I better understand feelings that haven't come to the surface in even years of counseling. I couldn't find my way to them, but your book is the door. There's no way to tell you the size of my gratitude for your love and courage."
• "I want to send this book to a lot of people, whether or not they (think they) have direct experiences with sexual abuse. The book reveals that it's the silences of all of us which permits abuse to continue. It will help make the world a much safer place for children."

Reviews by: Professionals | Readers | Reviewers

What Reviwers Are Saying

"A memoir as gripping in everyday detail as a novel, as compelling in its narrative as a detective story, Because I Love You is also wise, compassionate, and, above all, informative.
What emerges is not just an indictment of the silence that surrounds incest, but a complex enactment of love so powerful that it can both indict and forgive…Because I Love You is a book you must read."
- Sharon L. Davie, Ph.D., Director, University of Virginia Women's Center

"…Extraordinary…shows that the web of silence around traditions of sexual abuse can be pierced. It describes what can happen when families, friends, and acquaintances join together to speak of the unspeakable. This is a moving real life story, told with stark honesty and courage by a sexual abuse survivor who became a therapist and then an activist to protect abuse victims.
Because I Love You will inspire and support others to come forward, to expose those left in the shadows - to stop protecting abusers and instead protect our children."
- Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice and The Blade, Sacred Pleasure, and Tomorrow's Children

"Incest and pedophilia pervade some families' histories like an ancestral doom or an inherited genetic disease. With extraordinary courage, Joyce Allan rejects such a fatalistic idea.
"Speaking for the rights of children, she uses her own intensely painful past to combat a complicity of silence among relatives and friends, and thus break the cruel cycles of sexual abuse that harm too many boys and girls in our midst."
- Susan Gubar, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of English, Indiana University, and co-author of The Madwoman in the Attic.

"Because I Love You makes a valuable contribution to the field of feminist psychology and healing. In documenting her (five generation) family history of sexual abuse, Joyce Allan… delves into the hidden reasons for silence and complicity - subjects especially timely at this moment."
- Starhawk, author of The Spiral Dance, The Fifth Sacred Thing, and The Twelve Wild
Swans