More women than ever before are reaching out for help from its frontline services, Women’s Aid reported in June 2023. The Women’s Aid Annual Impact Report 2022 outlines 31,229 contacts with its National Freephone Helpline and Regional Face-to-Face services – a 16 percent increase on the previous year, and the highest ever recorded. During these contacts, 33,990 disclosures of domestic abuse were made, including 5,412 reports of abuse of children. This stark picture is an indictment of our failure, in Europe and elsewhere, to reduce the level of male intimate abuse, in spite of the extraordinary energy and dedication of thousands of practitioners and academics.
In this challenging book, internationally acclaimed expert on coercive control Don Hennessy examines our practices, procedures, attitudes and beliefs in relation to this issue. He demonstrates how we have made few inroads in this area – either into the prevalence of male intimate abuse, or in relation to the tactics that support the ability of the male intimate abuser to establish and maintain his control. It is vital that all agencies, both statutory and non-governmental, work together to change our position from one of support to one of protection. The protection that Hennessy promotes is not that of the physical refuge alone, but the mental safeguard which will allow each target-woman to follow her own intuition.
How He Wins focuses on the impact of abuse on the target-woman’s family members, and features numerous powerful personal stories. It is essential reading for any woman who has been the target of domestic abuse and has found herself abandoned by the community, and for all those who work in this area.
Also available by Don Hennessy: Steps to Freedom