Partnered with a Survivor: David Mandel and Ruth Reymundo Mandel

Season 5 Episode 8: The Myth of the Domestic Violence Incident

• Ruth Reymundo Mandel & David Mandel • Season 5 • Episode 8

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In this episode, David & Ruth speak about the Myth of the Domestic Violence Incident chapter  David's recently published book: "Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform The Way We Keep Children Safe From Domestic Violence." 

They discuss how an isolated incident lens:

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Check out David Mandel's new book "Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to transform the way we keep children safe from domestic violence."

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David: [00:00:00] And we're back. Here we are again. Hi everybody. That was funny. Welcome to Partner with a Survivor. 

Ruth: Yes, and David. Just returned from a huge trip of New Zealand and Australia. 

David: That's right. I'm really excited to be back home and For those of you joining us for the first time, this is partner with a survivor And I'm David Mandel the CEO of the Safe & Together Institute, 

Ruth: and I'm Ruth Reymundo Mandel and I am the business development the officer and Marketing still and a few other things.

That's right You just had a title change and you're really 

David: we're really leaning into your role in developing strategic relationships for the Institute and And which is really wonderful, so I'm really glad. So, [00:01:00] um, today's podcast, we're going to do a short one, but it's book related. So, as many of you know, earlier this year, uh, I released a book called Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence. And, uh, you know that, um, we're going to be talking about that, that one of the chapters of myth of domestic violence incident. So, and, um, before we dive in further, just want to, uh, acknowledge we're, we're joining you from Tunxis land here in, um, the Northeast United States and it's a beautiful, uh, Farmington river Valley.

And we just had some amazing. Storms roll through here last night, green, green lightning and, uh, trees down and the internet still out. It's a beautiful day though, here today. And just, um, just really deeply appreciative of the land we live on and just acknowledge the traditional custodians of the Tungsten people and any indigenous [00:02:00] elders past, present or emerging.

We just want to acknowledge them as we jump into this podcast. 

Ruth: All right. So the myth. 

David: Domestic violence incident. Incident. Incident. And so, you know, I'll read you directly, so as many of you know already, the book has a structure around myths. Um, uh, six of them. This is the second one that kind of comes up in the book.

And the myth in this content, in this sense, is anything you know, these dominant ideas in the book. the domestic violence profession in the world, particularly around kids, that is idea of practice ideas that are out of alignment with lived experience of survivors, adults, survivors, child survivors, even perpetrators, and then are not necessarily serving the needs of systems.

And for us, just to say that for me, I'm always looking forward to the model, things that not only improve outcomes for families, but make the [00:03:00] work. better, more efficient, more effective for practitioners. 

Ruth: I would like to say that a different way. 

David: Okay. 

Ruth: Um, because people use all these words, lived experience, this or that, and then we fight over whose experience is real.

Right. I'd like to say that this grounds us in the reality of behaviors. Right. And behavioral patterns. That's right. Okay. And it gives context. to those behavioral patterns. It gives the information about the impact of those behavioral patterns. That's right. On a wider system beyond just the adult survivor, if we 

believe the ecosystem of the family is a primary foundation of our cultures and of our well being as societies, these are the ripple effects.

David: Right. 

Ruth: And it tells us about the health and well being of families via talking about behaviors. 

David: So the Along those lines, the myth of the domestic violence incident refers to this idea that um, [00:04:00] that systems um, primarily organize their response to domestic violence around isolated incidents of physical violence.

Incidents, so what's key here is, is the idea of incident based practice. We're talking about the idea of Practice and policies and whether it's high risk teams, whether it's a child protection assessment that says, well, domestic violence is an issue. If there's been two instances of physical violence the last year, I mean, these are the kind of definitions I've seen over my career where systems responses have been triggered or shaped primarily by looking at incidents of domestic of physical violence.

