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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5998 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-13
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

From Library Journal
According to therapist Engel (Partners in Recovery), "even the most loving person" is capable of emotional abuse-that is, "any non-physical behavior designed to control, intimidate, subjugate, demean, punish, or isolate." In a reasoned, sensible tone, she encourages readers to become responsible for their behavior and for changing it. Identified are ten "patterns of abuse" (verbal assault, character assassination, etc), different kinds of abusive relationships, action steps for cessation, and suggestions for recovery. Using dense writing and cogent examples, Engel clearly shows how this type of abuse, either intentional or unconscious, leads to low self-esteem and misery for one or both partners. A difficult and draining yet important read for those who suspect that their relationship has entered abusive territory, this book is highly recommended. For books on remedying less severe marital stresses, try Howard Markman and others' hokey but well-intentioned Fighting for Your Marriage.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Book Info
Consumer text provides guidance for the emotional abusers and the emotionally abused. Combines personal stories with action steps to healing. Text focuses on the dynamics presenting strategies allowing partners to work together to resolve issues and stop abuse. Features warning signs, establishing boundries, coping with anger and stress, and responsibility.

From the Publisher
"A good, solid treatment of an insidious but all-too-common type of relationship in which the weapons are words and moods rather than fists, but which do just as much damage. Most importantly, Beverly Engel doesn't just describe--she shows us the way out." --Susan Forward, bestselling author of Emotional Blackmail, Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them, and Toxic Parents

Customer Reviews

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 this book.

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 this book 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 this book to my 3 daughter who have also been a victim of emotional abuse from their up bringing, I strongly urge a person who has been a victim of emotional abuse, or who is the emotional abuser to read this book it will change your life