tackle an ageless problem, and make a compelling case for society to respond with a mid-course correction to the needs of battered women, through their book: Listening to Battered Women: A Survivor-Centered Approach to Advocacy, Mental Health, and Justice. Goodman and Epstein bring into focus the ways in which seemingly disparate groups-domestic violence advocacy, the mental health system, the justice system-too often all bow to their individual constituencies, such as funding sources, government agencies, and professional societies, rather than truly listening to and addressing the needs of battered women themselves.
Colleagues familiar with Goodman's and Epstein's work have witnessed first hand how the authors have drawn near battered women and listened intently to their voices. Goodman and Epstein have worked personally and passionately as collaborators with battered women, not simply as experts with a specific agenda. At the same time, they have been fully engaged in ''working the system'' to the advantage of battered women. They are thus uniquely poised to bridge the gap between two worlds and two languages-that of battered women, and that of the societal system that seeks to support them. By their own willingness to step out of the Ivory Tower and humbly enter the world of battered women, while simultaneously leveraging their positions of power for the sake of advocacy, Goodman and Epstein model the feasibility of what they preach. On the one hand, they are close enough to the survivor's heart that they understand the nuances of her disempowerment, and how the system fails her. On the other hand, having wrestled within the systems they speak of, they are able to go beyond identifying what is broken, to identifying realistic steps for repair.
Dr. Liang discloses that she is a colleague of Lisa Goodman's in the Lynch School of Education, Boston College. Dr. Tummala-Narra discloses no institutional ties to either author.