The Courage to Heal Add a review

The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (first published in 1988, with three subsequent editions, the last being a 20th anniversary edition in 2008) is a self-help book by poet Ellen Bass and Laura Davis that focuses on recovery from child sexual abuse.

The intent of the book is to provide a healing experience by means of explanations, practical suggestions, descriptions and accounts from women who have experienced sexual abuse. The authors say that individuals (mainly women) with a general set of symptoms may have been abused, but the memories of which have been repressed. They propose a variety of techniques to overcome their symptoms, including confronting their alleged abusers, adopting an identity as a "survivor", overcoming the associated trauma, and in cases where there is no memory of any abuse, recovering the memories. The book was a bestseller in North America and Europe. The 20th Anniversary Edition came out in 2008 and included an updated resource guide, additional stories and research.

The book has been criticized for being used primarily by incompetent therapists, for creating in children false memories of abuse, as well as for its authors' lack of qualifications, for creating an industry which has isolated and separated family members despite having no proof the abuse occurred, and for destructively replacing individual identities with that of a "survivor". Bass and Davis have also been criticized for leaping to unwarranted, implausible conclusions with significant consequences and for scientific errors found in the first edition that were not corrected in subsequent reprintings. Bass and Davis responded to the controversy surrounding the book by writing "Honoring the Truth: A Response to the Backlash", a new chapter included in the 1994 edition to respond to and rebut criticisms of the book, though this was removed from the 20th anniversary edition.