Who

The tutorial is not for you—

Please do not ask why about all of the above. It's just the way it is.

How

How much does it cost? (Refund Policy)

There are two parts to the tutorial:

Part 1 About the Tutorial is free.
Part 2 The Spouse Abuse Tutorial costs $10.00.

Refund Policy: There are no refunds because the refund process costs us more than the fee.

Due to admin costs, and the extremely low cost for the tutorial, we do not reissue lost passwords.

If you lose your password you must register and pay again. For this reason, bookmark the Payment Confirmation Page (the page that contains the username and passwords).

Your registration is not transferable. You may not give out the tutorial password to another.

Long

How long does it take to do the tutorial?

There are two parts to the tutorial.

Part 1 — About the Tutorial takes about 2-5 minutes to read each of the 18 pages (approx 1 hour total). You can read a page and come back the next day, etc. Take as long as you wish. There is tremendous value to be gotten from reading all 18 pages.

If you intend to do the tutorial you must read each of the 18 About the Tutorial pages.

Part 2 The Spouse Abuse Tutorial (also referred to as The Tutorial) has a total of 29 pages.  It takes less than one hour to read. Six times throughout the tutorial you are prompted to send feedback (your thoughts). Three of the six times are optional. Allow for the time it takes to compose and post your feedback on the password protected Spouse Abuse Tutorial Message Board.

Many participants read a few pages and take a recess from the tutorial so as to allow time to absorb/process what they read. Some even take a recess and return several months later to pick up where they left off.

For example: The coach may ask you to recall a time you hit someone. Because you have committed hundreds of perpetrations since then it's possible that your mind his hiding the incident, (it's called going unconscious). However, through one of the tutorial's communication exercises, and possibly some recess time, you will be able to recall and complete some of the incompletes that were in fact covering it up and then you'll be able to recall the hitting incident. The mind hides things from itself. Unbeknownst to you your first hitting incident has been running you to this day, affecting all outcomes. Each of us have several key incompletes, which when acknowledged, release the negative karma so to speak.

Fellow tutorial participants may comment on your feedback, your message board posts, thereby engaging you in conversations. You may post as often as you wish to the password protected Spouse Abuse Tutorial Message Board.

Happen

What will happen if I do the tutorial?

You will facilitate completing your experience of abuse. Why? Because only someone absolutely intent on completing his/her experience of abuse completes the tutorial. It's that simple.

Complete here means, that you will have control over your addiction to abusive conversations. You will recognize immediately when you are about to sanction/reward/cause abuse in another—you will give the person a choice to acknowledge, retract or correct it or you'll remove yourself from the conversation and the relationship until they do.

In other words, you'll begin to notice yourself doing the same things you did before that created the abuse but this time around you'll observe yourself causing it, intending it, for reasons. Eventually you'll have a choice in the matter, right in the middle of a conversation. Eventually you will no longer attract abusive people into your life.

What is the educational philosophy of the tutorial?

The tutorial supports communicating from personal responsibility. It supports open, honest and spontaneous mutually satisfying communication mastery.

It is nonsectarian and nonpolitical.

Sample

How about a sample of the tutorial so I can get a feel for it?

Once you have read the About the Tutorial: pages 1 through 18, you will have an excellent idea of the tutorial, its page sizes, how it's written, and it's format. 

There is nothing to learn and there is no outside reading. There is no homework or memorizing nor do you have to stop doing certain behaviors. It's definitely not about changing you or the way you speak or say things. And, the truth is you will find yourself having choices. It is about enlightenment which is often defined as putting light where there was none. Most importantly, the tutorial is about your ability and willingness to follow instructions.

The challenge when doing the tutorial is to read each sentence. Just as you pooh-poohed parents and adults when you were young, so too will you here. And that's OK. The difference here is that you are willing to allow it to enter your mind. And, you will express to the coach that with which you disagree rather than just shut down in hopelessness. You don't have to agree with the material. Just allow it to enter your mind, by choice. If there are any truths here they will begin to be acted upon automatically.

Therapy

Is the tutorial the same as therapy?

The tutorial is educational. It is not therapy nor is it a substitute for therapy. It is not about you getting better or someone trying to fix you. It's not about trying to figure out things or analyzing behaviors.

A communication consultant (the tutorial coach) comes from the ground of being that you are fine just the way you are, even though you may believe there's something wrong with you. The coach also knows that there are certain conversations that you have yet to have in order to experience being whole and complete.

The tutorial is about introducing you to another communication model. It's a given that your present communication model, the way you communicate, produces some undesirable problems. More accurately the tutorial supports you in communicating from a different ground of being, one that produces the results you say you want.

