The Inside

I have just finished watching a wonderful TV show called "The Inside" from 2005. There are only 13 episodes, and it was cancelled. We have a podcast called "Profiling Criminal Minds"  - a meta discussion of the TV show, Criminal Minds. Between  our analysis of Season 5 & 6, we discuss "The Inside" to put Season 6 into perspective. Yesterday, we finished creating the bonus 7-part mini-series that discusses "The Inside". It will begin to air in September alongside our weekly podcasts.

To get it out of my head, I decided to write this blog post - I do have to do other work completely divorced from this topic!

Everyone who is interested in issues of the long-term impact of child abuse should watch this series. It contains a  brilliant character study of the main character - a woman who is working in the FBI as a profiler in the Violent Crimes Unit in Las Angeles. She was kidnapped at age 10, and escaped her kidnapper 18 months later. Created by Tim Minear and Howard Gordon, I was stunned by its focus and its character creations. Not that I should have been surprised given the creators. My podcast co-host had been raving about this show for ages, and he was right.

I won't go into details, but it rang true to me. There were many difficult moments in the episodes as Rebecca's story and life unfolds. As a survivor I recognized, empathized with and had some difficult moments with the content. You can hear my reactions if you wish to listen to the podcast later this year. It certainly made me have more than a few mini-reflections on my past - even though the situations (with which readers of the blog are familiar) were different. Even my co-host had moments of reflection on his past - and that almost never happens.

Kudos to Minear and Gordon and all the writers, directors, actors etc. on the show.

And many thanks to Chris from England for putting this playlist together, I assume that he taped them from ITV4 mainly. It is the only way to get them - they aren't available on DVD. Just a note: Episodes 4 and 5 are out of order on the Youtube playlist - you should watch Pre-filer before you watch Loneliest Number.

And here is the link for the playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLG5YX8k3vkx5nb9R2ljthjsmq79JRFYMx

I should note that this is a very dark television show, as I say in the first podcast. I am not surprised that it was cancelled. It is harder to watch than anything else on the subject. It handles difficult issues with a tightness of control that is seldom seen in television. I have no idea how we are going to go back to Criminal Minds after watching this - but we will - we committed ourselves to talk about the entire show, and we will.

If you read French, this is a MUST read

Autrement que victimes : Dieu, enfer et résistance chez les victimes d'abus sexuels (Not just victims: God, anger and resistance in the voices of sexual abuse victims)

Authors: Jean-Guy Nadeau ;  Carole Golding ;  Claude Rochon
Publisher: Novalis
Date: 2013
http://www.novalis.ca/Product.aspx?ids=7532038

The publisher's blurb in French. I have done a broad translation of the French (I hope the authors aren't too upset by my paraphrasing at points but I think that I have retained the essence of the blurb.)


Fruit d'un travail de plusieurs années, cet ouvrage offre aux différents intervenants psychosociaux des informations qui leur permettront de mieux travailler avec les croyances religieuses de leurs patients et de les intégrer dans leur thérapie.  Si des victimes trouvent dans la foi ou dans la religion un soutien pour survivre à l'abus, d'autres assimilent ce drame à un abandon ou à l'opprobre de Dieu ; elles se sentent alors davantage coupables, ressentent un sentiment d'exclusion, bref tardent à sortir de leur traumatisme. Enfin, les enfants éduqués chrétiennement vivent très tôt, et avec peu de ressources, l'expérience douloureuse des questions radicales sur les relations entre Dieu, la souffrance et le mal. De nombreux témoignages viennent illustrer ces positions et enrichir la réflexion par des cas concrets.

The fruit of many years of labour, this book offers much information for psychosocial counsellors that will allow them to work more effectively with the religious beliefs of their patients and to integrate these beliefs into their clients’ therapy. Some victims find in their faith or their religion a support that helps them to survive the abuse. Other victims describe their response to this abuse as abandonment by God or as contempt for God; they then feel more guilty, and also feel excluded from the belief system. In short, they take a long time to resolve the issues raised by their traumatic experience. Lastly, with few resources, children who are educated (raised) as Christians live from a very early age with the painful experience of facing radical questions on the relationship between God, suffering and evil. The book contains many firsthand examples that illustrate these issues and the discussion is enriched with these concrete cases.

I have only started to read the book and after reading different chapters and sections, I already feel that it is definitely a wonderful addition to the literature on the impact of the Christian belief system on victims of child sexual abuse within that system. This is not just because they have a lengthy discussion of my Psalm and Eulogy (pp. 104-118) - guess I am a the*logian, whether I like it or not. It is well balanced between those who, like me, felt abandoned and angry at the failure of the belief system to address our needs and those who have found support in the system.

The authors should be looking for a publisher for an English translation so that it can reach a wider audience.

I will comment further after I have finished the entire book. (After all, French isn't my first language and it takes more time to integrate what I am reading!)