Partnered with a Survivor: David Mandel and Ruth Reymundo Mandel
This podcast is a series of conversations.
What started as a series of intimate conversations between Ruth and David that ranged from personal to professional experiences around violence, relationships, abuse, and system and professional responses which harm, not help, has now become a global conversation about systems and culture change. In many episodes, David and Ruth are joined by a global leader in different areas like child safety, men and masculinity, and, of course, partnering with survivors. Each episode is a deep dive into complex topics like how systems fail domestic abuse survivors and their children, societal views of masculinity and violence, and how intersectionalities such as cultural beliefs, religious beliefs, and unique vulnerabilities impact how we respond to abuse and violence. These far-ranging discussions offer an insider look into how we navigate the world together as professionals, as parents, and as partners. During these podcasts, David and Ruth challenge the notions which keep all of us from moving forward collectively as systems, as cultures, and as families into safety, nurturance, and healing.
We hope you join us.
Have an idea for a podcast? Tell about it here: https://share.hsforms.com/1l329DGB1TH6AFndCFfB7aA3a1w1
Partnered with a Survivor: David Mandel and Ruth Reymundo Mandel
Season 6 Episode 24: If “Mother Is In Denial About Domestic Violence” Had a Buzzer, We’d Smash It!!!
Mist, wind, the volcanic island of São Miguel, and a hard look at the words and jargon that decide families’ futures. We begin in the Azores, Ruth’s ancestral home, where arguments for European westward expansion took shape after Bartolomé de Las Casas reported the finding of two “dead Amerindian" bodies—and where mainland-imposed poverty, illiteracy, and family separation set conditions that still shape domestic violence today.
From that grounding, we pull apart a label that quietly drives child removals, court outcomes, and professional blind spots: “denial.” Across child protection and domestic violence documentation, the phrase “mother is in denial of the impact of domestic violence” appears with alarming regularity—automatically shifting scrutiny onto women in records that determine custody and liberty, while the person causing harm fades from view. The result is compounded harm at both personal and system levels.
We trace how this term traveled from early psychoanalysis—where women’s reports of sexual violence were recast as inner conflict or sexual turmoil—into today’s case notes and court filings. Over time, denial and hysteria morphed into failure to protect and parental alienation, redirecting attention from perpetrators’ patterns of violence to mothers’ supposed deficits in “controlling” that violence or responding to it. Instead of centering victims’ reactions to harm, we argue for real behavioral evidence: name who did what, to whom, with what impact, and what has been tried with the person causing harm. This shift is not cosmetic, yet it changes documentation, supervision, and safety planning, and it guards against wrongful liberty removals and harmful system collusion with perpetrators.
You’ll hear practical questions that move practice quickly: What did she do or say that led you to that conclusion? What is your specific safety concern about that behavior? These prompts redirect focus from a survivor’s inner world to the perpetrator’s actions, choices, and behaviors—opening the door to mapping risk to children, cataloging incidents, and designing interventions that actually reduce danger. We also widen the lens to the ecosystem around survivors—family pressure, faith norms, small-island logistics, and economic traps—that make “just leave” dangerous or impossible for many.
The invitation is clear: try a week—or a month—without the word denial. Replace labels with behavioral pattern facts. Keep the person causing harm at the center of risk and response.
If this resonates, subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review telling us which label you’re dropping next. Your words help others find the show—and change practice for the better.
Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real
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.
Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.
Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.
Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.
And we're back.
David Mandel :And we're back.
Ruth Reymundo:How are you there?
David Mandel :Hey. How are you?
Ruth Reymundo:I'm good.
David Mandel :You're more than good, actually. I know you're more than good. So I'm more than good. You're joining us for a year-end Azorian Partner with a Survivor episode. This is our last episode of the year, I think. Today is the 30th of December.
Ruth Reymundo:Yeah.
David Mandel :So that's pretty close to the end of 2025, right?
