Customer Reviews

Helping Her Get Free: A Guide for Families and Friends of Abused Women

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If you know somebody who is a victim of spousal abuse, I highly recommend this book. It was immeasurably helpful in my experience.

Many of the reviews I have read for other examples of this type of book have been from social workers or instructors of some kind. I'm just a regular person. One day someone very close to me opened up about the spousal abuse she had endured for many years. I was the first person she had ever told. A year passed and I thought I was helping her, but her situation and her outlook, her actions and her excuses would barely change, or go completely backwards.

After finding this book by chance, reading it changed everything. I gained an understanding of how many of the predictable things I had done to "help" her would never help. Reading this book improved my understanding of her situation and my understanding of my own reactions. I took the author's advice and changed my behaviour accordingly. Every situation is going to be different, but within a couple months my friend was making dramatic advances.

She completely hid her situation for over a decade, but now she is getting professional help. She gives me a great deal of credit for helping her get herself out of the cycle she was in, but I credit this book. Reading this book was absolutely vital in my knowing how to act and react, and to really help her help herself. I would like to thank the author very much.

Great book, of things most of us would not think of, when dealing with a friend or family member who is in an abusive relationship. Really give you helpful ideas and techiques.

"Helping Her to Get Free" (formerly "To Be an Anchor in the Storm") by Susan Brewster, is an excellent, no-nonsense, book to help the family and friends of women who are in being abused by a spouse or boyfriend. The book identifies the many ways that abuse occurs, how to recognize the conditions, and describes the background behind abusive relationships. Mrs. Brewster provides ways that friends and family members can aid the woman by being "anchors" in that woman's life.

There is very little help out there for families and friends whose loved one is in an abusive situation. This is one of the rare books that helps worried families and friends understand a confusing, fearful relationship and its dynamics. Understanding is the beginning of being able to help, to be there with compassion and practical assistance, while lessening blame and anger which can isolate the abusee further. We were so grateful for this book. I have passed it on, repurchased it, encouraged it as a resource for many others struggling to learn what they can do and what they can't do.