WATCH THE TRAILER
THE BETRAYAL OF A YOUNG GIRL’S TRUST
Sara’s Song
Starry, starry night,
filled with wonder,
love and light
running from the lightning strike
and the fright when you put your hand in mine
and we said:
(Chorus: Hanna and Sara in harmony):
Like a vow
“Care for you
Care for me.
That’s what we agreed
we’re going to do.”
About the Book
Unique Narrative Style: Co-authored by Hanna’s step-grandfather, Andy Collins, and his teenaged step-granddaughter, Hanna Johansen, this soul-searching multi-generational, multicultural novel plumbs the depths of the post-COVID Adolescent Human Condition by using the characters actual internal “voices” to moderate their innermost feelings about psychological trauma: the “how” and “why” it occurs and the painful, perilous path to either recovery or drowning in a whirlpool of endless self-destruction and eventual self-annihilation. Either way, there’s a lot at stake in the experimental process of gentling Hanna, as evidenced by her psychiatrist’s “cautiously guided inquiry” into the intimate details of the traumatic insults of her betrayal and Andy’s remarkably insightful and creative mentoring style which gradually renews Hanna’s trust in “human nature,” beginning with Andy and extending to her Native-American boyfriend, Nyke Roundhill, and eventually to her overly-protective father, Will Johansen. In that sense, beyond the co-authorship, this is an intensely collaborative narrative evolving from multiple points-of-view into an intricately woven story about four main characters desperately trying to keep Hanna from “closing the door” on her Self.
In addition, the 1:1 private Zoom tele-video therapy sessions hosted by Alexa between herself and Hanna are transcribed verbatim in the novel, as are the marriage counseling sessions between Andy, his wife/ex-wife, Kenzie and Dr. Nordyke, and discussions between Alexa and Hanna’s parents immediately after the suicide of Hanna’s best friend and lover, Sara Devereaux. These expose an additional level of intimacy but also transparency in revealing the many emotional complexities that are seldom surfaced in relationships where the very lives of family members are at stake.
Unique Counseling Approaches: The effects of psychological trauma—whether from passive (social media) or active (sexual assault) sources—have a profoundly devastating effect on the developing minds of our youngest netizens, often resulting in a variety of anxiety-related disorders including post-traumatic-stress disorder (PTSD), which has recently been reclassified under the heading of “Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders.” In so doing, the American Psychiatric Association moved PTSD out of the “Anxiety Disorders” category to underscore that PTSD is a disorder “directly connected” to an external event and not just a fear-based illness. This is precisely the point made about “the betrayal” in The Gentling of Hanna Johansen: it’s not due to some inherent “phobia” but is in fact spawned by a specific event or a series of events over a period of time that can later create a variety of “phobias” that actually mask the underlying source(s) of the stress disorder, such as Hanna’s andro- beikon- and claustro-phobias.
One of the newest therapeutic strategies for engaging teens and tweens suffering from current or past traumatic stress is displayed in this novel as “gentling,” a term borrowed from the equestrian manual for “taming” a wild horse rather than “breaking it.” The distinction between the two (taming vs breaking) goes to the heart of this heartfelt and heartwarming collaboration between Andy Collins (Hanna’s step-grandfather) and Alexa Muybridge (Hanna’s psychiatrist) who “double-team Hanna” in their care of and concern for Hanna’s survival and ultimate wellbeing. Their approach is experimental in that it’s a trust-based risk-sensitive model that includes deciphering “Hanna-code” (her “linguistic camouflage”) and interpreting the meaning behind Hanna’s remarkably insightful collection of original songs, the lyrics of which are imbedded as soundtracks in this novel.
About the Book
Unique Narrative Style: Co-authored by Hanna’s step-grandfather, Andy Collins, and his teenaged step-granddaughter, Hanna Johansen, this soul-searching multi-generational, multicultural novel plumbs the depths of the post-COVID Adolescent Human Condition by using the characters actual internal “voices” to moderate their innermost feelings about psychological trauma: the “how” and “why” it occurs and the painful, perilous path to either recovery or drowning in a whirlpool of endless self-destruction and eventual self-annihilation. Either way, there’s a lot at stake in the experimental process of gentling Hanna, as evidenced by her psychiatrist’s “cautiously guided inquiry” into the intimate details of the traumatic insults of her betrayal and Andy’s remarkably insightful and creative mentoring style which gradually renews Hanna’s trust in “human nature,” beginning with Andy and extending to her Native-American boyfriend, Nyke Roundhill, and eventually to her overly-protective father, Will Johansen. In that sense, beyond the co-authorship, this is an intensely collaborative narrative evolving from multiple points-of-view into an intricately woven story about four main characters desperately trying to keep Hanna from “closing the door” on her Self.