Ruth Reymundo:Aaron Ross Powell Pretty close. Yeah. Yeah.
David Mandel :And I'm David Mandel, CEO and founder of the Safe and Taylor Institute. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
Ruth Reymundo:And I am Ruth Raimundo, and I am the Chief Business Development Officer and the co-owner of the Institute.
David Mandel :Trevor Burrus Yeah. And we're going to talk to you about denial.
Ruth Reymundo:We are.
David Mandel :And the use of the label denial in a moment. But first, you're going to do a land acknowledgement.
Ruth Reymundo:I am. I'm very emotional.
David Mandel :Are you? Okay.
Ruth Reymundo:Okay. So we are on the island of Sao Miguel in the Azores, which is part of Macaronesia. You may know about Micronesia and Polynesia. Well, dear Polynesian and dear, Micronesian friends. I am your Macronesian sister. It sounds like macaroni.
David Mandel :I know it does.
Ruth Reymundo:Very many people don't know about these islands and their place in the world. But the Azore Islands is a place where my father's family has lived for as long as the records reach. And I don't speak with certainty or authority about the first custodians of this land, the first human custodians of this land. But what I know is partial. And it's layered and shaped by history, and it actually begins the story of global colonization. If you think about the first impacted places where that energy arose, this is the first place. This is the first place that those explorers came to. And the Azores is really part of a vast oceanic system. And it gathers moisture, it holds clouds, and releases rain. And it directs the rain. It feeds those weather patterns in Europe and in North America. And the native plants on this island shelter birds and they anchor life in place in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. And it is a volcanic island teeming with life. Many active volcanoes still. But I really hold with care the story of the people who moved through these waters and through this archipelago. And the known initial custodians of the lower islands of the archipelago, whose range we don't quite understand, were the Gonch people, the Aborigine people of North Africa. And they were seafaring, island dwelling people. And we know that they were eradicated with the Spanish expansion into those islands, and then also the Portuguese expansion into those islands. And in some lower islands, the Gaunch people have re-established their spiritual practices, which I'm really happy to hear. But also I acknowledge that this land sustains many, many, many people in Europe as well as North America by its its existence and the way that it functions here in the ocean and how it sustains and nurtures life and migratory pathways as well. And I do want to mention some of the other islands, like my Uncle Ernius Island, Flores, where Bartolomeo de las Casas found the deceased bodies of what he called Amerit Indian people. And those bodies, however they passed, were used as the legal argument for sending ships westward. So these islands and whomever was found on them, alive or dead, formed the argument for heading toward the Americas. And when I say that, I feel such emotion inside me. And it's very emotional for me because I was separated from my family and my heritage and my Azorian family because they were considered to be not acceptable spiritually. They practiced spirituality, which, though it was wrapped in Catholicism, was deeply about nature and our relationships and our connections and honoring our ancestors, whether they were human or they were trees or they were rivers or they were they were waterways or they were waterfalls. And that is truly beautiful that I've brought myself and my family home after only two generations of being away from this island. So thank you, Samigal.
David Mandel :That's so beautiful. And it's for me listening to you, knowing what this means, this isn't just a land acknowledgement. It's a remembering in the in that kind of deep use of the word remembering, you know, to to to put things back together, to heal, to reconnect things. And I'm deeply aware that when we're here, it is powerful on so many levels, and I'm really grateful for you to introduce me to your home.
Ruth Reymundo:Thank you.
David Mandel :And so that's where we're joining you're joining us from, and and hopefully there'll be many more episodes of partner with a survivor from here.
Ruth Reymundo:And and just to say it out loud, the Azores San Miguel, sadly, the the manner of of cruelty that was put upon the people here, enforced poverty, enforced illiteracy, because the mainland Portuguese were making a serf class of people in the colonies, it has deeply wounded and harmed Azorian people, it has fractured their families, it has led to a tremendous amount of addiction and alcoholism, there's an 80% domestic violence rate here. And that is it breaks my heart because if you've ever come to these islands, if you've ever been here, you understand that what is so important is the connection with nature. Yes. The quietude, the silence, the wind, the rain, the mist, the water, the waterways. It's it's all very sacred.
