Top 39 Lundy Bancroft Quotes
#1. Some people feel threatened by the concept that abuse is a solvable problem, because if it is, there's no excuse for not solving it.
Lundy Bancroft
#2. One-on-one approaches to overcoming abuse work well only when the wider community pulls together to create an environment in which the victims are supported and the abusers held accountable.
Lundy Bancroft
#3. I have never seen a client make a serious effort to confront his abusiveness unless somebody required him to do the work. The abuser who truly enters counseling voluntarily, with no one holding anything over his head, quits within a few sessions, unless he finds a counselor he can manipulate.
Lundy Bancroft
#4. The scars from mental cruelty can be as deep and long-lasting as wounds from punches or slaps but are often not as
obvious. In fact, even among women who have experienced violence from a partner, half or more report that the man's emotional abuse is what is causing them the greatest harm.
Lundy Bancroft
#5. It is fine to commiserate with a man about his bad experience with a previous partner, but the instant he uses her as an excuse to mistreat you, stop believing anything he tells you about that relationship and instead recognize it as a sign that he has problems with relating to women.
Lundy Bancroft
#6. When people conclude that anger causes abuse, they are confusing cause and effect. Ray was not abusive because he was angry; he was angry because he was abusive. Abusers carry attitudes that produce fury.
Lundy Bancroft
#7. Never believe a man's claim that he has to harm his partner in order to protect her; only abusers think this way.
Lundy Bancroft
#8. Bringing about change in an abuser generally requires four elements: (1) consequences, (2) education, (3) confrontation, and (4) accountability.
Lundy Bancroft
#9. Children do best when parents are neither overly strict nor overly permissive, providing firm structure but also allowing for dialogue, respectful conflict, and compromise.
Lundy Bancroft
#10. Abusers thrive on creating confusion, including confusion about the abuse itself.
Lundy Bancroft
#11. Abusers drive wedges between people, by accident or by design.
Lundy Bancroft
#12. The vast majority of women who say that they are being abused are telling the truth. I know this to be true because the abusers let their guard down with me, belying their denial.
Lundy Bancroft
#13. In short, the abusive mentality is the mentality of oppression.
Lundy Bancroft
#14. Abusiveness can be thought of as a recipe that involves a consistent set of ingredients: control, entitlement, disrespect, excuses, and justifications (including victim blaming) - elements that are always present, often accompanied by physical intimidation or violence.
Lundy Bancroft
#15. Abuse is the product of a mentality that excuses and condones bullying and exploitation, that promotes superiority and disrespect, and that casts responsibility on to the oppressed.
Lundy Bancroft
#16. The U.S. Surgeon General has declared that attacks by male partners are the number one cause of injury to women between the ages of fifteen and forty-four.
Lundy Bancroft
#17. A woman can feel that she is losing her mind - or develop actual psychiatric symptoms - if the obvious realities of her life, including abuse, are denied repeatedly by her partner.
Lundy Bancroft
#18. I can't solve his problems, and it's not my fault that he thinks I should.
Lundy Bancroft
#19. RESEARCH INDICATES THAT A WOMAN'S INTUITIVE SENSE OF WHETHER OR NOT HER PARTNER WILL BE VIOLENT TOWARD HER IS A SUBSTANTIALLY MORE ACCURATE PREDICTOR OF FUTURE VIOLENCE THAN ANY OTHER WARNING SIGN.
Lundy Bancroft
#20. In reality, to remain neutral is to collude with the abusive man, whether or not that is your goal. If you are aware of chronic or severe mistreatment and do not speak out against it, your silence communicates implicitly that you see nothing unacceptable taking place.
Lundy Bancroft
#21. THE ABUSER'S PROBLEM IS NOT THAT HE RESPONDS INAPPROPRIATELY TO CONFLICT. HIS ABUSIVENESS IS OPERATING PRIOR TO THE CONFLICT: IT USUALLY CREATES THE CONFLICT, AND IT DETERMINES THE SHAPE THE CONFLICT TAKES.
Lundy Bancroft
#22. Abuse and respect are diametric opposites: You do not respect someone whom you abuse, and you do not abuse someone whom you respect.
Lundy Bancroft
#23. One of the prevalent features of life with an angry or controlling partner is that he frequently tells you what you should think and tries to get you to doubt or devalue your own perceptions and beliefs.
Lundy Bancroft
#24. I wish I could somehow recover all those years I wasted waiting around for him to deal with his issues." Save yourself that sadness if you can, by insisting on nothing less than complete respect.
Lundy Bancroft
#25. Alcohol cannot create an abuser, and sobriety cannot cure one. The only way a man can overcome his abusiveness is by dealing with his abusiveness. And you are not "enabling" your partner to mistreat you; he is entirely responsible for his own actions.
Lundy Bancroft
#26. Abuse counselors say of the abusive client: When he looks at himself in the morning and sees his dirty face, he sets about washing the mirror.
Lundy Bancroft
#27. One of the basic human rights he takes away from you is the right to be angry with him.
Lundy Bancroft
#28. Encourage the women in your life - your friends, sisters, mothers, daughters - to insist on dignity and respect, to have faith in themselves, to be proud. Expect boys and men to be respectful, kind, and responsible, and don't settle for less.
Lundy Bancroft
#29. HE ISN'T ABUSIVE BECAUSE HE IS ANGRY; HE'S ANGRY BECAUSE HE'S ABUSIVE.
Lundy Bancroft
#30. As a product of Anglo-Saxon-Protestant culture, I am familiar with its centuries-old tradition of hiding its abuse of women under pretty packaging.
Lundy Bancroft
#31. When we hear these kinds of excuses from a drunk, we assume they are exactly that - excuses. We don't consider an active alcoholic a reliable source of insight. So why should we let an angry and controlling man be the authority on partner abuse?
Lundy Bancroft
#33. The underlying attitude comes bursting out of his words: He believes his wife is keeping something of his away from him when she doesn't want intimate contact. He sees sexual rights to a woman as akin to mineral rights to land - and he owns them.
Lundy Bancroft
#34. But whether you stay or go, the critical decision you can make is to stop letting your partner distort the lens of your life, always forcing his way into the
center of the picture. You deserve to have your life be about you; you are worth it.
Lundy Bancroft
#35. -He drives recklessly or speeds up when he's angry.
-He punches walls or kicks doors.
-He throws things around, even if they don't hit you.
Lundy Bancroft
#36. Few people are aware of the severe human rights violations committed daily by family court judges across the country. These courts are siding over and over again with proven sexual abusers of children and batterers of women. I wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't done so much investigating.
Lundy Bancroft
#37. For decades, many therapists have been attempting to help abusive men change by guiding them in identifying and expressing feelings. Alas, this well-meaning but misguided approach actually feeds the abuser's selfish focus on himself, which is an important force driving his abusiveness.
Lundy Bancroft
#38. As long as we see abusers as victims, or as out-of-control monsters, they will continue getting away with ruining lives. If we want abusers to change, we will have to require them to give up the luxury of exploitation.
Lundy Bancroft
#39. Addiction does not cause partner abuse, and recovery from addiction does not "cure" partner abuse.
Lundy Bancroft
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