Her Mind Is Not the Problem: Using Safe & Together™ to Prevent Misdiagnosis in DFV
Tracks
Ballroom 2
| Monday, August 31, 2026 |
| 1:25 PM - 1:45 PM |
Overview
Jackie Wruck, Safe And Together Institute Australia
Three Key Learnings
1. Participants will be able to recognise how coercive control and abuse can shape women’s mental health symptoms and be mistaken for disorders.
2. Participants will be able to use the Safe & Together™ mapping approach to tell the difference between trauma responses and primary mental health conditions.
3. Participants will be able to shift their assessment lens from “What is wrong with her?” to “What is happening to her?” to improve safety and treatment planning.
Speaker
Jackie Wruck
Asia Pacific Regional Manager
Safe And Together Institute - Australia
Her Mind Is Not the Problem: Using Safe & Together™ to Prevent Misdiagnosis in DFV
Abstract
Applying the Safe & Together™ Model to Address Misdiagnosis of Women Impacted by Domestic and Family Violence
Women living with domestic and family violence (DFV) are often diagnosed with conditions such as borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, complex PTSD, or “treatment-resistant” depression without a full assessment of the abuse occurring in their lives. Symptoms like hypervigilance, emotional distress, self-harm, substance use, or difficulty engaging in services can be understandable responses to coercive control, financial abuse, threats about children, technology-facilitated surveillance, or post-separation stalking. When these patterns are not explored, women’s survival responses can be mistaken for individual pathology.
The Safe & Together™ (S&T) Model offers a practical way to bring the context of abuse back into mental health assessment. Using the perpetrator pattern mapping approach, practitioners document the specific behaviours of the person using violence — for example isolating her from family, undermining her parenting, sabotaging employment, or manipulating legal systems. The model then connects these behaviours to their impact on the woman’s wellbeing and highlights the steps she is already taking to protect herself and her children.
This shifts clinical thinking from “What is wrong with her?” to “What has she been living with?” Emotional reactivity may be reframed as trauma under threat. Missed appointments may reflect safety planning. Parenting stress may be directly linked to ongoing coercion.
By keeping perpetrator behaviour visible, the Safe & Together™ Model helps prevent misdiagnosis, improves risk assessment, and supports safer, more accurate and more compassionate practice with women impacted by DFV.
Women living with domestic and family violence (DFV) are often diagnosed with conditions such as borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, complex PTSD, or “treatment-resistant” depression without a full assessment of the abuse occurring in their lives. Symptoms like hypervigilance, emotional distress, self-harm, substance use, or difficulty engaging in services can be understandable responses to coercive control, financial abuse, threats about children, technology-facilitated surveillance, or post-separation stalking. When these patterns are not explored, women’s survival responses can be mistaken for individual pathology.
The Safe & Together™ (S&T) Model offers a practical way to bring the context of abuse back into mental health assessment. Using the perpetrator pattern mapping approach, practitioners document the specific behaviours of the person using violence — for example isolating her from family, undermining her parenting, sabotaging employment, or manipulating legal systems. The model then connects these behaviours to their impact on the woman’s wellbeing and highlights the steps she is already taking to protect herself and her children.
This shifts clinical thinking from “What is wrong with her?” to “What has she been living with?” Emotional reactivity may be reframed as trauma under threat. Missed appointments may reflect safety planning. Parenting stress may be directly linked to ongoing coercion.
By keeping perpetrator behaviour visible, the Safe & Together™ Model helps prevent misdiagnosis, improves risk assessment, and supports safer, more accurate and more compassionate practice with women impacted by DFV.
Biography
Jackie Wruck is a proud Yindinji woman from FNQ, Cairns/Yarrabah region. She is the Asia Pacific Regional Manager for Safe & Together Institute here in Australia.
She has worked in Child Protection, Counsellor in DFV Service, Indigenous and Community health, family wellbeing service and community housing.
She uses her lived experience of violence to help others understand the added complexities when working with families who experience DFV alongside racism and other inequalities.
She’s been an invited speaker on DFV, the Safe & Together Model and working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families in a culturally safe way across Australia.
