In the first three posts of this series, I laid out a collection of concerns regarding the direction that domestic violence work has taken over roughly the past two decades. The issues I’m raising are ones that have been brought to me by abused women themselves and by program staff, many of whom are also…
The Current State of Domestic Violence Services, Part 3 In the first two parts of this post, I wrote about trends that I’ve observed in domestic violence services that concern me a great deal. The movement has been derailed into seeing abused women as victims of individual misfortune, rather than recognizing that they are…
The Current State of Domestic Violence Services, Part 2 A few months ago, I wrote a blog post laying out a substantial set of concerns I have regarding the direction that domestic violence work has been heading in across the U.S. and Canada. I promised in that post that I would write a second post…
The Current State of Domestic Violence Services I am deeply concerned about what is happening with domestic violence services in the United States. There’s been an alarming increase over the past ten or so years in the number of women who are reporting bad experiences with programs to me and to people I work with.…
A terrific podcast has recently gone up where an adult brother and sister discuss their experience growing up with a father who abused their mother. They open up about how the experience has affected their lives, and discuss the kinds of healing they have done to overcome the emotional wounds they experienced. I…
[This post is excerpted from Lundy’s new book The Joyous Recovery: A New Path to Emotional Healing and Freedom forthcoming in January 2019.] KEY CONCEPT #1: ENTRAPMENT One of the defining characteristics of abuse is that you can’t easily get away from it. If you could, you would. The entrapment element is always present.…
I’m known for gathering abusive men’s secrets and turning them over to the other side. A couple of people have said to me, for example, that having a copy of Why Does He Do That? is like getting your hands on the other team’s playbook. So now I’m going to do it again. And this…
Eric Schneiderman, Should You Be Shocked? I’m Not! The media and the public are acting so shocked about Eric Schneiderman. How could a man with such a great public image, and a women’s rights advocate even, turn out to be a vicious batterer? I wish people weren’t so surprised. Those of us who work…
My new play, which I co-wrote with Patrice Lenowitz of The Nurtured Parent (see nurturedparent.org), was performed May 6th in Albany, NY at the annual Battered Mothers Custody Conference. We had 175 people in the audience. Our wonderful 12-person cast put the show together in record time to get it ready for the conference. …
A lot of abusive men use relentlessness as one of their most powerful tactics. Consider this question: Does your partner sometimes (or often) keep after you with a never-ending stream of badgering, criticism, pressure, and guilt-tripping? And is the result that you end up giving in when you really don’t want to, because you can’t…