This informative and helpful guide will assist your clients in making positive strides toward a nonviolent life. Some of the tips and suggestions that are further explained in this workbook include:

Tips and Suggestions

Acknowledge to yourself and to others that you have a problem with anger, abuse, and control

Address mental health and chemical use issues if they are present in your life

Come to know that, when you become abusive, you are always feeling inadequate, powerless, and unlovable

Realize that controlling and abusive behavior hurts you and those you love

Understand that anger is different from abuse and control

Recognize that becoming abusive is always a choice

Instead of blaming others, take responsibility for what you feel, how you think, and how you act

Accept that you cannot control or change other people

Remember that you can always take a time-out

Think about the possible consequences before you become controlling and abusive

Identify what triggers your anger and your abusive and controlling attitudes and behaviors

Notice what you are thinking: Your thoughts can increase your escalation or calm you down

Become aware of all your feelings, not just your anger, and learn to respectfully communicate them to others

Turn conflicts into positive problem-solving opportunities

Control, abuse, and violence are learned: Think about the messages you received from your family and from society about what it is to be a man

Redefine manhood as nonviolent and nonabusive

Take the risk to count on other men for emotional support

Learn to feel a genuine sense of pride by taking control of how you view the world and how you act

Start to believe that you can truly change the controlling and abusive parts of who you have been