Why is my website called abuselogic.ca?

The focus of my career has always been on working with survivors of all kinds of abuse. Early in my career, we didn’t have enough of a focus on how post-traumatic stress was impacting the survivors we worked with. There was a time when the literature about trauma focused only on war vets, vehicle collision survivors etc. 

Feminists over the decades worked very hard to get child abuse, intimate partner violence, and other forms of violence against women and children recognized as forms of trauma. I’m so grateful for their work and I’ve seen it transform our field. At the same time, I’ve noticed a shift where professional training and therapy have become so focused on trauma that we are starting to miss other important aspects of the abuse and other ways to help survivors heal. As I always say – sexual abuse therapy and domestic violence therapy are more than trauma therapy! 

A significant part of my work as a therapist, clinical supervisor/consultant, and a trainer is teaching about abuse logic, which refers to the thought patterns and assumptions that minimize, justify, and rationalize abuse. It's not just abusers who operate from a logic of abuse, victims can internalize it and our systems (legal, child welfare, medical) can replicate those dynamics. A focus on abuse logic (in addition to trauma) also includes understanding ambivalence, risk assessment, safety planning, co-parenting with an abuser, understanding the legal system, and working to heal when the abuse isn’t over. This part of the work is key to helping survivors move out of abusive and toxic dynamics so they can have healthier relationships and heal at a deeper level. This part of the work needs to be woven carefully into trauma work.