In addition, the 1:1 private Zoom tele-video therapy sessions hosted by Alexa between herself and Hanna are transcribed verbatim in the novel, as are the marriage counseling sessions between Andy, his wife/ex-wife, Kenzie and Dr. Nordyke, and discussions between Alexa and Hanna’s parents immediately after the suicide of Hanna’s best friend and lover, Sara Devereaux. These expose an additional level of intimacy but also transparency in revealing the many emotional complexities that are seldom surfaced in relationships where the very lives of family members are at stake.
Unique Counseling Approaches: The effects of psychological trauma—whether from passive (social media) or active (sexual assault) sources—have a profoundly devastating effect on the developing minds of our youngest netizens, often resulting in a variety of anxiety-related disorders including post-traumatic-stress disorder (PTSD), which has recently been reclassified under the heading of “Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders.” In so doing, the American Psychiatric Association moved PTSD out of the “Anxiety Disorders” category to underscore that PTSD is a disorder “directly connected” to an external event and not just a fear-based illness. This is precisely the point made about “the betrayal” in The Gentling of Hanna Johansen: it’s not due to some inherent “phobia” but is in fact spawned by a specific event or a series of events over a period of time that can later create a variety of “phobias” that actually mask the underlying source(s) of the stress disorder, such as Hanna’s andro- beikon- and claustro-phobias.
One of the newest therapeutic strategies for engaging teens and tweens suffering from current or past traumatic stress is displayed in this novel as “gentling,” a term borrowed from the equestrian manual for “taming” a wild horse rather than “breaking it.” The distinction between the two (taming vs breaking) goes to the heart of this heartfelt and heartwarming collaboration between Andy Collins (Hanna’s step-grandfather) and Alexa Muybridge (Hanna’s psychiatrist) who “double-team Hanna” in their care of and concern for Hanna’s survival and ultimate wellbeing. Their approach is experimental in that it’s a trust-based risk-sensitive model that includes deciphering “Hanna-code” (her “linguistic camouflage”) and interpreting the meaning behind Hanna’s remarkably insightful collection of original songs, the lyrics of which are imbedded as soundtracks in this novel.
About the Authors
Charles Coleman
Charles Coleman, PhD began his long and distinguished career in mental healthcare early-on with his experiences working with Vietnam Vets committed to—and confined in—one of the Army’s only dedicated military psychiatric hospitals in the early ‘70s, as so graphically memorialized in his critically-acclaimed American cult-classic novel, Sergeant Back Again, (HarperCollins, 1980)—“The Vietnam War Novel that Made PTSD Real!.”
From then on, he’s worked, taught, lived with, lectured and written about PTSD culminating in helping his friend and colleague,Andy Collins, PhD, to write about Andy’s own successes and failures in dealing with PTSD in this engaging, highly experimental, and wonderfully collaborative work you’re now about to read. The Gentling of Hanna Johansen: A Betrayal of Trust marks a watershed moment in portraying the devastating effects of social media, predatory influencers, and psychological trauma (PTSD+) on adolescents, particularly in the United States, which Charles and Andy define in the course of this novel as “the evolution of the uniquely American adolescent psychotype.”
Hanna Johansen
Hanna Johansen (fifteen-and-a-half when the story opens) is quick to point out in her “Afterwords” that her “participation” in co-authoring this novel was the last thing she ever wanted. You’ll see why once she appears about a quarter of the way through “The Gentling,” when the story suddenly becomes so personal, intimate and shocking that even she can’t write about all of it. But Hanna is clever in the ways in which she reveals her multiple personalities, whether in the lyrics of her songs, her immersion in deviant and risky behaviors, her warmth and love and humor, or her devotion to her friends, all of which are supported with thoughtful understanding by her psychiatrist, Alexa Muybridge.
Hanna’s a gifted, tell-almost-all writer you’ll come to cherish: “I know now that surviving a good night’s sleep is what The Gentling of Me is all about. About always leaving the bedroom door in your mind opened like Andy does. And now me.”
Alexa Muybridge
Alexa Muybridge, MD, stands by Hanna through thick and thin via their (verbatim) tele-psychiatry sessions which eventually “uncover” the One Hanna barely intact still buried under the many shattered pieces and parts of her “Old Self” before the betrayal. As early into her professional career as Alexa is, she’s developed a unique method of DBT-PTSD and WET therapies customized for teens and tweens suffering from anxiety and disruptive mood dysregulation disorders, PTSD, dissociative identity and major depressive disorders: which is to say that Hanna is extremely dis-ordered and suicidal.
