The Courage to Grow – Lisa’s Story: Crime and Therapy in Society

“This book looks at crime and therapy in society through the lens of a personal story of struggle and incarceration of one woman, Lisa. An eye-opening account of how the system fails those in need, at every turn.”

The Courage to Grow: Lisa’s Story describes a journey lived through a 24-year therapeutic relationship with Lisa, a woman the author first met in a correctional facility as a counsellor. The book is the result of the author’s uncomfortable realisation that she formed part of a society that grows crime, albeit largely unknowingly. Government, supported by society at large, attempts to contain crime through highly publicised but reactive measures under the banner ‘war on crime’, which focuses on the ‘offender’ as the cause of crime and the sole element to be rehabilitated. The author suggests that, for rehabilitation to be effective, all elements of crime must be addressed.

Delving into Lisa’s story, from her dysfunctional and traumatic childhood through her incarceration to her eventual release and beyond, The Courage to Grow lifts the lid on a world where individual dreams and aspirations are constrained by barriers, both physical and mental, and the light of hope is brief and fleeting. In revealing something of what long-term incarceration is like for those who find themselves on the wrong side of life and the law, the author compels us to consider why we consign people like Lisa to the bottom of the social hierarchy, shut them out, and ignore any lessons they can offer about the road to rehabilitation and redemption.

Lisa’s story is one of courage and survival. It is a testament to her determination to step beyond the confines of her circum­stances. As we journey with her, we are reminded that, for all of us, the path to healing begins with confronting the choices we make along the way.

“The region of human mortality is not a flat plain; there are hills and valleys in it, deep levels and high levels; there are also certain wild, isolated crags, terrible in their desolation, wrapped in storms and glooms, upon which, nevertheless, a slant of sunshine will sometimes fall, and reveal the wild flowers and jewelled mosses that hide in their awful clefts.” – S. D’CRUZE

To purchase the ebook on Amazon, click here: The Courage to Grow – Lisa’s Story: Crime and Therapy in Society