This is self-work and I'm Dr. Margaret Rutherford at self-work. We'll discuss psychological and emotional issues common in today's world and what to do about them.

I'm Dr. Margaret and self-work is a podcast dedicated to you taking just a few minutes today for your own self-work.

Hi, I'm Dr. Margaret. Welcome or Welcome back to Self- Work. I'm a clinical psychologist.

I've been in private practice for a little over 20 years in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and I began this podcast a little over four months ago with the intent of trying

to reach people that one might never walk through a therapist door, but two, also to reach people who might like to hear

what a therapist has to say about emotional issues or mental illness.

So that's why I'm here. I have a very direct down-to-earth

approach to mental illness or mental health problems, and that's what I'm trying

to convey to you. Today we're going to be talking about when you aren't safe in a relationship,

basically domestic violence. I'm going to tell you the story of how I began working as a psychologist

by volunteering at the Bar women's shelter in Dallas.

And how that experience affected me.

If you've never, hopefully, been in a shelter, it is a dramatic and explosive place. It's a place for healing, but it's also very

complicated. The whole issue of domestic violence is very complicated. I'm going to

report some figures on domestic abuse, but we're not

going to talk today necessarily about all the factors that keep a woman or a man

involved in a violent relationship, whether that violence is emotional, sexual, or physical.

But I am going to give you an exercise that we taught volunteers at the Battered Women's

shelter on how to develop more empathy with a victim, why she or he doesn't

leave so that we don't judge, we don't evaluate without trying to walk in someone's shoes.

Then the last thing we're going to talk about is an email from a listener

about a post I, she actually saw of mine on the Huffington Post,

...