Testimonials

"Anne Gross gave a moving and inspiring keynote speech at the 2011 Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition Awards Event, talking about her book The Polio Journals, Lessons from my Mother. She immediately engaged our diverse audience (people with disabilities, service providers, family members, politicians and others) sharing her story, her mother's story, and the story of millions of people with disabilities. She talks about an issue that is rarely raised--the mere fact of acknowledgment of what it means to have a disability. She correctly equates failure to discuss routine challenges posed by disability with a sense of shame that creates barriers on par with any architectural barriers. She weaves real life with sociological facts, and is one of the few speakers who has been able to address the real life hardships of disability within a family system without resorting to pity or ignoring societal discrimination. She does not imply that the civil rights component of our movement should take a back seat to discussing feelings about disability--but points out that we can exacerbate the societal oppression when we allow silence to create a sense of shame by refusing to discuss personal elements of disability with those closest to us. As a person with a disability, her talk and her book, gave me a new insight into the perspective of non-disabled individuals who are close to those of us with disabilities, either by choice or circumstance. As someone who has dedicated her professional life to enforcement of a law that promotes integration, I realized that this insight is crucial as integration will be achieved only with the support of our non-disabled allies. These allies, usually family members, can only support us if they are granted full access to our lives.

I recommend Anne Gross as a speaker at any conference or training that seeks to help people understand more about disability, particularly in the context of family support. I recommend the book to anyone, with or without a disability."

Julie Reiskin
Executive Director, Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition



"Anne gave an educational and inspiring talk at Jewish Family Service about a rarely discussed but important topic: the emotion of shame. We all feel shame, but as Anne pointed out, that which we truly feel shame about we are too ashamed to talk about.

Anne took what could have been a dry and theoretical topic and turned it into an engaging and thought- provoking presentation. She engaged the audience of mental health professionals and others interested in the topic by using examples from her own past of growing up with a paraplegic mother, where the shame around her mother's disability created family secrets which impacted multiple generations of her family. By talking candidly about the her own experience, Anne truly brought the subject of shame out of the closet, engaging the audience about the impact of this toxic emotion in all areas of a life, not just disability. Attendees came away armed with an understanding of how shame shuts down intimacy as well as tips to overcome it in their own lives.

I would highly recommend Anne as a speaker to both mental health professionals and lay people on this very important but rarely discussed topic."

Stacey Weisberg, LPC
Director of Mental Health & Community Services
Jewish Family Service of Colorado



"The picture that Dr. Anne Gross presented to my graduate students on the hidden impact of shame and silence in those living with a disability was an insightful, thoughtful, analytic and thought provoking contribution to the doctoral seminar in which it was presented. Her presentation was personal, engaging, scholarly, and eye opening. This pivotal, but too rarely discussed topic, provoked an important discussion among the students in the course, which is designed to critically challenge conventional notions of disability and the social and legal construction of inequality. Dr. Gross' work fit well into that analysis. And while Dr. Gross drew from her book The Polio Journals, her insights on what happens to individuals and families marginalized by society do not apply solely to disability studies. It would be equally relevant to undergraduates and graduate students in education, social work, history, sociology and psychology. It would also provide reflective material for courses in rehabilitation and special education."

Marcia H Rioux, PhD
Professor, School Health Policy and Management and
Professor, M.A./PhD Critical Disability Studies
Co-GPD, Graduate Program Health Policy and Equity
Director, York Institute of Health Research
Director, Disability Rights Promotion International



"Anne Gross gave a riveting presentation to our Rotary Club on her relationship with her mother, who was paralyzed by polio at the age of two. Anne spoke with compassion, understanding, and brute honesty about the lessons she learned from growing up at a time when people with disabilities were truly seen as outcasts. We learned how her mother was influenced by her special relationship with Franklin Roosevelt, how she was taught to hide all aspects of her disability, and how this silence impacted the mother-daughter relationship. And although her story was about polio, her insights as to what happens when families silence "taboo" topics has implications for all of us.

I would highly recommend her inspiring and eye-opening presentation to other Rotary clubs."

Debra Fine
President, Rotary Club Denver Southeast
Author, The Fine Art of Small Talk



"Our Rotary Club was very impressed by Anne's presentation. She provided new insights into the physical and emotional isolation that both the victims and their family members have suffered from polio and similar crippling diseases. Anne has turned the personal tragedy of her mother's struggle into a personal triumph by dedicating herself to a career that helps both the disabled and the public better understand and cope with the challenges these diseases present. I got so many comments later from members saying how moved they were by her experience and the work she is doing now."

Nancy Jones
Program Chair, Smoky Hill Rotary Club



Praise for The Polio Journals: Lessons from My Mother

"The Polio Journals is not just a sharply observed chronicle of the ravages of disease and pain, but rather a testimony to how both the disabled and the nondisabled suffer in a culture where illness and honest suffering are shrouded in silence, secrecy, and shame. "
Harriet Lerner, Ph.D., author of The Dance of Anger


"With the aid of her mother's deeply honest and often harrowing journals, Anne Gross relates an
elegant, moving story of a complex and extraordinary life silently defined by disability."
Kathryn Black,author of In the Shadow of Polio: A Personal and Social History



"The author writes her about her mother, about the devastation of polio, about the place of the disease in society in her mother's era, about the disease's influence on her mother, and their family...Polio Journals is a remarkable achievement and worthy of inclusion in disability studies."
Gary Presley, The Internet Review of Books



"As much as I find to recommend the book as a lesson on what secrets and shame can do to a family, I was also fascinated by the small piece of American history included in its pages."
Judy King, Story Circle Book Reviews



"Everyone working with the confusions and hurts of patients, not just the physically disabled but also those with invisible wounds, should read this book. Dr. Gross has written an unusual, insightful and excellent book."
James E. Gardner, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist and author of The Turbulent Teens