The Flying Child - A Cautionary Fairy Tale for Adults: Finding a purposeful life after child sexual abuse through compassionate and creative therapy

‘And then came the session where I felt I would give up. I felt frustrated as I’d worked so hard on trying to speak but the most important words; the worst ones, had simply not come out. I implied I would not necessarily come back the following week and as I got up to leave the room, Pat said,   ‘Try detaching from it entirely. Try writing it as a fairy story. Start with the words, once upon a time there was a little girl’.   That evening, I tried. I sat on my bed and typed on the note’s app of my phone Once Upon A Time … and finally, four decades after the abuse began, the words started to flow.’   This book documents the therapeutic journey undertaken by Sophie and her therapist, Pat. It includes all chapters of the fairy tale and the drawings Sophie created to help her make sense of her experiences and to reconnect with herself. It also contains the many in-between session conversations Pat and Sophie had by email, WhatsApp, and texts, with important insights into how to work safely with trauma.   Essential reading for all therapists, counsellors, health professionals, educators, and social workers, interested in understanding or working with survivors of child sexual abuse, and for those who are survivors of sexual abuse, The Flying Child – A Cautionary Fairy Tale for Adults- Finding a purposeful life after Child Sexual Abuse through compassionate and creative therapy – is a must- have for your bookshelf.   Today, Sophie is a survivor activist, writer, founder and managing director of The Flying Child: a non-profit, National Lottery Community Funded organisation improving the awareness of child sexual abuse and the consequences of trauma. The core aim of The Flying Child is to normalise speaking about CSA. The Flying Child Project brings lived experience into the heart of professional settings, providing training in Education, Social Work and Healthcare.   Pat Walsh is an experiential and intuitive counsellor with over forty years’ experience of working in trauma. Her background in nursing and occupational therapy taught her that to heal properly, wounds must be deeply cleansed, and purpose and meaning must be established to build any long -lasting recovery. She brings these learnings into her therapeutic work with survivors of sexual violence and childhood sexual abuse.

Review :
The Flying Child simultaneously locates the reader in humanity’s darkest and brightest, most hopeful hour. Through recorded interactions between Sophie Olson and her therapist Patricia Walsh, we learn of the deep and awful trauma of sexual abuse in childhood. It is closer up than most readers will have ever experienced such abuse. It is uncomfortable and awful, nightmarish, and yet, we read on. We are aware that Sophie is doing the hardest work of all, travelling back and facing her abuser and so, reading on, strangely, feels like a supportive act. We are with Sophie, every step of the way. And on every step of the journey we are unendingly grateful for the presence of Patricia. Ultimately, despite the book’s difficult subject matter, we are buoyed by the strength of these two remarkable women: Sophie in persisting through a living hell; and Patricia in guiding her steadfastly back to her own strength and inner beauty. I have learned so much about the devastating impact of trauma from this book but I have learned more about the beauty, and the twinned fragility and strength of survivors. 'This is a powerful and inspiring account of one person's journey to recovery after childhood abuse. It gives hope to us all.'