And, and obviously the myth is that this isn't necessarily in alignment with the lived experience of, and the behavioral reality, going back to your point, of domestic violence. And, and also doesn't serve systems that [00:05:00] are say they're, they're focused on the interest of, of, of children, the 

Ruth: wellbeing and safety.

That's right. 

David: And so, so the simplest thing to say is, you know, the model critiques this, the approach critiques this. And so the first thing, as many of you know, is that. Um, we think, and a lot of people think, that we should be centering this idea of control and patterns of behavior associated with control, um, versus centering, uh, just sort of physical violence.

And I love Marsha Scott, you know, she's a good friend and colleague out of, she's the, the CEO of Scottish Women's Aid, and, and she says, you know, the laws there are meant to serve. Challenge the primacy of the physical violence incident in this well, you know, I'd 

Ruth: like to talk about the primacy of the physical violence incident Because there's a real material reason that the law focuses on that incident alone and decontextualizes everything else.

And that is, [00:06:00] is it is very simplistic in its understanding of what violence is. It is incapable of preventing escalating violence, right? They don't see that that's their job. So if, if the person is not dead yet, but they're being stalked, law enforcement and the judicial system often. do not intervene because they feel as if a crime has not been committed.

So, you know, the incident is really calibrated to the worst possible outcome. Are you dead sister? 

David: Oh, 

Ruth: you're not dead yet. We're not going to help you. 

David: Well, I mean, I know that, that, you know, survivors that I've talked to have said, I called the police. Knowing he wasn't going to hit me, knowing his pattern, knowing his history, right?

And that's a pattern. She's, this is the He's escalating. He's escalating. This is actually the myth. Right. Because her, I'll say that word, lived experience, her understanding of his pattern or behavior is, Oh, when he's acting this [00:07:00] way, when he's in this mood, when he's crying all day, or he's walking around the house sort of cursing to himself, or, you know, does some other behavior that she knows is part of his pattern of, that will lead in physical violence, whether it's in an hour or six hours, and she's called the police. Right. And they said, we can't do anything for you. Right. Because no crime's been committed. Correct. And, and understandably, from the point of view of a system that gives due process, I always say this, due process is important.

Not arresting people for, uh, you know, for things they haven't done is important. And at the same time, we need to accept that. That moment, she's afraid, she's scared, she's being controlled, her actions are being dictated. Right, well I think actually that's the, 

Ruth: that's the key right there. Is that the centering on the physical violence is very much, you can't hurt and destroy your own property.

David: Right. 

Ruth: Okay, so still implicit in that legal system is the belief that you can do everything else. 

David: Right. [00:08:00] 

Ruth: You can coerce, you can frighten, you can demean, you can do everything else. But if you cross a line, buddy, and you murder your children, or you strangle your wife, or you do whatever, 

David: you've 

Ruth: hurt your property.

There's no sense of the understanding that removal of people's freedoms and terrifying them in a terroristic way is in and of itself a violent crime. 

David: So, so that, and that really is where you start getting into really understanding, thinking about, are we centering? Did physical violence happen? Are we centering this idea that people have a right to live in their own home without fear?

Ruth: Right. Without terroristic violence. Without 

David: terroristic, but the, but, but, but without the fear of the terroristic violence. I think that's the pattern based thing, right? Which we, which, you know, and also if you center, you know, as, as, um, as Evan Stark wrote about and think about, uh, domestic violence as a liberty crime, as a violation of human rights, people have the right to live in their own home without fear.

People have the right. to exercise their freedom of [00:09:00] association, their, their ability to practice their religion, you know, to relate to loved ones, to 

Ruth: practice their cultures, their 

David: cultures. Yeah. And, and domestic violence perpetrators attack those things. And I think one of the things is really in decentering the physical violence doesn't mean we don't take it seriously.

