Kay's Words Hit Home: Throwing The Book At Abuse

She’s helping men and women see harmful signs

- Cloe Willetts

When Auckland author Kay Douglas was a young girl, she dreamt about writing a book telling adults how much it hurt when they were nasty. She often felt hurt as a child and scripted lines in her head, which she published decades later.

“I turned it into my book Challenged by Childhood: Healing the Hidden Hurts of a Difficult Childhood,” says Kay, 69, who works as a psychotherapist specialising in anger, abuse and trauma. “And now I work extensively with men using destructive behaviour and women in abusive relationships.”

Kay, who has six books to her name, is best known for her groundbreaking 1994 publication Invisible Wounds: A Guide for Women in Abusive Relationships. She wrote the bestseller in the aftermath of a volatile four-year-relationship, as a registered social worker.

“I was married the first time at 16 and we stayed together 13 years and had our son Rob Clancy, now 52, who is also a counsellor, and twin daughters Angela and Jenny Clancy, 50,” she tells. It was after her marriage ended that she found herself in an abusive relationship with another man.

The grandmother of five explains that she’d not picked up early signs of unhealthy behaviour. “I didn’t have any understanding of what I was dealing with,” she admits. “He was one of those people who came across very nice to begin with, but once you’re involved it deteriorates in stages. It was blamed on me and I couldn’t see the wood from the trees. I thought it was me for a long time.”