David Mandel :Yes.
Ruth Reymundo:Yeah.
David Mandel :Thank you for giving us that foundation for this episode and many more to calm my hope. And I mean that's an episode in itself right now. That just that little is like a mini experience, at least for me. I want to pivot us gently, because I'm still feeling what you just said to the conversation topic around denial and the use of the word denial, actually. It this is really actually not the concept of denial, it is, but it it was sparked by my return to a lot of the foundations of the model and its inception, both for the safety other institutes, development of fidelity and tracking material and deepening what we're doing. And then also you and I are co-founders of Safety Nexus.
Ruth Reymundo:Right.
David Mandel :We're removing the safe and together intellectual property, material, and concepts into an AI-powered.
Ruth Reymundo:And to technology. AI in this case, but yeah, technology in technology.
David Mandel :And really concerned with fidelity. You know, the really the the research says that trained closed LLMs really can be very effective in coaching and supervising and supporting workers' decisions, not doing it for them. And that really means that we want to dive into these terms. We're doing it in writing, we're doing other sets. So I was was looking at this use of the word denial, going back to the beginning of the model.
Ruth Reymundo:Because tell people why, because some people don't realize how common that phrase is actually used in child protection on police reports. Yeah.
David Mandel :I mean, I so I really want to name this as a problem. And I if if you take one thing away from this podcast, even just do you just you know you're about to go off and pick up your kids or start cooking dinner or or go to work or you're you're getting out of the car, like this is it, which is that if you hear the word denial applied to a domestic abuse survivor, immediately assume it's actually a diagnosis of the system, not the survivor.
unknown:Trevor Burrus, Jr.
Ruth Reymundo:And and I would add immediately tag that the professional who used it is not proficient in understanding domestic abuse and course or control.
David Mandel :Trevor Burrus, Jr.: And to understand that.
Ruth Reymundo:That's more about if a professional uses that, that's right. You as a supervisor, you as a manager, you as a programmatic person should be like red flag that.
David Mandel :It's not it's not you don't have the skill. It's not neutral, it's not it's it's value-laden, it's a judgment or a conclusion, it's not facts. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
Ruth Reymundo:Isn't it funny? Nobody ever says that the violent father is not in denial of his violence.
David Mandel :It's much said m much less frequently. Yeah, absolutely. My experience is is is and even then you need to unpack that. Because just be really clear, somebody says that somebody else is in denial. They're giving you their conclusion, their judgment, they're not giving you the facts, they're not describing their behaviors. Right. And so we want to talk a little bit about the history behind that word, which we did some research on, and sort of I knew some of it, but I really wanted to be clearer about it, and then talk to you about the dangers and then how to deal with it.
Ruth Reymundo:So that's our our kind of template for today. Let's do it. And you're gonna hear the wind. I hope you hear palm trees in the background.
David Mandel :Yeah. So so I'm a trained mental health professional, and I knew some of this, but I really wanted to go back and research it. And as many of you know, because many of you also have a similar background, the world, the word denial comes out of its its usage in this context can be traced back to Freud, basically. An early psychoanalytic theory.
Ruth Reymundo:And it's I'm really gonna try not to curse on this one. Okay. Well, I don't know why it's your podcast.
David Mandel :You can curse on if you want. But you know that it it was really about this idea of labeling somebody's resistance. It was about interesting.
Ruth Reymundo:Wait a second. It was actually specifically about women. It wasn't someone's resistance. It was women's resistance.
David Mandel :Right. So you'll see that that at its core, the term has has a history and a lineage that's about uh what I'm gonna say is kind of like spoiler, mislabeling women, controlling their realities, and determining who controls the truth about experiences, right? Is that fair?