That's what I always tell people. Don't, don't think that this is a, uh, saying, Oh, physical violence is an issue. It's always get worried that people, well, David said not to focus on physical violence. No. We're just saying physical violence isn't the only thing we should focus on. And, uh, I'd been telling this story recently about, uh, um, a social worker, the who came into a meeting after this, uh, woman had been assaulted by a husband and partly assault.

He also broke her computer. And, um, the worker was really angry. So first off, how many times, Will a professional be angrier at the victim than at the So often. Right. She wasn't railing against the perpetrator and, and, and his choice to get [00:10:00] violent. She was railing against the survivor and saying, I don't understand what's wrong with her.

She should be focusing on, he assaulted her and all she's talking about is, is that he broke her computer. And, really at the time, I didn't, I knew there was something off in the conversation, but I didn't have the language to challenge it or to ask questions, and if I could go back in time now, I'd say, well, what did she say about why the computer is important to her?

Ruth: Right. It could be her remote work. 

David: It could be remote work. It could be keepsakes. Could be all her photos. Right. Keepsakes of her, her mom that he attacked. Could be the only 

Ruth: way to communicate with someone. 

David: Could be her support network, social media. But the lack of curiosity and the lack of, and the judgment really kind of derived, I think, in part from this idea of if she didn't prioritize the physical assault the way I think she should, I'm going to now judge her as somehow being in denial.

So this, this lens of the, the, um, this focus on the incident of physical violence comes at [00:11:00] costs if people don't have the ability to say, okay. If she's not prioritizing, and we hear this from survivors, by the way. Some survivors will outright say, the physical violence is the worst part. And I think that really throws a lot of people.

Ruth: Yeah, it's real. 

David: You know, that really throws a lot of people. 

Ruth: Unless you're truly in fear for your life, like you really think you're going to die. It may be something that you've, you've experienced all your life and you know the lines of. That's 

David: right. But 

Ruth: taking your creativity, taking your access to the outside world, taking your choices away from you.

Right. That is a type of fear. Dehumanization. Right. That is, is really personal. 

David: That's right. And again, don't hear the minimization in any of this of the physical violence, because it can create crippling injuries, it can create lifelong pain, you know, um, it can cause you to lose your jobs because you miss days of work.

I mean, just, so again, none of this should be interpreted as minimizing physical violence, but, but one of the other things I talk about in the chapter of the book is, is the, the [00:12:00] cycle of violence. Right. Okay. Okay. And, and how powerful. You know, this comes out in the Lenore Walker's work, which is a lot of these things were groundbreaking, like Lenore Walker's work was groundbreaking, because it, it, it, it moved things away from, um, um, this idea that women are masochistic, that there's something wrong with women, to really talking about, to really talking about, um, you know, the, the pattern of behavior, and talking about to the perpetrators, Behavior pattern, which is really brilliant, you know, instead of this escalation period where somebody's walking on eggshells, right?

And then the explosion and then the honeymoon period, there's, there's sometimes there's four stages, but, but I, but really for me, that's an example of centering the physical violence. So the cycle of violence in this way, uh, really doesn't capture the fear that comes with the, and the control that [00:13:00] comes with the.

That period of, uh, walking on eggshells, you know, and the importance of it in some ways it does, but at the same time it's, it's, it's, it doesn't describe the harm, all the, the, the way, that is actually, even if the physical violence incident doesn't happen, that control exists, right? I think it's always this idea that, that, you know, there's, there isn't necessarily this, this, this pattern for everybody, you know, with this situation.

There could be one incident of barely bad violence that just creates all this control. Or just the fact that maybe somebody's demonstrated violence or incapacity, another, uh, another example, but then for me also the, the, the language of the honeymoon. 

Ruth: Yeah, that's offensive to me on a lot of right. Can you say why it's offensive?

First of all, it's very sexualized. Right. Okay. So that's gross. Um, also for me, it really doesn't. I represent. It represents the tip of the iceberg of what [00:14:00] people are seeing that, you know, okay, a perpetrator offers gifts and praise and apologies and says, we'll never do it again. And the assumption is, is that the survivor.

