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Family Violence

She Is Not Your Rehab founder hopes new book breaks cycle of abuse

The co-founder of the anti-domestic violence campaign She Is Not Your Rehab is releasing a new book in the hopes it will help break the cycle of abuse.

Matt Brown runs a Christchurch barbershop where he chats with the men who come to sit in his chair to help end the cycle of domestic violence. He's also given a TEDx Talk and taken his message to the world on social media.

He and his wife Sarah have now written a book called She Is Not Your Rehab. In it, Brown shares his own story and those of his clients about how they survived family violence and abuse, their healing process, and how they turned their lives around.

Brown told The Project on Wednesday he hopes the book will give readers the chance to "see a different window to life" and break the cycle of abuse.

"We want it to be accessible to all people, that healing is possible despite your upbringing, no matter where you've come from, [and] that it is possible to heal and do the work," he says.

In the book, Brown shares the story of Liam, a young man who walked into his barbershop one night to get a haircut. He says while Liam was looking at his new haircut, he began to cry.

"I asked him why he was crying and he said he'd planned for this haircut to be his last haircut, as in this haircut was the haircut for his funeral after he would take his own life.

"We talked, and thank God, luckily Liam decided not to go through with it, but when he walked out of my little barber shed he turned around to me and said, 'Thank you for seeing me'. And I knew he wasn't talking about fitting him in for a haircut, it was just seeing him and accepting who he was."

Brown says the book is also for women, even though statistics show the majority of violence happens at the hands of men.

"It's my invitation for men to own their story because in owning our story, that's where the magic happens. We can eradicate the mask that the shame has on our lives."

Watch the video above.

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