Slavery is Alive (1995) by Ethel Quiring and Hugh Savage came to my attention shortly after it was published. I was a co-presenter with a lawyer friend at a Canada Health conference on abuse. My topic was on the role of power and control in abusive relationships. After the seminar, a participant brought my attention to this new book that was in hot debate on the local university campus where Dr. Hugh Savage had been a professor.
For years I had looked for materials on how the misuse of power and control in relationships affected the foundations of emotional, psychological, physical, spiritual, and sexual abuse. Books on abuse would usually, if any, have a couple paragraphs or at most a chapter on the subject.
The “Slavery Book,” as it has come to be known, was the first book I found that was fully dedicated to uncovering issues related to control. It was a relief for me to see that others were also comprehensively studying these same issues in attempts to help people find freedom from interpersonal control. This insightful book soon became recommended reading for my clients and students. I value my acquaintance with this author couple because of this common bond.
Slavery is Alive – And We Are Not Well, How to Recognize and Escape Inter-Personal Control, continues to be a valuable read as clients struggle to understand control issues within their relationships. Many who suffer from the misuse of power and control in their marriages, families, and religious circles continue to find help from Ethel and Hugh’s early work.
Their concepts on personhood and the portraits of a controller and victim that categorize the levels of control have been useful in determining the type of control at work in abusive relationships. It shines a spotlight on the how and why controllers and their victims are enslaved to each other. It also exposes ways to escape those destructive controls. It has been an important nudge to open the door in the talk therapy world on this invaluable topic. In light of the controlling nature at the core of abusive relationships, slavery is the best way to describe it.