A thousand percent steps into trust of that experience. They may say they trust it, but we're animals who are constantly unaware for, for, for repeated behaviors that hurt us. 

David: Right. 

Ruth: For stimuli that's repeated, that behave, that. 

David: Right. 

Ruth: So we're still on alert. And once that pattern has happened enough times, we're really aware, even subconsciously that, you know, that there's a pattern to it and that there are cycles to it.

And we know the cycles. So we may be relieved that we're out of the cycle. We can feel the tension rising. 

David: Right. We 

Ruth: could predict there was going to be an explosion. 

David: Right. 

Ruth: We had to anticipate and walk on eggshells around that explosion. Okay, that explosion happened. 

David: Right. 

Ruth: The normal, the normal, uh, down dial cycle is this one.[00:15:00] 

If you know, if you know that that's the pattern, some people call that the honeymoon phase, but it's not. It's very offensive because it's, it's still not a place of peace. It's a pace. It's a place of, of violence having stopped on a certain level, but still controlling the coercion. I think that's the thing.

That's really one of 

David: the things that would the value of the course of control framework, but the coercion doesn't go and I think the, the, the, the cycle of violence model and that focus on domestic violence incident really, really makes it harder to see the coercion problem. Thank you. Yeah, that's ongoing.

That's consistent. The lack of responsibility, you know, in that honeymoon, quote, unquote, period, 

Ruth: it just, that, that phrase makes me feel sick to my stomach and reminds me of watching, being, watching that movie as a kid where Scarlett O'Hara and, and. Reynolds, you know would like get into domestic violence incidents and then make passionate love to each other He'd slap her around or drag her by her [00:16:00] hair.

Do you mean Clark Gable? Oh Clark Gable. I don't know I can't remember these people but but I you know, but you know, we've been fed a steady diet That's right of this type of relationship cycle And it's been highly sexualized, particularly by male perspectives. So I just, I don't know, I think it's gross.

Well, it covers over 

David: the, you know, people talk about quote unquote, makeup sex in that period. And it's covers up the coercion. But makeup sex is 

Ruth: not, is not consensual. That's right. 

David: It's coercion around it. You 

Ruth: need to feel safe. So you, you give the person what they need. 

David: So I think it. Or they 

Ruth: say they need.

David: Well, it's also, again, de centering the, um, the perpetrators. Responsibility for real change, right, you know, I always do this thought experiment which is What does real change if somebody has? in, in violence against a partner, harmful behavior, we need a map of what real responsibility looks like. I, I think 

Ruth: what the, you know, whoever thought, Oh, if they [00:17:00] have makeup sex, everything is good.

David: Right. 

Ruth: Who did that? It's like a large child with a binky or something that has a tantrum and then thinks that, that demanding comfort from another person is, is some type of proof. 

David: Right. Right. 

Ruth: That they love that person. It's just, it's so twisted. I think, 

David: I think it again, it's sort of the, the, you know, I think people overlay a lot of times that couples will, will argue or make, you know, have stress and then they'll, they'll find ways to reconnect, right?

I think that's normal. And I think people don't get the qualitative difference here, which is that when you've crossed lines and you're across them repeatedly in significant ways, and then you're trying to control somebody's behavior. So I haven't changed. If I've, if I assaulted you again, part of it is, The focus on the injury.

Again, I don't, I am not self possessed, but the focus on the injury versus the focus on the purpose of the violent behavior. The purpose of violent behavior would be, was to punish you for talking to your mother. The purpose of the [00:18:00] violent behavior was to punish you for not, Doing right by the kids or not cooking the food right or or or have the audacity to want to go back to work you know or or You didn't you didn't?

Put the sheets on the bed, right? I mean down to this and that 

Ruth: and then I abused you and now I'm demanding you have sex with me so that I feel Close to you again. That's right. Yeah, I guess I hurt you right and now you're gonna give it to me All right, because you want you want me to not be violent and explosive anymore, 

David: right?

