NCJ Number
178683
Date Published
1997
Length
329 pages
Annotation
The purpose of this book is to guide the reader in identifying and then dealing successfully with the seven key warning signs of a potentially violent domestic relationship.
Abstract
The first seven parts of the book discuss the seven key warning signs of a potentially violent domestic relationship. Each section contains chapters that detail the warning signs, breaking them down into easily recognizable parts, with examples from four different types of relationships. The companion chapters to each warning sign focus on how to respond to the behavior. The first section deals with the passionate beginning of a violent domestic relationship and how to differentiate between healthy intensity and dangerous intensity. The second section examines possessiveness and how to distinguish between normal possessiveness in a relationship and the kind of possessiveness that seeks to control and dominate in a relationship. This is followed by a section that introduces the reader to the sudden personality changes that occur in abusers, as they transform from an attentive and likeable companion and mate into a controlling abuser. The fourth section focuses on the abuser's blaming behavior, whereby the abused is wrong about everything, while the abuser is always right and thus worthy of adulation and compliant responses. The next section discusses verbal abuse that involves criticism and demeaning verbal assaults. The next two sections discuss the insensitive attitude of abusers toward the fate of others and their tendency to minimize and make acceptable their violent behavior. Strategies for dealing with the seven warning signs in four different types of relationships (heterosexual lovers, husband and wife, homosexual lovers, and platonic female roommates) are reviewed in the concluding section. 10 recommended readings, a list of resources, and an appended personalized safety plan