Applying what Andy and Alexa come to call a “gentling approach” to dialectical behavioral and creative exposure therapies (via Hanna’s songs and journal), they cautiously lead her—and the reader—to the grave’s edge of the frightful exhumation of her betrayed Self and the inevitable, long-anticipated endgame: “asphyxiation by submersion,” the same method used by her alter ego to end her life.
“Some of my lyrics belong in my songs and not in my behavior.”
But Hanna’s at-risk micro-journey—full of unexpected twists and turns—many even humorous—is in fact a mindful metaphor used by the authors to open a much wider window (via a subtle investigative-journalistic style) into the murky collective conscious of a society no longer competing with one another for “survival of the (physically) fittest,” but rather for the mental wherewithal to withstand “the sings and arrows of outrageous dysfunction.”
If only the strong are destined to survive, as some say, then our own innate Sense of Self, conditioned by resilience-reflexes, and the power of our convictions will keep us well enough and mentally prepared to withstand this assault and, hopefully, the next. That is a premise underlying this collaborative saga, a premise that is tested over and over again in the thoughts behind the actions of the main characters, which Andy defines for Hanna as “motive”—the “whys” behind the “what’s” of what we do or don’t do, regardless of whether our actions are premeditated or seemingly mindless… a process that Hanna comes to call “connecting the dots.” By reverse-engineering her thoughts-into-actions “dots,” Hanna comes to a remarkable self-discovery when she admits:
“Thinking about something and acting on it are two very different things. But that’s how I survive now…. It’s the only way I’ve found to keep my daredevil emotions in check, those emotions I’m better off writing into my songs rather than acting them out in real life. Some of my lyrics belong in my songs and not in my behavior. It’s a slippery slope for me: Do I live what I write or write what I live? Either way, it’s a dare of one kind of another. It’s tricky.” It’s a sentiment similar to what Hanna describes in her “Afterwords” about creative people, like Vincent van Gogh and Amy Winehouse… about the “voices that other people don’t have” and overstaying visits to “dark places” in the pursuit of creativity.
But Hanna’s at-risk micro-journey—full of unexpected twists and turns—many even humorous—is in fact a mindful metaphor used by the authors to open a much wider window (via a subtle investigative-journalistic style) into the murky collective conscious of a society no longer competing with one another for “survival of the (physically) fittest,” but rather for the mental wherewithal to withstand “the sings and arrows of outrageous dysfunction.” If only the strong are destined to survive, as some say, then our own innate Sense of Self, conditioned by resilience-reflexes, and the power of our convictions will keep us well enough and mentally prepared to withstand this assault and, hopefully, the next. That is a premise underlying this collaborative saga, a premise that is tested over and over again in the thoughts behind the actions of the main characters, which Andy defines for Hanna as “motive”—the “whys” behind the “what’s” of what we do or don’t do, regardless of whether our actions are premeditated or seemingly mindless… a process that Hanna comes to call “connecting the dots.” By reverse-engineering her thoughts-into-actions “dots,” Hanna comes to a remarkable self-discovery when she admits:
“Thinking about something and acting on it are two very different things. But that’s how I survive now…. It’s the only way I’ve found to keep my daredevil emotions in check, those emotions I’m better off writing into my songs rather than acting them out in real life. Some of my lyrics belong in my songs and not in my behavior. It’s a slippery slope for me: Do I live what I write or write what I live? Either way, it’s a dare of one kind of another. It’s tricky.” It’s a sentiment similar to what Hanna describes in her “Afterwords” about creative people, like Vincent van Gogh and Amy Winehouse… about the “voices that other people don’t have” and overstaying visits to “dark places” in the pursuit of creativity.
The Backstory
Historical Context: The novel explores the 180 year history of mental health care in the U.S., from the first insane asylums in 1856 to JFK’s Community Mental Health Act of 1963.
Therapeutic Innovation: Includes transcribed sessions showcasing Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) and Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) adapted specifically for adolescents.
The Power of Music: Highlights the role of original lyrics and music in decoding trauma and expressing identity.
Our Blogs
More Than a Horse: Understanding the Power of “The Gentling” Metaphor
The Quiet Corner: Why the New Hampshire Cabin is Hanna’s Most Important Therapist
The Return of the Past: Unpacking the Complex Betrayal and Forgiveness in Hanna’s Family
The Cornerstone of Rebuilding a Resilient Identity: TRUST
HANNA: “No one’s ever trusted me before.”
ANDY: “Maybe because you’ve never given them a reason to.”