Ruth: Like it's all just it's horrible. Did 

David: I did I? Say I was wrong in a meaningful way. Can you trust now when you make the bed tomorrow that you should be scared of making, doing it differently than I want you to do. That's the real, like that's, we've got to have that mental map in our head about the control.

Right. That really changes the way we kind of relate to, to survivors, to perpetrators, to understand where kids are going through. Right. So the book, this chapter really actually has a kind of a deep look at the cycle of violence because I think it's such a [00:19:00] great example of the incident based focus.

Right. It doesn't. It doesn't include the cycle of violence which focuses on the relationship dynamics in a lot of ways Again doesn't fit with a perpetrator pattern approach. It doesn't account for how systems intervene or not right extended family. So it makes it very Personal to the couple versus contextualizing.

I think that we 

Ruth: have been taught To make our problems extremely individual, 

David: right? 

Ruth: so it's the problem of the victim and it's the problem of the person who's choosing violence rather than 

David: Right. 

Ruth: Talking about how therapists are feeding 

David: into 

Ruth: these really destructive, dangerous narratives that sexual intimacy is the measure of a good relationship.

David: Right. 

Ruth: That that means that you've resolved a problem if you're being sexually intimate. Okay, that, um, therapists have played into the perspective of just the [00:20:00] incidents of violence as well. Failed to speak with couples and couples counseling about coercive control, about their own fears and anxiety becoming the nexus for that.

That's 

David: right. 

Ruth: Instead of saying, oh, you have anxiety and you have depression, and therefore you're acting out. No. You have to talk to somebody about how that impacts their relationships. Well, it, 

David: it, it, it, it absolutely kind of fits with the, and one of the things I talk about in the, uh, in the chapter is it fits into the temper problem.

Ruth: Yeah. The, the anger management. Yeah, 

David: the anger management. Right. I mean, again, so part of, again, these myth structures, this myth of domestic violence incident talks about how this, these. Miss misdirect us from paying attention to some of the most important things. So again, if you're focused on the incident of violence, you're more likely to fall into a temper.

Problem framework versus. Oh, it's just, it's very, 

Ruth: it's a very isolated flair of temper. It's like just seeing that one little slice of [00:21:00] information. 

David: So a few other things in the chapter, and obviously one of the points of doing these podcasts is get you to want to buy the book, you know, read it and use so much more in these things.

So a couple of other kind of headlines, cause we're, we're, we're keeping this, this episode on the shorter side is, um, what is it silos? It often focuses, um. on adult to adult and really underplays or makes it harder for people to focus on how domestic violence perpetrators directly target or involve children.

So that's, that's one other thing I talk around in the chapter. I talk about how it reinforces racialized stereotypes. You know, if, if we're living in cultures, many of us, we're, Black and brown indigenous people are stereotyped as being more violent than white people. Inappropriately, wrongly, so. But again, that focus on physical violence is, can be reinforced to racial stereotypes about violent behavior, about who perpetrates other thing is, is that 

Ruth: a focus on [00:22:00] incidents can actually direct us away from the perpetrator.

And we can focus very easily on victims acts of resistance. to coercive control and violence, which are physical acts of resistance, which I'm going to say we have a right to physically defend ourselves in our own homes. And that's, I think, the big thing is, is that this male centric view of violence really arose out of ownership.

It arose decontextualized from the domestic relationship. It was really focused on violence in the street between men who were drunk and brawling. And so that's how they measured violence. There was never a belief you. in the legal system prior to a certain period of time that men being violent in the home was a problem because we were property.

Right. That's why there's an incident focus to the laws around domestic violence and that's actually why we have to change [00:23:00] that focus. Right. 

David: And, and so this is a both, a both and thing. You know, obviously changing those laws to criminalize those behaviors was a step in the right direction was part of a saying, this is not okay.