Ruth Reymundo:Aaron Ross Powell, Jr. You know, I I think so what we're talking about is we're talking about the history of Freud labeling denial as a psychoanalytical term.
David Mandel :Essentially, if that's where it arose as an internal struggle, as an intra psychic issue.
R:Because and and just to put a pin in it, Freud believed that women who reported sexual abuse were hysterical. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
David Mandel :And reporting on their internal psychic issues. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Right. Not about what was really happening to them.
R:Not about what men were doing to them. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
David Mandel :Right.
R:Okay. But also Freud's theories are deeply grounded in his own sexual fixations. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Right. Okay, he made everything about sex. Just to put a pin in that. So it is very specific about women. It is very specific about women's experiences of male violence and sexual violence. So we cannot lose that context.
David Mandel :Right. And and so just to really understand, its very roots position the term as about being the about the internal psychological landscape.
R:Trevor Burrus Of women.
David Mandel :Of women. And so and and there are people who have analyzed, I'm going to use the word purposely, analyzed Freud's work, analyzed his history, analyzed some of his earlier identification of and talking about sexual abuse and believing that that patients had been sexually abused by their fathers. And that then transitioning from that perspective to making it about reframing things as intra-psychic. Wait a second.
R:It's worse than that. Okay, go for it. I would not convey it that way.
David Mandel :Say it. Say it.
R:Freud believed that girls were being sexually abused by their fathers, and he made a theory that said that girls wanted to marry their fathers in order to justify men raping their own children. Okay, it's really that simple. That's right.
David Mandel :And this is and and one of the people that you need to know is Florence Rush, who wrote about this in the in the 70s, who is associated with the term gaslighting, which I didn't know. Right. And many of you may know this already. Right. But sort of popularized the use of the word gaslighting for this reframing and re uh talking people out of their real experience and making them not believe themselves. Right. And and while gaslighting is used regularly now in the context of coercive control as a tactic, she was framing it in terms of the cultural and psychological narrative, the narrative that professionals used. She was saying Freud was engaging in gaslighting by saying this sexual abuse didn't happen.
R:Right.
David Mandel :This is only a reflection of girls' and women's fantasies and intrapsychic struggles. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
R:And then there's Bertha Pappenheim, okay, because I really do want to bring her into the picture here, or as a counterweight to what Freud was saying. And she was Anna O in his initial treatment. And he essentially diagnosed her with a form of hysteria because of her psychological complaints about men's violence and sexual violence. And she later went on to become a feminist and an antipsychological advocate because her assessment was that Freud was diagnosing with psychol psychoanalytical language things like poverty, domestic violence, rape, and moral double standards for men and women in society at that time, gender double standards. And that is still a cogent analysis. That's still what is happening today.
David Mandel :Right. And so I I think this is, you know, for me, the the critical aspect of this is sort of when professionals label domestic abuse survivors being in denial. And and again, I through my career I've seen it over and over and over again. And one is they're really be clear, they're using a term that was designed for well, came up in the context of what we just described, is about the internal world and problematizes. Is that a word?
R:Problematizes resistance.
David Mandel :Well problematizes the the the the victim, the survivor, not the external behavior of the perpetrator or the system's failure to respond.
R:Trevor Burrus But see, the here you have to look at denial and you have to look at hysteria as two bookends that were basically hedging women in. Do you understand what I'm saying? Because if a woman was experiencing violence and somebody wanted to take her children because she was poor and her, you know, whatever, they would say you're in denial.
David Mandel :Right.
R:But at the same time, at this in the same era, and that continued for a long time, if a woman challenged that abuse, she was hysterical and she could be put into an asylum. So on one end of the bookend you have denial, where you can take a person's child child away, or you can remove their liberties and rights because they're in denial. And on the other end of the bookend, you have hysteria, which is which is pathologizing resistance, so you can abuse a person, shut them down, and remove their liberties as well. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
David Mandel :So let me let me map some current terms onto what you just said. So on the denial side, we have the failure to protect.
