This is a powerful Scientological (based on Scientology and Dianetics) pastoral analysis of why an abused spouse remains in an abusive relationship. Also included is a tract to give to battered women that they might better understand the emotions they are experiencing and where they come from. The text is based on the incredible film "Once Were Warriors", and is best presented in a group discussion after watching that movie. This author has had great success in pastoral counseling in the past, using this technology. For maximum impact you should read this material after watching the film "Once Were Warriors", which can be ordered from Amazon by the link below. If you or someone you know is the victim of domestic violence, incest, rape, or other abuse, you need to read this little book.

When one discusses domestic violence or its very numerous manifestations, the inevitable question, -Why does she stay in that relationship?- naturally arises among logical and rational people. We think that the question is more easily answered in the case of children, since we logically assume that children are intellectually inferior to adults; at least, this rationalization permits us to accept a less precise answer to the question. As we shall see, the answer is not that simple, because it requires us to abandon our preconceived notions about how the human mind works. If we can understand the underlying mechanism of how the mind really works, we will have the answer to -why-.

This dissertation explains how the underlying mechanism of inflicted trauma affects a human being, and how it is, that the more severe the abuse becomes, a victim becomes increasingly unable to take action to extract themselves from the situation - both during the infliction of the trauma, and long after the immediate danger has passed. This analysis is supported by the largest body of scientific research ever assembled on the human mind, and hundreds of thousands of case studies. For an albeit extreme example of domestic violence, we will use the motion picture -Once Were Warriors-.

First, we must discard our previous paradigms. These have been imposed upon us (the society-at-large) primarily by the psychologists, who are just as much in the dark, if not more so than the average American. Since so much literature, money, time, and effort has been devoted to attempting to understand this phenomena using the current nosology, there is a natural reluctance to change the way we think about a problem even when actions taken to solve the problem based on that thinking, yield little or no results. There is a true axiom:

    -Denial occurs when people have sacrificed so much, or have invested so much time, energy, and money in a point of view, that they feel a need to see things not as they are, but as they want them to be. The denial I speak of here is not a willful attempt to deceive, but rather the inability to confront empirical ^[6] fact, and scientific data that challenges one-s entire belief system, or the validity of his or her hard-won education. This inability to confront is related to a phenomenon known in Dianetics as -asserted rightness--. - Author