Healing from the Emotional Trauma of Sexual Betrayal: A Guide to Intimate Deception

Customer: The book was recommended to me from a woman who experienced sexual betrayal in her marriage. I too have experienced betrayal. It was my first step in moving towards healing. Understanding what was happening to me emotionally and physically was very validating. Finally there was a name for what I was experiencing ‘betrayal trauma’. Thanks to this book I was able to find a trauma informed specialist and a therapy practice that specializes in sexual addiction. For years before this I was lost in a fog and felt no one understood me. I was further traumatized by my church and a therapist that did not understand sexual addiction. This book was my first step in healing and moving forward. It’s a must read for women who have been hurt in this way.

United States on Sep 20, 2023

Theresa Busche: This book is very helpful! I have grown in my healing journey.

Book is as described

Canada on Jan 31, 2021

Tamara: The book itself is damaged. The cover and binding in mangaled.

Canada on Dec 24, 2020

Lucy: To the point. Excellent

Canada on Apr 26, 2019

Heather H.: I could truly write so much about why this book is so amazing. No other book has come even CLOSE to being as helpful to me, personally, in as many ways as this book has (And I have a veritable LIBRARY of books on sex addiction and on being partner to a sex addict). Intimate Deception is the MOST validating, healing, informative, practical, educational, encouraging and thorough book I have read on the subject of healing from betrayal trauma.
Through this book, Dr. Sheri is like the comforting and compassionate voice you so desperately need in your ear- empathetically guiding you step by step through this trauma- toward healing.
The book gives us a deep, inside look into parts of Dr. Sheri's personal story of healing from the trauma of being a (former) wife of a sex addict. As the reader, looking at the timeline of her own story- it began in the days when most therapists called spouses of sex addicts "co-addicts" or codependent, pathologizing them with labels and veiled shame, as if the partner is somehow partly to blame for the ongoing addiction of the sex addict! This belief system surrounding addiction and the idea of codependency, etc.- has been so injurious, and totally...

United States on Mar 16, 2019

Michelle M: I've ready a number of books on partner betrayal trauma and pornography addictions. Most of them were also fantastic by authors, Wendy Maltz, Barbara Steffens, Vicki Tidwell, etc. I like the format of this book, it gets straight to the point with specific, concrete strategies to help oneself heal while having empathy for oneself and their partner whether still together or not. It's a book full of hope of recovery for spouses impacted by an addiction that can leave one feeling broken, with PTSD symptoms due to the actions of their spouse, gaslighting, and the further harmful approaches of well meaning addiction programs, counsellours, etc. who may still use the most often harmful codependent (what's your role/blame) approach with an addiction where most spouses have no idea what's at the root of challenges in their marriage until their life is suddenly exploding. This book leaves the reader well informed and equipped to understand how the current traumas of partner sex addiction can trigger past traumas and how to heal from them all. It's an important read for those in the helping profession or those exposed to anyone directly or indirectly with a sex/pornography addiction.

Canada on Aug 05, 2018

Leotv: This is the 2nd of absolute, crucial, must-read books for betrayed wives to read (with the first being the very short book by Michelle Mays "Aftermath of Betrayal"), followed RIGHT behind with Dr. Kevin Skinner's book "Treating Trauma from Sexual Betrayal", and then "Moving Beyond Betrayal" by Vicki Tidwell Palmer which is excellent for helping betrayed wives establish their life-saving boundaries. All 4 of these books are jam-packed with crucially-needed info that betrayed wives need NO matter whether or not their SA husband chooses recovery...the severe damage he has inflicted is already done and her traumatized brain-heart-body-emotions MUST be tended to and healed. In the next edition of Keffer's book I hope she will make two small changes. 1.) She wrote of - which others erroneously do as well - ADHD being a "CAUSE OF" men choosing porn and the SA behaviors. I encourage her to read the book "Your Brain on Porn" where they discuss the research done how ADHD manifestations are rather that of the "RESULT OF" having indulged in porn and not the 'cause of'. And, it makes perfect sense, too: SA is primarily that of a "DRUG addiction, generating their own neurochemistry drug fix as...

United States on Jul 10, 2018