Book Review Of Damaged By Cathy Glass

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Damaged By Cathy Glass: Book Review
Damaged by Cathy Glass is a memoir of the authors’ experience and relationship with an out of control little girl named Jodie. Jodie was placed in foster care due to the concerns regarding her parents. She was placed with Cathy, an experienced carer who has fostered children for over 20 years, in hopes to avoid her being institutionalized. Cathy was the fifth carer that Jodie had been assigned to in four months. Cathy quickly realized that Jodie was a very disturbed and abused child. Jodie was a handful due to her learning disabilities and an untamed rage. Her difficult behavior and learning disabilities consisted of a short attention span, uncoordinated movements, kicking people, soiling herself, smashing everything in sight, not adhering to family rules, nightmares, and hallucinations. During the time with Cathy, Jodie gained trust from her and started to reveal to Cathy that she was sexually and physical abused by her parents and other family members. While Jodie lived with Cathy, she tried to give her love and affection in hopes to help her, but unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to help the damaged eight year old.
Victimization is the process of making someone into a victim by harming or taking advantage of him or her in some kind of way. Jodie is a prime example of child victimization. She has been through such heartbreaking and disturbing forms of abuse, that her mind suppressed them. This is termed as being blind to betrayal. Betrayal blindness (Freyd and Birrell, 2013) means that a person doesn’t know or cannot see what is right in front of them. Blindness to betrayal occurs when a person overlooks blatant signs or instances of betrayal or the state of mind where a person is unable to ...

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...hy abused children may act out in a bad way. It captures the terrible effects of abuse on an innocent child. The book also shows the perceptive of what a person could be going through. For example, when you see a child acting out in an out of control manner, it could be because they were abused. We shouldn’t judge a book by its cover because we have no clue what a person have gone through and why they may act the way they do. Most often people tend to place blame instead of having empathy for others. This story can help others to become educated on the way that abuse can affect people and can help the society as a whole to move forward in with empathy and embracement. Trainers and practitioners, working in childcare and child protection, could use this book. It provided an insight for people who are interested or going into the social worker career.

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