The REACH Center provides free and confidential services to survivors of crime, abuse, and violence through three offices in the Hudson Valley region of New York. Services include counseling, advocacy, referrals, crisis intervention, and education. The document defines different types of relationship abuse such as economic, sexual, verbal, and physical abuse. It also describes the typical cycle of violence in an abusive relationship and some signs that a relationship may be troubled. Tips are provided for ending relationships gracefully.

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