And it's, but it doesn't mean that it always works in every situation and like you alluded to, it means that the domestic violence decontextualized focus on incidents of violence means that, that victims fighting back will get arrested wrongly while they're defending themselves. That we hear from, you know, first nation communities, black communities that, Women in those communities are more likely to be targeted.

Ruth: Yes, 

David: you know a misidentified as primary aggressor in the United 

Ruth: States Yeah, there are many women who are incarcerated at this moment because they physically resisted coercive control entrapment human trafficking rape and domestic violence and that I don't think is necessarily an accident. I do believe [00:24:00] that we have focused on victims for a reason.

Because we're really unwilling to address violent men. 

David: And I think the other thing, the, the, the focus on physical violence incident decontextualizes I mean, this is a lot of what we're talking about, sort of the issue away from gender, privilege, power. The other thing is that keep in place all that coercive control.

So, so this is the, the chapter kind of critiques these things and then sort of really helps you understand how the safety of the model, um, is designed specifically to step away from the problem of this myth. Right. And, and so I'll kind of run down a few of the things that, that again, people can be thinking about, that the, how the model innovates to challenge the myth, right?

That's the language in the book. One is we're, we're inclusive of, of, of all forms of abuse and control. So again, there's a, um, you know, considering of wider patterns of behavior, even outside the relationship, um, other things like, uh, keeping focused on underlying control entitlement, [00:25:00] Putting that pattern in context, um, considers direct abuse of the kids, um, and you know, indirect involvement of the children, includes perpetrators in the pattern based thinking.

So there's so much focus on pattern based thinking, how perpetrators target systems and professionals for manipulation. You know, the need to be sensitive to vulnerabilities related to different factors like racism, homophobia, transphobia. The entrapment, when you have an entrapment lens, or course control lens, it makes you much more sensitive to the vulnerabilities of the survivor.

You know, for instance, if you've got a perpetrator who's white from the dominant group and a victim who is black or indigenous or brown, you know, or somebody who's trans who's more vulnerable to attacks. Let's say from the system, right? That's part of the entrapment. Well, I'm gonna call the police and they're gonna beat the crap out of you Even though you're the victim of the crime that they're gonna treat you disrespectful.

They're gonna arrest you because you don't fit [00:26:00] who they think You should be fitting into or the kind of box you should be fitting into The model includes you know issues about patriarchy and then you know You know, really kind of deconstruct this idea of temper being the problem. So, you know, part of it is just really helping.

I hope that this kind of thing gives people a feel for the scope of the, this chapter and the, the, you know, the chapter in the, in the context of the book, um, you know, because it's really, we believe, I believe that. Pattern based thinking, that centers the issue of course control with physical violence being part of that pattern but not the totality of it.

Um, and understanding, um, that perpetrator's patterns are across relationships. Right. Cause the, often the domestic violence incident framework is about this relationship versus the perpetrator. Well, I have to 

Ruth: say it's very convenient for [00:27:00] perpetrators. To have decontextual information which defends them.

And so I want to actually talk about this myth in the context of what's happening now. You know, more and more as Safe and Together, the Safe and Together model, gets used in legal and judicial circles, the attack on that behavioral contextual information increases by perpetrators. Because it's very powerful.

And so what I want to say to people is to always ground yourself in behavioral patterns in context of the impact of those behavioral patterns and to keep doing it fearlessly because it is the light that shines a light on the impact of what that person is doing and when you do that expect that some perpetrators are going to get very uncomfortable and uncomfortable.

Very angry, very defensive, and they are going to try to attack your professionals, they're going to try to attack your [00:28:00] evidence, and you, my friends, are going to keep focusing with a laser focus on their pattern of behaviors, and you're going to keep holding it up to them because they did those things.

