Product Description''Engel doesn’t just describe–she shows us the way out.'' –Susan Forward, author of Emotional Blackmail Praise for the emotionally abusive relationship
''In this book, Beverly Engel clearly and with caring offers step-by-step strategies to stop emotional abuse. . . helping both victims and abusers to identify the patterns of this painful and traumatic type of abuse. This book is a guide both for individuals and for couples stuck in the tragic patterns of emotional abuse.'' –Marti Loring, Ph.D., author of Emotional Abuse and coeditor of The Journal of Emotional Abuse
''This groundbreaking book succeeds in helping people stop emotional abuse by focusing on both the abuser and the abused and showing each party what emotional abuse is, how it affects the relationship, and how to stop it. Its unique focus on the dynamic relationship makes it more likely that each person will grasp the tools for change and really use them.'' –Randi Kreger, author of The Stop Walking on Eggshells Workbook and owner of BPDCentral.com
The number of people who become involved with partners who abuse them emotionally and/or who are emotionally abusive themselves is phenomenal, and yet emotional abuse is the least understood form of abuse. In this breakthrough book, Beverly Engel, one of the world’s leading experts on the subject, shows us what it is and what to do about it.
Whether you suspect you are being emotionally abused, fear that you might be emotionally abusing your partner, or think that both you and your partner are emotionally abusing each other, this book is for you. The Emotionally Abusive Relationship will tell you how to identify emotional abuse and how to find the roots of your behavior. Combining dramatic personal stories with action steps to heal, Engel provides prescriptive strategies that will allow you and your partner to work together to stop bringing out the worst in each other and stop the abuse.
By teaching those who are being emotionally abused how to help themselves and those who are being emotionally abusive how to stop abusing, The Emotionally Abusive Relationship offers the expert guidance and support you need.
What Others Say
Insightful, hands-on and extremely helpful
Engel leads you thru step-by-step discovering how your childhood relationships impact your adult relationships. She offers good examples and thot-provoking questions so that you can finally pinpoint your own triggers and negative behaviors. THEN she provides concrete coping stragies and methods to avoid or reconstruct negative patterns. Finally, a book that provides more than just insight into your past - and more than "If you think you can, then you can!" type of help. Not cheerleading, and not preachy. My husband and I both benefitted greatly from The Emotionally Abusive Relationship: How to Stop Being Abused and How to Stop Abusing.
this author is off base
I just got out of an abusive relationship and this women treats the subject as some small problem that can be solved with therapy. Lundy Bancroft understands this author does not. Moreover the information in The Emotionally Abusive Relationship: How to Stop Being Abused and How to Stop Abusing could keep women in abusive relationships by hoping the abuser will get better.
The Book that hit home
I have gone to therapy and read different books to try to understand what I was going through, and my depression, even my divorce judge said mental and emotional abuse didnt exist, it wasn't domestic violence, but this was the first book that hit home. I was in an emotionally abusive relationship for 20 years, and even tho there was no physical abuse, I thought I was just in a bad relationship. As I began to read the book, I began to cry, because for the first time in my life, (including therapy) I found what I was looking for, the understanding of my life, and how it affected me, and that more important some else understood the dynamics of this unhealthy relationship, I am going to give The Emotionally Abusive Relationship: How to Stop Being Abused and How to Stop Abusing to my 3 daughter who have also been a victim ... Read More
Misguided, potentially harmful book
I read The Emotionally Abusive Relationship: How to Stop Being Abused and How to Stop Abusing last night and had nightmares about the possibility that someone could be emotionally or even physically harmed by following this author's so-called "program". If you're up for a heaping dose of "blame the victim", a lack of understanding of victim's issues and even some not-so-thinly disguised contempt for them (in one section, the author describes victims as "whining" and "groveling"), The Emotionally Abusive Relationship: How to Stop Being Abused and How to Stop Abusing is for you. But if you truly want to understand what has happened to you, why you are not at fault, and how to deal with it, I suggest "The Verbally Abusive Relationship" by Patricia Evans, "Why Does He Do That" by Lundy Bancroft, or "Emotional Blackmail" by Susan Forward. Another good book with lots of advice on how to manage your life ... Read More
Save your money for Lundy Bancroft
This is like a "dummy's" or a "McDonald's" guide to emotional abuse. Doesn't compare to Lundy Bancroft's work. It provided no clarity at all. Because Engle tries so hard to make it balanced, the book left me more confused about my role in an abusive relationship---that's not a good place to be. Abusers are constantly telling the victim "you're the problem" "if only you could fix yourself." It preys right into an abuser's tendency to claim that he is himself is the victim. Save your money for Lundy Bancroft.
