For decades, former special education teacher Torey Hayden has been a light in the darkness for severely troubled children, and she has chronicled her determined efforts, triumphs, and breakthroughs in a series of internationally bestselling books, beginning with her powerful and poignant One Child. But it wasn't until she left the classroom that she faced three of her most extraordinary challenges.

While working in the children's psychiatric ward of a large city hospital, Hayden was introduced to seven-year-old Cassandra, a child who had been kidnapped by her father and found three states away, starving, dirty, and picking through garbage cans. What she had suffered during that time was a mystery, since she refused to speak of it, and all attempts to get to the root of her erratic, increasingly violent behavior had hitherto failed. This would certainly be one of Torey Hayden's most difficult cases, for how do you reach a child so horrifically abused that she views every attempt to break through her defenses as life-threatening?

Drake was a charming, charismatic four-year-old who managed to participate fully in his preschool class without uttering a single word. He would only speak to his mother, who brought the boy, clutching his beloved stuffed tiger, "Friend," to Hayden. Pressured by Drake's tough, unbending grandfather, who demanded immediate results, the therapist feared that overly stringent treatment would only tear his family further apart. And though a specific course of action seemed clear, even she was unprepared for the shocking truth about little Drake's condition.

Then there was Gerda, eighty-two, whom a massive stroke had rendered fearful and unwilling to engage in conversation with anyone. Though Hayden had never worked with adults, she agreed to help when all other efforts had failed — and discovered in the process that what Gerda could do was nearly as heartbreaking as her limitations.

A woman suffering in the twilight of her years and two children trapped in the ever-darkening shadows — these are the cases that would test one healer's courage, compassion, and skill, and ultimately reaffirm her faith in the indomitable strength of the human spirit.

"Hayden was working as a special ed teacher and needed a break. With her psychiatric training and specialization in 'elective mutism,' she was cajoled into working for a hospital-based psychiatric crisis and assessment unit. She begins this book with the story of a girl who was only six when she was abducted by her father; returned to her home two years later, she alternated long stretches of silence with lying and sexual accusations. Hayden was then asked to assess a delightful preschool boy whose voice no one had ever heard except his mother; his belligerent grandfather ordered Hayden to 'fix' the boy's problem. Then she was called to observe an elderly woman who'd had a stroke that may have rendered her unable to speak. Gradually, the woman began to recount girlhood memories to Hayden — who thus knew she was still lucid — but would that satisfy the doctors who wanted to send her to a nursing home? Each case unfolds like a detective story, with Hayden piecing together the mystery of the silences from the various clues she gleans. Besides being a delightful raconteur, Hayden is also a very gentle, very sensible therapist. Yes, her patient is dissociating, but that's normal, we all do it — the real question is, 'at what point on the continuum does it move from being resourceful and helpful to maladaptive and damaging?' This is a compulsively readable book." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Hayden, an educational psychologist, tells the stories of three of her patients, two children and an 82-year-old woman, who recover from psyche-damaging events under Hayden's care. Hayden ties the stories together through a first-person narrative of her work with all three individuals. Hayden is the author of several books about disturbed children and their recoveries through psychotherapy. This volume is written for the lay reader.
Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Focusing on three lost souls who would battle overwhelming odds, the international bestselling author tells the harrowing yet inspirational true story of heartbreaking victimization and recovery.

Torey Hayden is an educational psychologist and a former special education teacher who, since 1979, has chronicled her struggles in the classroom in a succession of bestselling books. She currently lives and writes in North Wales, U.K., with her husband and daughter.