R:Right. That's the new term. That's the new term.
David Mandel :That's right. You know, and I wrote about the myth of failure to protect in my book and the problem with that.
R:Right.
David Mandel :And then on the other side, and I just connected the dots here, which is the modern-day equivalent hysteria, though hysteria is still used, is parental alienation, the allegation of parental alienation.
R:Yeah.
David Mandel :You're making things up. There's actually you're being vindictive. You're you're you're you're seeing problems where there aren't. Get over it. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
R:Well, this is all this is all about where the attachment stuff where they claim that the mother's hyper-attached to the child, or the child's hyper-attached to the mother. Right. Because they're they're they're protecting each other against a perpetrator. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
David Mandel :And and so what all these things have in common is is decontextualizing and problematizing survivors' experience from the system, from the culture, and from the perpetrator's pattern of behavior. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
R:It's I think yes, it's de it's a decontextualization, but really ultimately the the operational reality is that it's it's a subversion, it's a pivoting, it's to get everybody to pivot away from the man or the person who's choosing violence and holding them accountable for their actions. It's very it's very consistent.
David Mandel :Right. And and so what you know, what I started doing, what we do in the model, and we're trying to build into the the safety nexus tool is the same kind of thing, which is is how do you take all this knowledge, what we just talked about, and operationalize it in in coaching and behavior and changing practice. Because you are going to be, so any of you listening, you are going to be confronted with somebody who uses that term.
R:You are going to be either supervising or you are going to be confronted with your own frustration in dealing with a survivor who feels like they're in denial to you. And your job as a skilled professional is to be curious enough to really understand coercive control. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
David Mandel :And if you live in that world of of and inside that concept of denial, you're going to see that you're going to think the answer is greater education, more insight, more awareness, healing of trauma, you know. I mean, and and a lot of times, again, this is is often gets wrapped up now in sort of the lens of trauma. She's a trauma survivor. Right. Again, all this stuff is is is focused on the internal world of the survivor or their own.
R:And notice who we're not talking about.
David Mandel :That's right.
R:Notice who's not even in the room right now.
David Mandel :Trevor Burrus And so so the first thing. So I'm going to kind of walk you through a couple of steps about this is both like you're saying, Ruth, that you're saying it can be used for self-reflection or it can be done externally, you know, with if you're if you're a supervisor or an or or a coach or or acting some way, which is when somebody says, well, survivor's in denial, is to ask this question. Say, what has she done or said to make you believe or think she's in denial?
R:You know, it's so funny because when you when you said what do you do, I I just would like to have an auto sound. Universal auto sound that it goes whenever somebody uses that term. You're much more constructive about this. But I like my version of the world.
David Mandel :I like your version of the world too. I think it's you know, if it worked, I would do it. If I'm all over the yeah, that flashing lights. But but the reason what that does is it automatically moves it away from the professional defining the survivor and defining her reality. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
R:But also in a yeah. We need to avoid that, but also it this again is the dance step of partnering.
David Mandel :Right.
R:We've oft well, I made the analogy of partnering as a dance step.
David Mandel :Right.
R:Because I like I'm a dancer. So so you know, the first thing is you partner with the survivor to understand the context, but then you have to pivot yourself to the perpetrator. If we don't get to that second piece, if we're always stuck in assessing the side survivor's inner world and their motivations and their trauma and all of the things that they're doing, we are never looking at the perpetrator. And that's so intentional.
David Mandel :And in a time poor environment, every minute you spend looking at a survivor that isn't ultimately about partnering is is taking time away from holding the perpetrator accountable. Right. So and this is I'm gonna even layer in that this is also about partnering with that worker because I found that you that being didactic and lecturing to that worker doesn't help them uncover what they need to understand about themselves, their practice, and change. Right. So this is both about partnering, encouraging partners. But it's partnering with that person.
R:But it's also partnering with professionals.