And that is the impact that their behaviors had, whether or not they intended it to have that impact. Right. This is why the Scottish law is so important and trying to prove intent is a trap And I'm going to keep repeating that for people who are passing course of control laws It is a trap for you to put that they have to improve intentional harm into that law That is a hobbling of whatever it is.

You're trying to do. It doesn't matter if they intended it Focus on the pattern of behaviors, and focus on the impact that had on their partner, on their children, and on society. Right. And they will get really angry, and they will really try to litigate that evidence. Gather more. Right. Gather more. Right.

Let's overwhelm [00:29:00] this, and really try to change the terrain. 

David: You know, it's, I think it's um, we're seeing the impact of the model in this way. Um, you know, I, on this last trip, and then we, we will be wrapping up, you know, as this last trip, I started hearing feedback from people who said, look, you know, the, the work you're doing with the, the family court, uh, we're seeing the difference.

Yeah. We're seeing survivors getting to keep their kids in circumstances where they wouldn't. We're seeing, uh, barristers, you know, you, you sort of spoke to those attorneys being more aggressive in cross examination. Right. Right. Right. Because they're seeing the threat coming from better evidence, better testimony, greater focus on, on, on patterns.

And, and I, I really, you know, again, don't want to minimize the focus on incidents of physical violence. I want to really help people think, okay, What are we missing here beyond that that doesn't fit [00:30:00] with the trauma framework that doesn't fit? That's another chapter with all these other things that people talk about.

They're really powerful, but calling child protection on a victim, a victim. Yeah. Um, setting that up is the reason why she won't call when she gets assaulted. We need to see the connections there. Yeah. We need to see that I've made it scary for you to reach out for help because the, the, the professionals are, um, the art, I've turned them against you or to see that somebody who, who is, is a victim of colonization racism, the entrapment isn't just the physical violence isn't just the thing.

Yeah. The thing is, I don't feel like I can call for help for fear of what the system will do to me or in other circumstances, do to my partner. Yeah, so it's the focusing on entrapment qualitatively brings you to a different understanding of the survivor's experience. Right, 

Ruth: and entrapment [00:31:00] is not just done by the perpetrator.

That's right. It's done by our own horrible policies and practices. 

David: And this focus on domestic violence incidents This is where we end up judging survivors, because they're not acting the way we think they should act if they follow the domestic violence incident model, which is they should pick up and leave and go to refuge.

That's how we create the system. So part of it is, is really to understand how our systems have been built on this domestic violence incident myth. Yeah. And, and so, and go, Oh, wow. That isn't the most important thing to her or, 

Ruth: or she's not going to do that because she grew up in an institution and she doesn't trust going into 

David: refuge.

That's right. Or I'm worried about losing my kids because he's laid this groundwork with child protection or other people. Or the 

Ruth: local police who need to come and help me get that resource are colluding with him and I'm not going to be safe. 

David: That's right. So really deconstructing the myth of domestic violence like the other myths in the book are really intended.

[00:32:00] to provide professionals with the tools they need to really re jigger their practice, our policies, the way we resource things. And to validate the lived experience of survivors. Right. So 

Ruth: I would say, I hate the lived experience thing at this point. You have to like You need to validate reality, people.

David: Yep. There you go. And 

Ruth: now we're out. No. 

David: Okay. And you've enlisted to partner with a survivor and, uh, you know. 

Ruth: I'm still Ruth Reymundo and you are still David Mandel. 

David: Check out our, um, website, safeantogetherinstitute.com. You go, there's a page for the book there. You also go to amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com.

Wherever you are in the world, it's on there. You can do it. You can do it. We know you can. It'll be delivered to you in a couple of days. 

Ruth: Or weeks. A 

David: week's. A week's. If you're super 

Ruth: remote. 

David: Um, and um, check out our virtual academy, academy.safeandtogetherinstitute.com Alright. Okay, 

Ruth: and Now we're out. 

David: And we're out.

[00:33:00] Okay.