Invisible Wounds: Crime Victims Speak

Source: (1986) New York: Harrington Park Press, Inc.

Published in 1986 by Shelley Neiderbach, a psychotherapist and college teacher in counseling and psychology services, this book came out at a time of rapid developments regarding the appropriate and effective nature of mental health response to victimization. The book provided a significant contribution to this field. Neiderbach wrote it out of her professional expertise, but she also wrote it out of her own experience as a victim of violent crime some years before the book. From these two bases, she came to a point where she wanted crime-specific therapeutic services to deal with her trauma of crime victimization, and she wanted to talk with other crime victims to share and to hear the personal experience of victimization. She recounts all of this in her “Genesis” chapter that opens the book; additionally, she discusses in the same chapter theoretical considerations concerning victim trauma syndrome and gender differences in the experience of victimization. The book itself then consists of several sets of materials: personal accounts from a number of crime victims of their experiences; selections from relevant books, newspapers, magazines, journals, reports, brochures, and similar sources; Neiderbach’s responses to the victims’ accounts and source materials; and selections from exercises and evaluations by members of group sessions from Crime Victims’ Counseling Services (a victim services practice founded by Neiderbach). An extensive bibliography at the end of the book provides resources for further understanding of crime, crime victimization, and mental health response to victimization.