David Mandel :That's right. Yeah. And and and so what that means is that by asking that question, what has she done or said that makes you come to the conclusion or assume or believe that she's in denial? One you're you're putting the word belief, conclusion, in the sentence into the paragraph. Right. Because that's now saying that's your conclusion. That's not hers. That's yours. That's your label analysis. That's your label analysis. Ask me, let's create a common understanding of the things she's doing or saying.
R:Behavior.
David Mandel :Put it on the table so we both can look at it together, and gives me a chance as your coach or your supervisor to reflect and maybe reframe something or recontextualize it or re understand it. And so what I found is that people will say, well, often and this was the most common thing, would be, well, she's not leaving him. I mean, I I I could tell if if if it that's not the answer 50% of the time.
R:Yeah. Probably more like 60 or 70%.
David Mandel :She's not leaving him. Yeah. She hasn't ended the relationship. She keeps going back to him. She keeps going back to him. And then what that does is gives you a chance to say, okay, what's your worry about that, right? So then then you say, what's your worry about that? Because going back to a relationship isn't a problem unless there's a danger.
R:Right.
David Mandel :People have the absolute right to move in and out of relationship, to choose who they love. It's none of the state's business. I feel very passionate about this. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
R:Even if it's a even if it's a relationship that you judge as being dysfunctional or not nourishing to that person. That's right. That's right. That's right.
David Mandel :You know, even if you're well-intentioned saying you deserve better, really the boundary of of child protection involvement, other people's involvement is often this, particularly the state, particularly interesting in the state, which is are people in danger, are kids in danger, is there is there a risk here that is that is big enough to warrant intervention in people's personal lives. And when you say what the worry is, the worry then if it's a response is legitimate, is gonna be framed or should be framed around my concern is that he's gonna hurt her again. And I would hear that a lot, by the way. Right. It would move quickly from she's in denial to I'm worried he's gonna kill her.
R:I'm afraid he's gonna kill her.
David Mandel :He's gonna kill her. Right.
R:And that's gonna be traumatic for me as a worker. It's gonna be traumatic for the children.
David Mandel :And I don't want that to happen to her. Legit. That I could be comfortable about saying, tell me what he's done that's made you worried. He's gonna kill her or he's gonna do this.
R:And now we get down to behaviors.
David Mandel :That's his behaviors.
R:Now we get down to the perpetrators' behaviors. So it's so important to note because I think what happens is is that we go through these cycles of where people are like, oh, this term is terrible and it's victim blaming. Yes. But what everybody should be taking away from the migration of psychological words and languages that have been applied to victims over time throughout the history of the legal framework and psychoanalytical terms is that jargon terms that erase behaviors are dangerous in the context of liberty removal and rights. And then no professional and no judgment should ever be made on a foundation of jargon, psychoanalytical terms, and labels that we don't actually have the responsibility to map those behaviors and prove that that person is a danger to others and they should lose their rights. Now that I want people to really understand and hear what I'm saying because this is also about protecting people against the removal of liberties and rights who have been accused of things that they haven't done and that there's no behavioral evidence for. But somebody has overlaid a term on top of them. They've said you're in denial, you're resistant, you're hysterical, you're whatever, failure to protect. All labels that have nothing to do, that do not give us any context, which are extremely dangerous in the context of the law. So I really want people to hear that what I'm advocating for and why I love the Safe and Together model and what you made is that it is behaviorally specific and makes it harder for individuals and systems to remove the rights of people who have done nothing wrong.
David Mandel :That's right. There's there's you're talking and I'm I think that's right.
R:I feel the volcano in reality. I love it.
David Mandel :Well, it's it's making me think about you know that we have allowed ourselves professionals, so I'm gonna kind of name name us as a group, to be lazy. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
R:It is lazy. It's not just lazy. It's not just lazy. It's dangerous. It's it's malfeasance, but it's malpractice, but what's it? All the mouths. It's all the mouths, okay?
