Truth and Repair: How Trauma Survivors Envision Justice
Also known as Truth and Repair
Judith Herman asks 30 survivors of sexual and domestic abuse what justice would mean
At a glance
What it argues
Ask the survivors, From past to future, Bystanders
See all 3Key ideas
Six things survivors seek, What they want, Every route has costs
See all 3Examples from the book
A monument in Minneapolis, "A better past"
See all 2Criticism and limits
No single answer
Read next
Trauma and Recovery, Father-Daughter Incest
See all 2Connections
Judith Herman, Psychological trauma and Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence—From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
See all 3
Also on this page: Key facts · Links · Sources · Related pages
- Herman argues the conventional retributive justice process fails most survivors; it was never designed for them.
- Her first step toward better justice is to ask survivors what would make things as right as possible.
- She interviewed 30 survivors of sexual or domestic abuse.
- They most wanted the truth acknowledged and the abuser stripped of power, and were divided on punishment.
- Many were angrier at the bystanders who sided with the abuser than at the abuser.
Why it matters
- For therapists and anyone close to survivors: it moves the question from what happened to you to what you want to happen now, which is where much of recovery gets stuck.
Key facts
- Author
- Judith Lewis Herman1
- Published
- March 14, 20231
- Publisher
- Basic Books1
- Pages
- 2721
- ISBN
- 97815416005461
- Sample
- Interviews with 30 survivors of violence: 26 women and 4 men aged 22 to 602
What it argues
-
Ask the survivors1
The retributive process fails most survivors; the first step toward better justice is to ask them what would make things right.
-
From past to future2
Trauma asks "what happened to you?"; repair asks "What do you want to happen now?"
-
Bystanders2
"In the triangle of victim, perpetrator, and bystanders, impunity means in effect that the bystanders take the side of the perpetrator."
Key ideas
-
Six things survivors seek2
The last two-thirds of the book have chapters on acknowledgment, apology, accountability, restitution, rehabilitation and prevention.
-
What they want2
Public truth about what he did, loss of the position and status that let him abuse, sometimes apology or money, and not to see him again.
-
Every route has costs2
It weighs civil suits, criminal trials and restorative justice circles, showing how each hurts survivors and what in each is worth keeping.
Examples from the book
Criticism and limits
-
No single answer2
Bookforum notes that Herman does not push past her informants’ ambivalence, so the book stays descriptive and is inconclusive about the right path to justice.
Read next
-
The 1992 book this one completes, on trauma and the stages of recovery.
-
Herman's first study of survivors and the families around them.
Connections
Links
Sources
Last checked against its sources today
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