This book was recommended to me by a family therapist friend of mine. The first thing I loved about it is that it's written by a man who has worked with thousands of abusers. And in each case he not only conducted therapy with the abuser, he had personal contact with the victim. This allowed him to see the whole picture and see how manipulative some people can be.
In his book he describes how some men (and women) like to control others. That this is done through tactics such as threats, put downs, controlled outbursts, physical attacks etc. He describes how common it is for a victims to bring up the fact that they were hurt, then it to get twisted around by the abuser who says you deserved it because of something you did. The reality is that what occurred was abuse. In a healthy relationship your partner would care that they hurt you, not brush it off or blame you for it.
While this book dealt very little with sexual assault, I appreciated the insight into the manipulative male mind. There were so many times my rapist made me feel crazy, and would blame me for the torture he inflected on me. "Well if you hadn't ... then I wouldn't have ..." or "I never hit you" as I was covered by bruises he gave me by other means.
He also describes how abusive men tend to be publicly liked and admired. They also come from every walk of life and a childhood of abuse is NO EXCUSE for abusing another. In fact a person who has felt the pain of abuse should NEVER want to inflict that on another.
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