Baffled by Love could be a difficult read. Perhaps it should be. A defining characteristic of trauma is that simply discussing or thinking of it can cause harm, even make things worse. And yet, Kahn argues the interaction is necessary for healing. It's notable, then, that Kahn's narrative is sensitive to this problem, even as she looks unflinchingly at both the general case and the individual stories she shares.

It is well accepted that the therapeutic relationship must provide clients with the experience of a secure attachment. This is foundational for facilitating healing. Therapists must be predictable, maintain good boundaries, and offer empathic responses. In this context, therapy can provide a corrective emotional experience. But this doesn't suffice to repair the injuries caused by the chronic absence of love, and emotional and physical safety. For that, more is required.

[...] The secret of my profession is that many therapists do love their clients, though this is seldom acknowledged. I was taught to treat these feelings of love with suspicion, to guard them carefully for fear they could do harm. Nobody ever cautioned me that the withholding of these feelings of love could also do damage. [233]

What I now understand ... is that therapy is, at its best, a love story. It is a story about the repair of love -- the restoration of the capacity to love and be loved. I have come to believe that learning about love, for many survivors of childhood abuse, is the subtext of our work together. [234]

These words are, I think, true for all trauma survivors. It is especially salient for those whose traumatic experience is rooted in love. Not all trauma is: the commonplace understanding of trauma linked to physical assault, veterans of war, violent injury such as a car crash -- therapy in these instances arguably must be vigilant against love expressed by a therapist, and rightfully so. Therapy here is not so dependent upon the direct and central role of love, at least not on the part of the therapist. But for survivors of trauma abused by the very people who should have been a source of caring and protection, these instances are necessarily a balancing act. Love is central to the healing, love from the therapist and also from other people in the life of the survivor. Yet love is precisely that aspect of life that is most dangerous, most suspect, most distrusted by the survivor.

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I focused upon three ideas: that love is tangled in trauma (most significantly for survivors of abuse); that successful therapy depends upon love to work; and, that storytelling brings a vital function to that therapy. Together they outline Kahn's specific argument regarding healing for survivors of childhood abuse, but more broadly they helped cement my understanding of all trauma.

LOVE TANGLED IN TRAUMA, hence the book's title. The idea is reminiscent of cognitive dissonance and Bateson's double bind: love & caregivers are directly involved in traumatic harm; relations with caregivers are necessarily fraught because both trauma and care are from same source; subsequently, any demonstration of care & love can be a trigger, even from someone other than the abuser; and yet, primary (sole?) means of healing is built upon establishing loving relationships. Ironically, then, healing inevitably and unavoidably involves triggering of harm as the survivor builds a new pattern of relations. A sad circumstance, yes, but also hopeful in that there is a pathway to a healthier life, despite the sorrow & pain involved in the work.

THERAPY DEPENDENT UPON LOVE, already implied in the first concept. Kahn reinforces the centrality of love in therapy, stressing the myriad ways a personal relationship informs therapy. That's true both in one-on-one therapy, and in group sessions. Stories shared by survivors further emphasize the role played by interactions with family, romantic relationships (and struggles with same), professional and other peer relationships. These aspects of therapy help the survivor see that the abuse involved with love was wrong, and also unnecessary: it's possible to have loving relationships which -- while imperfect and involving conflict -- are never abusive. Betrayal is a fact of a survivor's history, yet need not feature in present or future relationships.

STORY OVER THEORY, STORY OVER TREATMENT: throughout her argument, Kahn relies upon the narrative frame of story. This approach makes the book's argument readable, but I think the importance here goes further. Story is a particular way to create meaning, and it appears to be crucial to both understanding trauma (with minimal harm in the process), and also to healing the trauma. Framing her narrative in story affirms Kahn's insight into her topic, and manifests her idea of love in both the cause & healing of trauma.

Kahn finds concepts and examples in survival stories, and we follow several survivors over the course of the book. These stories are unconnected except that each belongs to one of Kahn's clients. This mosaic of stories could leave the reader with a fragmentary experience, but Kahn cleverly knits them together through reference to her own story, her memoir. Partially it is a professional memoir, with Kahn outlining the beginning, middle, and end of her therapeutic relationship with survivors. But more than that, Kahn integrates how her personal survivor story relates to what she learns about her client's stories, and about what is needed for healing, and in this way builds up a bigger story, encompassing the others.

Essentially, abuse therapy is about story, the survivor's story before, during, and after trauma. Story relies upon love in making meaning of shared events, the attachment between people in the story. Story meaning is quite distinct from conceptual meaning (derived from linking facts or ideas in formal argument). Story informs therapy, too, so Kahn never simply brings a treatment to her client: a theory or practice to be followed, something for the survivor to implement. Therapy instead grows out of the meaning in the survival story, grows out of the relationships practiced in therapy. For both the argument in the book, and therapy practiced with her clients, story brings healing because it packages meaning in relationship. As Kahn cautions throughout the book, love is indispensable. As above, so below.

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Baffled by Love is structured in three untitled Parts, each including numbered chapters focusing on an individual survivor. The chapters cycle through the stories of several survivors, we get to know their individual challenges and successes, even as Kahn spools out her argument about childhood trauma and how it may be healed. I was not able to figure the basis for breaking into three parts, though it may correspond with beginnings, middles, ends of different survivor stories -- at least, as defined for the book. Kahn in no way implies any but perhaps one of her clients is "done" with therapy when the book closes. ( )