This Child of Mine
 Martha Wakenshaw
 (Reviewed by The Editor - Rebecca Brown)
 2002 Harbinger Press
  ISBN: 0967473608


A Therapist's Journey. For more than 15 years, a child therapist treats emotionally traumatized children through play & expressive arts therapies, & in doing so, re-lives & heals her own wounds.

Martha Wakenshaw is a rebel among psychologists. She believes in the healing power of love, of simple human decency, & natural bonds. Not academic sorcery, social do-goodery, nor needless medication. As she chronicles her years of working with society's most abused and neglected children, her faith is both challenged & validated.

As a Children's Advocate for a rural Domestic Violence Prevention Program for several years, I learnt about the power of play & art therapy. Indeed, I recommended many of the Children for whom I spoke, to such therapy, to such a therapist in our little town, & I was impressed both by the process & the results.

I would watch most of the cruelly troubled youngsters slowly, over the months, carefully at their own pace, emerge from their protective shells, grow out of their involuntary tics & rituals, & learn, again, to be naturally ebullient. It had, after all, taken years to batter & beat them into their sorry state, it often took as long for them to heal. When I began reading This Child of Mine, I had a certain amount of knowledge, although no preparation for the chronicle this therapist has written.

In This Child of Mine, you will meet the Children, all their identities have been suitably re-arranged to protect them, & you will meet the Therapist, who has opened her identity in such a way, that you will feel as if you are inside her head, discovering her philosophies & her therapeutic skills, her naiveté, confusion & her courage.

I commend Martha Wakenshaw for her simply honest & lyrical recounting of the stories she has to tell. I applaud her for telling it like it is, the grim & gruesome details, as well as the wonder of watching another human being creep out, & smile.

Did I see the end coming? Ah, read it & weep!

This Child of Mine is moving, interesting & enlightening.
(10/20/02)

Rebecca