About Dispatches from the Couch by Stacey Hettes:
With exceptional candor, author Stacey Hettes invites readers to take a seat in the office of her new therapist as she chronicles the painful but beautiful dialogues working toward finally exorcizing the serpents a church deacon let loose in her kindergarten self.
Stacey has what she believes to be the perfect life, that is until she slips on the psychological equivalent of black ice. At an emotionally charged forum on sexual violence, Stacey takes a stand against a colleague’s reckless verbal assault, outing herself as a sexual abuse survivor in the process. The event sends her tumbling back into her fractured childhood, one she has already spent years trying to reconcile through cycle after cycle of therapy. But Dr. Hettes, the neuroscientist, must continue her work, even as Stacey Hettes, the abuse survivor, finds herself submerged in the sights, sounds, and smells of her painful memories.
Raw and heartfelt, this memoir aims to build empathy, understanding, and solidarity for everyone who has suffered through or witnessed the effects of abuse.
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Author Bio:
Professor Stacey Hettes teaches biology and neuroscience to undergraduates eager to enter the worlds of science and medicine at Wofford College in Spartanburg, SC. She holds a PhD from the University of California, Riverside, and is the youngest winner to date of the Milliken Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Science. Her classes are difficult because life is difficult. They are also full of wonder, joy, and triumph because, like her students, she is a hard-working seeker. She relishes in shared struggle and shared discovery, even when the topic is long-buried child sexual abuse. Re-emerging from the shadows of her past was only possible once she resolved to carry the story found in this debut memoir into the light.