M.A. Sandra L. Brown - How to Spot a Dangerous Man Before You Get Involved

Table of Contents

How to Spot a Dangerous Man Before You Get Involved

Sandra L. Brown holds a masters degree in counseling. She is the founder and former executive director of Bridgework, Inc., a multifaceted nonprofit center for victims of violent crime. There, she provided both administrative leadership and clinical service through individual and group counseling.

She has worked as a therapist at hospital inpatient programs, residential treatment facilities, intensive outpatient programs, and other nonprofit treatment programs. She has been a keynote speaker, conference teacher, and workshop and retreat leader. She has taught counseling courses at the college level.

Sandra has provided consulting for human-service agencies in the area of program development for trauma-related disorders. She has assisted in international program development for the abandoned street children in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. She is a frequent guest of radio call-in shows and has hosted and produced her own TV show, A Voice for Victims.

She is the author of the books Counseling Victims of Violence and The Moody Pews, as well as numerous articles on clinical counseling and personal-growth issues.

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The material in this book is intended to help women identify dangerous and potentially dangerous relationships. Every effort has been made to provide accurate and dependable information. The contents of the book have been compiled through professional research and in consultation with other professionals. However, the reader should be aware that professionals in the field have differing opinions.

Therefore, the publisher, author, and editors, as well as the professionals quoted in the book, cannot be held responsible for any error, omission, professional disagreement, or dated material. The author and publisher assume no responsibility for any outcome of applying the information in this book in a program of self-care or under the care of a licensed practitioner. If you have questions about the application of the information described in this book, consult a licensed therapist. If you are in a violent or potentially violent relationship, please call a domestic-abuse hotline.

Diana Ross, the Supremes, and my mother were right: Trying to hurry love causes women to find out the hard way that love doesnt come easy. In How to Spot a Dangerous Man Before You Get Involved, Sandra Brown explains why such a panicked pursuit of relationships is leading another generation of women into the dance of victimization. No wonder women of all ages, cultures, socioeconomic backgrounds, and education levels grow numb from bad choices, ready to embrace another dangerous man.

If you want details about the man who done her wrong, listen to blues music. In this book, Sandy goes the next step. She shows women how to recognize different types of dangerous men, and then she shows them how to avoid being drawn into their sometimes deadly web of deceit. Using the skill shes honed as a therapist for victims of violence, Sandy gives simple, hardhitting explanations that expose a dangerous man as not just the guy who hits women or spends his paycheck on crack while the children go hungry. This book shows emphatically that a dangerous man is any man who is harmful to a womans emotional, physical, financial, sexual, or spiritual health. The book also offers a glimpse into what psychologists know about psychopathology by revealing dangerousness as a pervasiveor, in lay terms, permanentpattern of behaviors. It may be a wake-up call to women of all ages to learn that they have a right to refuse to compromise their safety and well-being by wasting time trying to change in a man what is unchangeable even with the help of highly trained professionals.

Women who are bold enough to take this information to heart and examine their own dating patterns have a chance to break free and find a satisfactory, life-affirming relationship with a man who values his mate. Yes, says Sandra Brown, there are men like that. Those men will be the first to applaud this book, because they dont want their mothers, sisters, aunts, friends, or female coworkers to fall prey to dangerous men.

Sandy leaves readers with hope by showing them how to identify their own red flags and then how to use these intuitive warnings to flee before its too late. As she cautions, You cant avoid what you dont see. Hopefully reading this book will stop the pain from getting worse and will prevent the loss of another womans dignity, sanity, the contents of her bank account, and possibly her life to a dangerous man.

I have looked at the issue of dangerous men from the various perspectives of woman, mother, therapist to victims, and therapist to dangerous men. Over time, I have gathered some thoughts from the enlightening experiences I have had with both victims and perpetrators. How to Spot a Dangerous Man Before You Get Involved is a natural outgrowth of the sociological concerns, the experience-based awareness, the professional knowledge, the parental fright, and the feminist perspectives I have gained from my dealings with dangerous men.

I came to my knowledge about dangerous men through my profession. I have been a psychotherapist for fifteen years and have treated female victims of violent crime. These women have lived through interactions and relationships with dangerous men that included assaults, stalking, rapes, emotional devastation, financial ruin, and child abductions. From their stories I learned what women have survived at the hands of dangerous men (and, tragically, sometimes not survived, since some were murdered), and I learned what dangerous men do to trusting women.