David Mandel :So it it's all the mouths, and I I think it's i i you know, this idea that i denial becomes this proxy word, it's value laden for all the things that we've said. Yeah. And it becomes a shorthand and it becomes a justification for removing kids from survivors, for instance, or doing other things. Right.
R:Or removing women's liberties.
David Mandel :Right.
R:Or m removing men's liberties. That's right. It's very denial not as much, but but labels themselves. Very important.
David Mandel :And and and that to really to really understand that we we must ethically and for for the safety of children and for well-being of families, do the work to show the work and say what's our worry, what's the danger here? Yeah. And the danger isn't the denial, the danger is the perpetrator's behavior. And to turn it up.
R:We have a pharma implement going by. That's right. We all are just gonna have to be patient here for a second. Okay.
David Mandel :To to really this pivot to the perpetrator is so important. And so again, I'm gonna kind of break this down. This is probably enough for this episode, you know, in terms of what to do, but it's it's say what is she doing or saying that's making you believe or think or conclude that she's in denial? Again, framing this now as a conclusion, not as a fact.
R:Right.
David Mandel :And then and then asking, okay, what's your worry about those that that behavior, you know. She's saying she keeps going back to him, what's your worry about that? Right. And that should, in most cases, bring you to to the doorstep of the perpetrator's behavior, which you then could say, okay, let's explore that. And then for me, as as the person doing consultation to doing the work, I I could often say, okay, so I totally understand based on what you're describing about his behaviors that you'd be worried he's gonna do X, kill her, keep the kids from her. That's what it let's talk about one now, how the system's tried to intervene with him. Let's talk about what we can do now to intervene with him. Let's make sure your documentation reflects what we just talked about. Not that she's in denial, but his behavior continues to be your concern. Now, with that new framework, let's talk about how you can partner with her. Because if you go in and say to her, you're in denial, and the answer is more education, she's often going to be resistant. You're gonna entrap her more versus you going to say to her, hey, I'm worried too that he's dangerous. I see how hard you're working to keep the kids safe. Let's collaborate together to figure out what will make things better for you.
R:So there's another piece of the there's another plea piece of real important information that will come out of questioning the term denial, because it always leads back to she keeps going back, or I'm afraid, you know, she won't leave, either of those two. And that is that you know, being curious and saying you know, talk to me about that will lead us to the perpetrator. But also if you're a really adept professional, if you really know your stuff, if you're good at asking questions and you're really good at listening, you will hear the ecosystem around that survivor. You may hear things like she keeps going back to him because her mother keeps kicking her out of the house because she doesn't think that they should be divorced. Okay, now you have a case of lateral violence. You should know as a professional that that that there is that there is an ecosystem of entrapment and coercive control around that woman, and then you should move to being able to understand how to support her with that lack of support and that danger that's being caused by that lateral violence. A lot of times, denial is not just about the perpetrator. Denial is about lateral violence, it's about a structure of social control, it's about isolation. Think about our episode where we talked about rural communities. Right. Okay? Right. Where a woman who's fleeing domestic violence gets on a ferry, and I think about the Azores, because these are teeny islands and everybody knows each other and we're all related. Okay? This island's the biggest island. There's islands like Corvo where there's very few people or few thousand people. A few thousand people. So if a woman is being abused by her partner on those islands and she needs to escape, she needs to get on an airplane or a boat and leave. And so understanding denial may be understanding the impediments that are real to that person, to them finding safety in the context they're in.
David Mandel :Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Right. And so the danger here, just to just to keep reinforcing what we're talking about, is is going to this place of psychological explanations based on theories that have problematic origins at best.
R:Can you imagine, though, being a victim survivor who is trying to flee domestic abuse and maybe you live on one of the many islands in the Philippines. And your social worker comes from one of the larger islands and tells you you're in denial because you won't leave your perpetrator. Right. What a bunch of crazy making, crazy incompetent, I want to use a curse word. There we go.
