Beverly Engel has been a practicing psychologist for thirty-five years and is an internationally recognized psychotherapist and acclaimed advocate for victims of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. She is the author of twenty-two self-help books, including the best-selling Healing Your Emotional Self and The Right to Innocence. In addition to her professional work, Engel frequently lends her expertise to national television talk shows. She has appeared on Oprah, CNN, and Starting Over, and many other TV programs. She has a blog on the Psychology Today website, regularly contributes to Psychology Today magazine, and has been featured in a number of newspapers and magazines, including O, the Oprah Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Ladies Home Journal, Redbook, Marie Claire, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, and The Denver Post.

In spite of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, many women are still afraid to say no to unwanted sexual advances and reluctant to report sexual violations. Far too many college students are being raped and are afraid to report it. Women are subjected to sexual harassment, sexual bullying, and sexual pressure every day on the street, at work, and at home but are unable to speak truth to power or to report these sexual offenses. I’m Saying No! is written specifically for these women―women who are still afraid to speak up for themselves, women who need to learn how to do so, and women whose personal history of child sexual abuse or sexual assault as an adult has wounded them so much that they have lost their voice. Here, Beverly Engel―an internationally recognized psychotherapist and acclaimed advocate for victims of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse―offers a ground-breaking program to help all the women who have been silenced by past trauma, women who were raised to believe they didn’t have a right to say no, and women who have spoken out in the past only to go unheard. Bold and timely, I’m Saying No! offers women the encouragement, support, and guidelines they need in order to become the powerful women they are―women who believe in themselves and stand up for themselves.

No one could have imagined how as a child Beverly Engel could have managed to become who she is today—an internationally known expert on abuse recovery and the best-selling author of twenty-two self-help books. This is the raw, candid story of how she made her way in the world in spite of her mother’s neglect, unreasonable expectations and constant criticism; in spite of being sexually abused, first at four years old and then at nine; and in spite of being raped at twelve.

Raising Myself takes readers on a remarkable journey, showing us how Engel, who was basically on her own from the age of four, learned how to cope with a neglectful, narcissistic mother while being surrounded by a cast of characters that included eccentrics and misfits, a religious fanatic, child molesters, rapists, and hoodlums. It is a soul-searching memoir about how she came dangerously close to the edge of becoming a child molester, a criminal, and a suicide, and how she battled her inner demons and struggled to keep her heart open and to “reinvent” herself so she could follow her dream of making something of herself. Powerfully inspiring and unflinchingly honest, Raising Myself is a story of remarkable resilience and insight.