Further reading
Everything on Clearr is written fresh. These are the books, research and organisations that shaped the thinking, listed so you can go deeper or check our working.
Books
- Lundy Bancroft & JAC Patrissi, Should I Stay or Should I Go? A Guide to Knowing if Your Relationship Can — and Should — Be Saved (Berkley, 2011). The closest ancestor of this site: distinguishing ordinary difficulty from immaturity, addiction, mental ill-health and abuse, and what real change looks like.
- Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men (Berkley, 2002). Control as entitlement and belief rather than loss of temper.
- Mira Kirshenbaum, Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay (Plume, 1996). A diagnostic approach to ambivalence in ordinary unhappy relationships.
- John Gottman & Nan Silver, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (Orion, 1999). Evidence-based predictors of breakdown and repair in relationships where both partners are willing.
- Evan Stark, Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life (Oxford University Press, 2007). The model behind the UK's coercive control legislation.
- Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear (Little, Brown, 1997). Trusting instinct; separation as the period of highest risk.
- Jess Hill, See What You Made Me Do (Hurst, 2020). A readable account of coercive control and why leaving is not simple.
- JAC Patrissi, Growing a New Heart (retreats and writing) (growinganewheart.com). Survivor-side recovery and identity.
UK organisations and research
- Women's Aid — Federation of domestic abuse services in England; definitions, research, the Survivors' Handbook.
- Refuge — Runs the National Domestic Abuse Helpline (0808 2000 247).
- Respect — Accredits perpetrator programmes; runs the Men's Advice Line and the Respect Phoneline.
- SafeLives — Research and practice on risk and whole-family responses.
- Surviving Economic Abuse — The UK charity on economic abuse.
- Galop — LGBT+ anti-abuse charity and helpline.
- Scottish Women's Aid — Scotland, including the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018.
- Rights of Women — Free legal advice lines on family law and domestic abuse.
- Relate — Relationship counselling, including for individuals; not for relationships where there is fear.
Law
Serious Crime Act 2015 s.76 (controlling or coercive behaviour, England & Wales); Domestic Abuse Act 2021; Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018; Family Law Act 1996 Part IV (non-molestation and occupation orders); Children Act 1989; Practice Direction 12J. Legislation is on legislation.gov.uk. Nothing on this site is legal advice.