David Mandel :Okay. You can imagine what she said. But it it it's really, you know, this is for for me again to to to direct this to professionals to really understand that we have power to either increase entrapment by the language we use or decrease it. And and and the language we use is can hurt or can help.
R:The language that we can use can lead to further entrapment and that woman's death and those children's further abuse. And that is very real.
David Mandel :Yes. And and it's so for us, the possibility of suggesting you can do this with different language. You can keep kids safe, you can partner with survivors. And and so what my my direct suggestion for professionals is go a week, go a month without using the word denial. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
R:Every time. As it relates to domestic abuse.
David Mandel :Okay.
R:Maybe that'll help.
David Mandel :And and and one last one last um, you know, we're going to be doing this bridging, I think, a little more on this podcast is if you're using AI and you're using untrained AI, it's very dangerous. Be really careful about the answers it gives you in areas like this, because untrained AI is going to the common cultural narrative. So all of the Trevor Burrus, it's even worse.
R:It's very victim-blaming. It's very dangerous.
David Mandel :And it's also it's it's it's programming to please will follow if you're already talking about denial.
R:Trevor Burrus, Jr.: If you're like an abusive guy and you go on AI and you you bent to AI about your story of abusing your partner. AI is going to be like, oh, you're a good guy.
David Mandel :Right.
R:You're good. You're all okay.
David Mandel :Trevor Burrus, Jr. But part of, you know, specifically to this is I've been I've been we've been working to train the Safety Nexus AI and constantly comparing it to untrained AI and the answers are really different. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
R:They're very dangerous.
David Mandel :Trevor Burrus And and one of the places it's different is it doesn't know how untrained AI doesn't know how to deal with this kind of situation. And it follows this cultural slash professional narrative. Trevor Burrus, Right. And doesn't question it. And safe and together gives you tangible, concrete methodologies to not only question the practice, but change the practice. And that's so critical.
R:Trevor Burrus, Jr.: And powerfully not to change the practice in a structural way that knocks up against things like forms or your mandated actions, but that really just changes language. It changes the focus of the language. And that is really in your control. That's in your control. Even in the report context that you're all existing in, even in the different documentation worlds that we all have to live in, and we all have to live in documentation worlds, you can change your language. Now there is going to be mandated language that you have to use, terms that are culturally applied, that are more about the culture of that organization. It is not necessary to use the words denial or failure to protect. That is a cultural thing. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
David Mandel :Right. These are a lot of things are within your control. That's the good news for professionals, is it's within your control to change today. So my invitation is for next week or next month is to do your practice without ever writing down or using the word with another professional or using it with a survivor themselves, the word denial with about survivors.
R:Take it out of your own.
David Mandel :And take it out and see what it shift in the way you work.
R:Auto-delete, auto-delete, auto-delete, auto-delete.
David Mandel :All right. So this has been our far-reaching, but also very narrowly focused.
R:It was very narrowly focused. This is not one of our deep dives. Did you know that our listeners prefer at least an hour of conversation?
David Mandel :Oh my God.
R:I know. Right? They like the chitter chatter.
David Mandel :They like the chitter chatter. So anyway, I don't know how long this one was. But I really appreciate your land acknowledgement and and I think we're going to have to start doing video so people can see, particularly see you and the passion and the feeling you bring to the conversation. And to see more of our dynamic, I guess, might be might be interesting and illuminating. But you uh if you like this, please, please like it on the platform you're listening. Please share it. Please make comments. All these things increase our listenership, to be honest, and really let us know what's going on. Yeah.
R:Please, please, please make an audio clip of me going and loop it on a button whenever you hear the word denial or failure to protect.
David Mandel :Really? Okay. This is what are you doing? Are you gonna make a meme? Are you gonna make I will. Okay.
R:I will make media for this. You'll make media.
David Mandel :I will make media for this. So you've been listening to Partner with Survivor. And who are you? I'm David Mandel still.
R:And my name is Ruth Raimundo. And we are out.
David Mandel :Out.