Iris Galey

Iris Galey (born March 9, 1936 in Basel ) is a Swiss trauma therapist and author .

Life

Soon after she was born in Basel, the family moved to England because of their father's work. Caused by the war, she and her mother had to return from England to Switzerland. Since her mother did not take care of the child, Iris grew up with foster parents. Despite the broken marriage, the father brought the mother and Iris Galey back to England in 1945 . Beginning immediately after her return to Yorkshire , she was regularly sexually abused by her father over a period of four years . When she broke her silence about the incestuous relationship at the age of 14 , her father shot himself two days later. She returned to Switzerland, had to go to a girls' boarding school in Gstaad and completed her school education there. At the age of 20 she married and trained to be a teacher in English, gymnastics and dance. She worked as an actress in Basel theaters and in film. In this first marriage she had her first daughter, who was taken away from her by her husband and placed in the care of his sister. The marriage was not happy, it was often beaten by her husband. She married for the second time at the age of 30, had her second daughter at 35 and immigrated to New Zealand , where her husband became a follower of a fundamentalist sect .

She hadn't spoken about childhood events for over 40 years until she began writing her story after a New Zealand show about incest . Her first book ( I couldn't cry when Daddy died , London 1986) became an international bestseller and one of the first publications to break the taboo of father / daughter incest. As a result, the author had to withstand pressure from relatives, friends, authorities and the media. She took part in the First International Incest Congress in Zurich (August 9-12, 1987). Her second book, Die Seelenvergewaltiger, deals with the various forms in which normal society legitimizes such traumas and deepens it through its ignorance, insensitivity and double standards . Since then, Galey has been committed to incest survivors worldwide. She has published her own experiences of sexual, religious and emotional abuse in four books that have appeared in several languages. She is also regularly on the road with lectures at home and abroad.

After 18 years in New Zealand, Galey returned to Switzerland alone at the age of 63. From 1999 she trained as a qualified trauma therapist with Peter Levine and came to terms with her life by living with Canadian Indians and spending several weeks in a Buddhist convent .

Works (in German)

• I didn't cry when my father died. Story of an incest . Zytglogge, Gümligen 1988, ISBN 3-7296-0287-X ; Piper, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-492-11476-8
• The soul rapists. Life story part two . Zytglogge, Gümligen 1990, ISBN 3-7296-0348-5
• Lilly white-black. The monster I could have become . (Emotional abuse). Zytglogge, Gümligen 1992, ISBN 3-7296-0427-9
• The frozen smile. My long road to healing from incest . Giger, Altendorf 2009, ISBN 978-3-9523532-2-6
• I didn't cry when dad died and hated sex until I found love. Story of an incest and a healing . Münchner Verlagsgruppe, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-86882-604-3

Web links

• Iris Galey's website