1. Healthy Relationships
Serving Survivors of Crime and Abuse

2. The REACH Center, Inc.
• Referrals
• Education
• Advocacy
• Crisis Intervention/Counseling
• Hotline

3. Where are we located?
The REACH Center, Inc. has 3 offices to help our
clients:
• Columbia-Greene Community College
Room 316
518-828-4181 ext. 3179
• 4269 Rt. 9, Hudson, NY 12534
518-828-5556
• 371 Main St., Catskill, NY 12414
518-943-4482

4. Our services are FREE
All services provided by The REACH Center, Inc.
are completely free and confidential. Our
advocates are available 24-hours a day.
Survivors do not need to report their
crime/abuse to receive services.
The REACH Center does not report crimes to law
enforcement.

5. Services provided by The REACH Center
• Counseling and support for survivors of all
types of crime/abuse/violence and their
friends and family
• Education on the prevention of
crime/abuse/violence
• Advocacy, Accompaniments, Referrals and
Information
• Assistance in filing for Crime Victim Board
compensation

6. TYPES OF RELATIONSHIP ABUSE

7. Economic Abuse
• Preventing you from having or keeping a job
• Interfering with your efforts to maintain a job by sabotaging childcare, transportation, or other
arrangements
• Harassing you at work
• Refusing to work
• Not including you in family financial decisions
• Not allowing you access to the family finances
• Making you ask for money
• Taking your money
• Demanding an account of everything you buy
• Controlling your access to financial information
• Not allowing you to talk to others about money
• Not allowing your name to be on accounts, which would allow you to build credit
• Forcing you to put your name on accounts and then destroying your credit
• Making fun of your financial contribution and saying it is not worth anything
• Expecting you to behave in a certain way because you make less money or are not the
"breadwinner"
• Destroying or interfering with homework

8. Sexual Abuse
• Unwanted touching,
• Withholding sex,
• Demanding sex,
• Forcing sex,
• Name-calling with sexual epithets,
• Demanding sex after a violent incident,
• Forcing you to engage in prostitution or pornography,
• Forcing you to have sex with others besides your partner,
• Insisting on anything sexual that frightens or hurts you,
• Refusing to use safe sex practices,
• Preventing you from using birth control,
• Controlling your decisions about pregnancy and/or abortion,
• Alleging that you have a history of prostitution on legal papers,
• Telling you that "as a matter of law" in the United States that you must continue to
have sex with him whenever he wants until you are divorced.

9. Verbal Abuse
• Degrading you in front of friends and family,
• Telling hurtful "jokes" despite your requests to stop,
• Taking your statements out of context,
• Name calling,
• Insulting,
• Humiliation,
• Criticizing,
• Blaming,
• Accusing,
• Questioning your sanity.

10. Physical Abuse
• Pushing,
• Pinching or biting,
• Slapping, beating, or kicking,
• Choking,
• Backing you into a corner,
• Pinning you down,
• Throwing objects,
• Pulling your hair,
• Holding you captive,
• Breaking down a door to get to you,
• Preventing you from eating or sleeping,
• Locking you out of the house,
• Forcing your car off the road,
• Abandoning you in dangerous places,
• Keeping you from getting medical care,
• Spitting on you,
• Using or threatening to use a weapon against you,
• Driving at unsafe speeds to intimidate you,
• Refusing to help you when you are sick, injured, or pregnant,
• Withholding medications or medical treatment.

11. In a Healthy Relationship
• Both people have the same rights and privileges
• Responsibilities are shared
• Each respects, trusts, and believes the other
• Neither person sets rules for the relationship
• Individual interests, abilities and goals are
accepted
• Decisions are made together
• Both talk openly: neither is afraid to say what
they think

12. Effects of Abuse
• A Distrust of her spontaneity
• A loss of enthusiasm
• An uncertainty about how she is coming across
• A concern that something is wrong with her
• An inclination to reviewing incidents with the hopes of determining what went wrong
• A loss of self-confidence
• A growing self doubt
• An internalized “critical voice”
• A concern that she isn’t happier and ought to be
• An anxiety or fear of being crazy
• A sense that time is passing and she’s missing something
• A desire not to be the way she is- “too sensitive,” etc
• A hesitancy to accept her perceptions
• A reluctance to come to conclusions
• A desire to escape or run away
• A tendency to live in the future, e.g. “everything will be great when/after…”
• A distrust of future relationships

13. Effects of Abuse on Children
• Fear-of violence, of father (sometimes all men), of abandonment,
of night-time (when violence has occurred), of upheaval and loss of
family, of physical harm, of expressing feelings
• Anger- at father (for the violence), at mother (for not being able to
stop the violence), at self (for not being able to protect the mother)
• Guilt- feels responsible for violence, for being “disloyal” to
father/family, for having negative feelings about one or both
parents
• Confusion- who’s responsible for care-giving? Conflict over feelings
towards parents, unpredictable reactions from adults, child is
unable to trust, belief that relationship equals violence
• Powerlessness- to change things, for not being able to fix” the
family
• Shame- for being part of a defective family

14. CYCLE OF VIOLENCE

15. Tension Building
• Abuser starts to get angry
• Abuse may begin
• There is a breakdown of communication
• Victim feels the need to keep the abuser calm
• Tension becomes too much
• Victim feels like they are 'walking on egg
shells'

16. Incident
• Any type of abuse occurs
(physical/sexual/emotional)

17. Making - Up
• Abuser may apologize for abuse
• Abuser may promise it will never happen
again
• Abuser may blame the victim for causing the
abuse
• Abuser may deny abuse took place or say it
was not as bad as the victim claims

18. Calm
• Abuser acts like the abuse never happened
• Physical abuse may not be taking place
• Promises made during 'making-up' may be
met
• Victim may hope that the abuse is over
• Abuser may give gifts to victim

19. IMPACT OF ABUSE ON CHILDREN

20. Linking Childhood Abuse to
Relationship Abuse
• The “cycle of violence” hypothesis suggests
• that a childhood history of physical
• abuse predisposes the survivor to violence
• in later years. This study reveals
• that victims of neglect are also likely to
• develop later violent criminal behavior. If
• violence is begotten by not only violence,
• but also by neglect, far more attention
• needs to be devoted to the families of
• children who are abandoned and severely
• malnourished.

21. If you allow it,
you teach it

23. ENDING TROUBLED RELATIONSHIPS

24. Signs of a troubled relationship
• Decrease in communication
• Increase in the number of unresolved
conflicts, arguments, and/or abuse
• Significant change in the amount and quality
of time spent together

25. Reasons for ending a relationship
• One person realizes that the other simply isn’t a
good choice for him/her
• One person wants a different relationship than
the other wants
• One person changes so much that the needs and
interests of the two conflict
• One or both people have unreasonable
expectations for the relationship
• One or both have problems with the other’s
sexual expectations and/or values

26. Tips to end gracefully
• Make the decision
• Prepare for all kinds of feelings, even
uncomfortable ones
• Choose the time and place
• Explain your reason
• Make the end final-be clear and firm
• Develop other relationships