Women with Controlling Partners: Taking Back Your Life from a Manipulative or Abusive Partner

A controlling or abusive partner can break even the strongest person—unless you know what to look for. Written by an expert in intimate partner abuse and based on her highly successful recovery program for women with controlling partners, this book will give you the strength, courage, and strategies you need to acknowledge the problem and stand up for yourself once and for all—whether you stay or leave the relationship.

If you have a controlling partner, you aren’t alone. Millions of women suffer psychological abuse at the hands of a spouse or intimate partner during some point in their lives, not fully seeing or knowing what is happening to them. Research shows that psychological abuse affects women’s overall well-being more than physical abuse, is a bigger contributor to inducing fear, and can be a precursor to violence. To make matters worse, having a controlling partner often results in hidden injuries like anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, trauma, and low self-efficacy—feeling like you can’t make a difference in your life. So, where can you turn for help?

Based on over a decade of clinical and domestic abuse research, Women with Controlling Partners will help you identify the coercive constraints that can be predictive of intimate partner abuse, recognize the harmful effects of psychological abuse on your mental and physical health, and gain the personal strength and power to break free. Using the author’s three-stage recovery model, you’ll be empowered to move out of denial, deconstruct what holds you psychologically captive, and take back your life.

Abuse can be devastating, and having a controlling partner can make you feel crazy—and as if you’re the one responsible. But you’re not crazy, and you’re not to blame! With this important, one-of-a-kind recovery process, you’ll finally find the clarity of mind, courage, and strength to protect yourself from the hurtful control that damages your mental and physical health, and move toward a safer and happier life.

Carol A. Lambert, MSW, is a psychotherapist and domestic violence expert with three decades of clinical experience helping individuals and groups, and a career-long commitment to women’s psychological health. Since 1993, she developed a unique approach and cofounded the Recovery Groups for Women with Controlling Partners that bring together insights from mental health, trauma recovery, and domestic violence. At McLean Hospital, a psychiatric hospital affiliated with Harvard Medical School, she provides domestic violence training and consultation. Over the years, her expertise took her from educating volunteers in a domestic violence program affiliated with local police to providing training and consultation to the National Football League. In all her endeavors, she brings critical attention to psychological abuse and the major losses to women’s mental and physical health. She’s currently in private clinical practice in Belmont and Concord, MA.