Hades' Angels: An Inside View of Women Who Love Lifers and Death Row Inmates - Softcover

Gelt, Charlyne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0991629825 ISBN 13: 9780991629824

Publisher: Garden Wall Publishers, 2014

Synopsis

Hades' Angels: An Inside View of Women Who Love Lifers and Death Row Inmates is the story of twenty-six women who each experienced a transformative journey through their relationships with prison lifers and death row inmates. These women did not know these men prior to his incarceration. This work applies Kohut's understanding of the individual, the soul's drive for potentiality from inner bondage, out of deadness and subjectivity, towards wholeness, to heal their early childhood narcissistic injury and sustain meaning on three levels: personal, interpersonal, and societal.

Yes, women in the general population can learn a great deal from this unique population of women because their stories replicate those of strong, outwardly successful women in the general population. Hades' Angels demystifies the "magnetic draw" towards destructive relationships and suffering and offers readers the opportunity to look into their own lives and begin to confront the true source of their pain.  There are universal lessons for women on the outside who have similar kinds of wounding.

Hades' Angels probes the hidden forces behind relationships. As such it draws on a wider readership, not only those who want to read stories about the Mr. Wrongs of the world, but those who want to learn how women--even those in relationship with prison inmates--are able to heal, to transform and grow so the Mr. Wrongs no longer find their way into their lives.  It is not just the Hades' Angels who are magnetically drawn to demon lovers or to men with the depth of a puddle. Even the most capable, intelligent, articulate woman, wounded at the core, may fall unconsciously into this kind of arrangement.  Hades' Angels offers story, analysis, and interpretation and teaches readers how to identify, confront and heal the kind of wounds whose source remains a mystery.

Why can a nice girl, a former cheerleader, honor student, high school principal, publishing executive fall in love with a prison lifer? It is one question that many readers want to have answered. Hades' Angels shows readers why this kind of relationship happens. The subjects are "nice" women, good women, independent, bright, self- supporting, caretakers/peacemakers, nurturers, who still have a history of failed relationships. Hades' Angels shows readers the unrecognized "shadow" part in the lives of the 26 women interviewed. Their unacknowledged anger and hurt, buried within since childhood, recognizes itself in the mirror of the other. Differently expressed, it is the "unseen magnetic draw" that forms their common wound. "Beauty and the beast," though polar opposites, are in the world of the emotions, psychologically mated.

The reader of Hades' Angels will understand how a woman learns to act-in, repress her feelings, and how her historical, emotional and family dynamics are the lens that infuses and defines her adult relationship attractions. The reader will be able to understand the powerful impact of the family of origin marital dynamics on her own attractions in future relationships. This book shows how the unacknowledged childhood wounds affect even outwardly successful clients seen in private practice; the reader will learn to recognize how they impact her life.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Charlyne Gelt, Ph.D. uses inmate-freemate relationships to draw on first hand accounts of over 26 women's relationship with lifers and death-row inmates. As a psychologist, she works with many different types of women. Perhaps the most unique population of women being those who have sought out, become emotionally involved with, and even married men in prison -- lifers and death row inmates -- after the man's incarceration. She calls them Hades' Angels. Their love stories fly in the face of all the clichés and stereotypes that assume that such relationships are necessarily neurotic and dysfunctional. There may be as many as a quarter of a million women who are involved with members of an ever-spiraling male prison population. Dr. Gelt raises the level of consciousness about the occurrence and the nature of such relationships and of this unique population of women.

"I went in to help him and found me." Hades' Angel C.C.

Cases involving inmate/freemate relationships are not uncommon. Dr. Gelt shows us that their dynamics offer a world of information to the psychologist that can be applied to certain outwardly successful, yet emotionally
submissive, women in the general population who get caught up in
destructive relationships with men on the outside.  Some have partners who are not in prison but probably should be!

If mutual attraction to a partner has its basis in similar needs and fears,
then what is it that binds a Hades' Angel to her imprisoned partner?
Dr. Gelt shows that for many women, their prison love relationship
may turn out to be positive, and even transforming. It can be considered
"a corrective emotional experience".

About the Author

Charlyne Gelt, Ph.D., CGP is a licensed clinical psychologist, and a group psychotherapist who works with "strong" women struggling with issues of submissive dependency and emotional intimacy in relationships. She is particularly committed to helping women move from emotional submission towards empowerment and healthier relationships: 1+1=3.

Dr. Charlyne Gelt received a doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. Her private practice includes individuals, couples, adolescents, and families, as well as families with someone in prison. Her experience facilitating groups for Friends Outside led her to delve more deeply into inmate/freemate love relationships. This work led to her doctoral dissertation, Hell's Angels.

As a clinician, Dr. Gelt is familiar with life crisis, the struggle to define oneself, and the transformative change that can occur with a "corrective emotional experience", sometimes outside the traditional therapeutic environment.

She is in private practice in Encino, CA, and has served as adjunct faculty at U.C.L.A. and Phillips Graduate Institute. Her articles have appeared in The Los Angeles Psychologist, The California Therapist and other professional publications, and Lifestyle.

Dr. Gelt is a member of: Los Angeles County Psychological Association (LACPA); California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT); American Association of Group Psychotherapists; Los Angeles Group Psychotherapy Association; and the Southern California Society of Clinical Hypnosis (SCSCH).

About this edition

• Publisher: Garden Wall Publishers
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0991629825
• ISBN 13: 9780991629824
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 328