108 Quotes by Susan Forward

Unhealthy families discourage individual expression. Everyone must conform to the thoughts and actions of the toxic parents. They promote fusion, a blurring of personal boundaries, a welding together of family members. On an unconscious level, it is hard for family members to know where one ends and another begins. In their efforts to be close, they often suffocate one another’s individuality.

I came to realise that there are two facets to forgiveness: giving up the need for revenge, and absolving the guilty party of responsibility.

Criticism is the fountainhead of control.

Verbal abuse is as damaging as physical abuse, and in some cases, it does even more damage to a child. Insulting names, degrading comments and constant criticism all leave deep emotional scars that hinder feelings of self-worth and personal agency.

For hundreds of years, parental rights were considered inviolate—in the name of discipline, parents could do just about anything to their children, short of killing them.

Instead, incest occurs in families where there is a great deal of emotional isolation, secrecy, neediness, stress, and lack of respect. In many ways incest can be viewed as part of a total family breakdown. But it is the aggressor and the aggressor alone who commits the sexual violence.

[The incestuous father...] may be unconsciously seeking revenge against either his wife or his mother for what he considers a variety of emotional crimes against him.

Incest is almost always a devastating experience for the victim.

I estimate the number [of incest victims] to be somewhere between ten and twenty million Americans...