Partnered with a Survivor: David Mandel and Ruth Reymundo Mandel

In this episode, Ruth and David discuss how family and friends can be effective allies to loved ones living in abuse. Victims often first disclose to friends and family members, but even with the desire to be supportive, kin can respond with judgment and victim-blaming. These responses can have the effect of silencing the survivor, increasing their isolation, shame, and sense of being trapped.  Da...

In this episode, Ruth and David start their Sunday morning with a discussion of male parental development, a concept that David coined to help professionals work more effectively with men and families. In many ways, societies fail in how we prepare boys to be parents. While girls' education and preparation for parenting may start with her first doll, our first discussion with boys about paren...

In this episode, Ruth and David explore the common and entirely normal trauma responses experienced by victims and survivors—and how those responses are often weaponized against them by perpetrators and by systems charged with ensuring safety. Ruth shares personal reflections on the trauma responses she experienced and witnessed growing up in an abusive cult alongside more than 50 other people, of...

In this episode, David and Ruth continue their conversation on masculinities and their relationship to power, gender, and abuse. They unpack the limits of the term “toxic masculinity,” explore how men’s positive—and harmful—impacts on family functioning are often underestimated, and reflect on where our current conversations about gender may be falling short. As they examine how culture has framed...

In this episode, David and Ruth explore how professionals’ emotional safety and trauma intersect with working in domestic abuse and child maltreatment systems. They discuss how all professionals bring personal experiences, histories, and biases into their work—including lived experiences of violence—and why acknowledging this reality is essential to safe, ethical, and sustainable practice. The con...

In this episode, Ruth and David discuss gender double standards and how they impact the work with families. David shares some of his personal experiences as a male becoming engaged with the issue of male violence against women and explores how the understanding of men’s behaviors can help end victim-blaming. The conversation also considers how marginalized men have been denied their importance as...

In this episode, Ruth and David take a look at commonly used professional and mental health terms that hide perpetrator responsibility for patterns of abuse. They discuss how this impacts victims moving through systems that are not grounded in a practice of pivoting to focus on the perpetrator's patterns of behavior.  David and Ruth also discuss viewing the effects of abuse only as a patholog...

Victim-blaming is a persistent feature of systemic and individual failures to respond effectively to violence and safety. It appears consistently across countries, cultures, and professional systems—no matter where the work is done. Why does victim-blaming endure so universally, and what purpose does it serve within systems meant to protect? In this episode, David and Ruth explore how victim-blami...

In the premiere episode of Partnered with a Survivor , Ruth Reymundo Mandel and David Mandel, partners in their personal and professional lives, have a far-ranging and personal conversation about the relationship between coercive control and consent. From the defense strategy used by Harvey Weinstein to the re-victimization of a British national in a Cyprus rape case to the founding principles of...