The tutorial supports you in looking at some conversations you've had. Together you and the coach look at what didn't work, much like a soccer coach will discuss the game with the team after a match, so that the team doesn't automatically go out and make the same mistakes. During such clearings the team also gets reinforced for what did work. Many of our childhood conversations are still floating around in the back of our minds, as incompletes, because we did not share them with someone skilled at just getting them. Many of our childhood memories are inaccurate, they exist as lies, and so they are cause for continually devastating consequences.

damaged

Can I get mentally damaged doing the tutorial?

If this is a concern then you should not do the tutorial. 

Important:  

It does not work to do the tutorial and be asking someone else, a spouse or friend, what they think about what you've read. To do so would definitely sabotage your tutorial and almost certainly turn someone against the coach and the tutorial without them having done it. It would in fact reveal your addiction to sabotage.

If you relate something you read in the tutorial to someone it will definitely turn them off. If you find yourself trying to teach or inform someone of something you read in the tutorial the tutorial will not work for you. The tutorial is not designed to teach you how to teach others how to communicate or to teach them what you read in the tutorial. If you ignore this advice it will cause the tutorial to not work.

spouse

There is a fundamental flaw in your thinking. For you to ask the question means that you believe that you can change them.

"To reform a man you must begin with his grandmother." — Victor Hugo

One of the reasons prison recidivism rate is so high is because prison reformers do not counsel and reform the family and friends whose communication model effected the incarceration. "Friends" and relatives will continue to communicate in ways that support a parolee in returning to prison. For more about recidivism read about the Community Support Group Project.

Even if you could get your spouse to look at the web site it is highly unlikely that they would do the tutorial without you prodding them. Why? Because they would be doing it for you, to keep you from leaving, or to save the relationship, not because they searched out the tutorial. Notice that you are the one looking at doing the tutorial, not they.

The truth is you don't have the leadership/communication skills it takes to effect a transformation in your partner. The tutorial will support you in becoming clear about your addiction to abuse and to abusive people. In so doing eventually you will begin to have a choice, to not attract or hang around abusive people.

Is your partner presently in therapy working on themselves or do they honestly believe that things would be OK if only you were ... ? If they are blaming you, then you are addicted to hanging around a blamer. Not at all healthy.

Unless you know for certain that they absolutely want, admire and respect you (not just love you) and that you know they desperately want the relationship to work (not, just believe them because they say they want it to work) it is doubtful that you will be able to "get" them to do the tutorial. Even if you threaten to leave them if they don't do the tutorial it won't work. If they do it because you force them you may at best have a civil way of communicating nicely during the split and thereafter. 

Here's what happens. If you do the tutorial and they don't then you'll no longer be communicating in the way that caused them to be attracted to you or in the ways that have kept them around. You will be communicating from certainty and power and equal mutually shared control.  Worse yet, their victim/control communication patterns will be so obviously adversarial that you will be repulsed by them. 

In short, you must do the tutorial for yourself. If they choose to come along, great. If not, that's great also. Is that honest enough for you?

would

Would my responses be shared with anyone other than the coach or used in research or for educational purposes of any kind?

Your posts are read by the tutorial coach, other Spouse Abuse Tutorial participants, and the board members of Community Communications. Each have the option of replying to your post. The board members read your posts because they get value from doing so, to keep informed of what's happening, and as a means of coaching me, the coach.

Data accumulated over the years is sometimes shared with others but only in general terms. For example: Of X number of participants who have submitted a tutorial agreement over the past five years , X number have completed the tutorial. From this statistic we could say, "Integrity is a key factor in completing one's experience of abuse." Or, from data collected we could write, 'We have found that most participants acknowledge that they are addicted to interacting with abusive people." Or, "Most participants are able to identify their first lie." 

Regarding sharing the content of anyone's feedback/posts. For example: Content such as "my husband beat me," "I stole a car," "I owe back taxes etc." shared on the message board is password protected. It would be inappropriate to share or quote content in such a way that anyone, a participant or the coach, could recognize him/herself. It is virtually worthless for another to read our (yours and my) posts because they are sequentially experiential and significant only to us (you and me, the coach). Any single sentence shared out of context of all (yes all) previous interactions, (to include all that you've read here) would not be accurate. It would mislead another. Because our relationship starts out squeaky clean we (me the coach, the board members, and other tutorial participants) are able to trace a communication breakdown back to its source. Keep in mind that many tutorial participants (including those who are taking a recess doing volunteer assignments) monitor our posts. Many other participants choose to observe silently and not interact unless they read something that begs correction or feedback.

However, sharing your thoughts on the Spouse Abuse Tutorial Message Board, the board used by other participants, reveals any possible errors in your thinking or belief system. It's to your benefit to have as many participants read your posts as possible. Someone is bound to have the feedback that will effect a transformation for you.

If we, Community Communications, finds itself in litigation due to a participant's post, we reserve the right to reveal all communications so as to effect clarity, understanding, and resolution.