The Abuse "Game" (And How Education Can Beat It)

The playbook abusive people follow is predictable, and observable. Knowing what to look for is the key to defeating it.

I’m old enough to remember when a “playbook” wasn’t just a metaphorical term, but an tangible, printed thing. I actually spent an early part of my professional life writing them. I didn’t write sports playbooks, mind you. I wrote ones about selling things. In the field of sales skills training in which I still work, we used the playbook framework to equip salespeople on how to beat their competitors and make their sales quotas. In these playbooks were all the things a salesperson needed to know, say and do to win a deal, like:

• ideal personas to pursue

• conversation scripts to follow to capture and keep prospects’ attention

• insights to share to plant seeds of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) in a prospect’s mind, if they were considering a competitor’s product, or staying with the status quo.

In the pre-digital era, playbooks were closely guarded physical assets, and for good reason. If someone from a competing company stumbled across a sales rep’s forgotten copy of his playbook in the seatback pocket of a plane on the way to a customer meeting, that person would suddenly be apprised of everything their competitor was doing to defeat them. And that knowledge would then become the weapons they could use to fight back.

It may feel deeply unserious to use an analogy associated with playing sportsball or making money in conversations about identifying and eradicating abuse. And yet, while Satan cannot innovate, he does imitate.The playbook approach is precisely the methodology he employs to exploit and destroy the vulnerable through abuse, and deceive and disarm their would-be protectors.

He targets and uses people with particular characteristics. He creates conversational scripts they follow. He makes people doubt their own eyes and question their God-given instincts. He persuades people that there’s safety in maintaining the status quo, instead of immediate, soul-shattering danger.

All of us who follow Jesus want to follow His commands to protect the vulnerable and pursue justice for those who harm them. That’s especially true for anyone who works in any type of helping or development profession - education, healthcare, childcare, lay ministry or paid ministry.

If anything can be said to be “good” about abuse tactics, it’s that they can be detected, if you know what to look for. They’re also predictable. And because they’re predictable, they can be anticipated, observed, and addressed. All you need to do is study the playbook.

But when information and perspectives seem unlimited, and time is not, it’s difficult to know how to go about the work to do that study.

Since 2013, the Give Her Wings organization has been dedicated to equipping Christians in any type of helping vocations with insight, education and intervention tools for identifying and addressing abuse dynamics, through their 12-month online program called Give Her Wings Academy.

For the last several weeks I’ve had the opportunity to put my training background to work for Give Her Wings by helping them develop a new training series based on that program. Called GHW Academy Essentials, this three-part course is distilled from all of the rich content in the full-length Academy program. But it’s offered in a condensed, fully self-paced format, to make each course easier to complete and immediately actionable, all at a lower cost.

Each course contains approximately 12 lessons, each taking just over an hour to complete. They use a combination of video lectures and materials created by leading experts and advocates in the field of abuse prevention and recovery, and reflection questions to help participants understand and appropriate key concepts into their daily work.

Course 1, which releases on Monday, April 21, and is open for enrollment now, covers the essential topics related to understanding and identifying abuse dynamics, including:

• Key terms and definitions

• Behavioral patterns and signals in perpetrators, victims, and in the relationship between them

• Theological considerations in identifying abuse

• Legal considerations in identifying abuse

• Action strategies for determining next steps

Course 2 (on addressing abuse situations) and Course 3 (on living life after abuse) will be released later in the summer.

Identifying and addressing abuse dynamics is holy, serious work. It’s not a game. But when the Enemy is serious about turning it into one, taking the time to understand how he does that is the first step in thwarting his efforts, and in fulfilling our calling as Christians to defend the vulnerable.

Educational programs like GHW Academy Essentials offer a simple way to do just that.

I encourage you to take advantage of it.