Break free.

If the mission statement of Dr. Karen MacKay can be pared down to two words, they are these.

In August, the local chiropractor is beginning a workshop for victims of domestic violence, which she hopes will evolve into a regular, full-time support group.

The workshop will take the form of an initial meeting to establish interest in the group, and in topics to be explored. MacKay will lend her expertise as a therapist to help women heal themselves and escape the often psychological means of control that abusers use on their victims.

"My aim is to get women to take charge and get out of the relationship," she said.

Her Victims to Victorious workshop is crafted out of more than simply a well-founded desire to do good. It is carved from the bitter hardship of MacKay’s own experience at the hands of a batterer, an experience that took her completely by surprise. Her tailspin through the vicious cycle of domestic abuse occurred despite the fact that she was a professional, educated and independent woman.

Still hesitant after all this time to talk about it, MacKay said she learned firsthand what it was like to be imprisoned and brainwashed. At last, she said, she understood why women couldn’t "just leave." It was not merely about fists and kicks, but about belittling and control.

MacKay is basing her support group on the "things I started doing to get my soul back." She hopes to use her personal journey from a victim to a survivor to be more vocal about the problem of domestic abuse — a problem that affects 25 percent of American women and 8 percent of American men, according to Centers for Disease Control statistics.

Other grim statistics include the 2 to 4 million women who are victims of serious abuse each year. MacKay reports that 1 million abused women seek medical attention for injuries, and that half of female homicide victims in the United States are killed by an intimate partner.

So far this year, some 220 domestic violence calls have been made to the local RENEW victims’ advocacy center hotline. In 1999, the center logged around 330 incidents of domestic violence for its service area, according to RENEW literature.

MacKay has also written and illustrated a softbound book entitled, Dear Sisters. . . Break Free from Domestic Violence. She was attempting to "make sense of what I was in," she said.

The booklet is deliberately written in a simple format to allow for a quick, accessible read. MacKay said that she was hungry for information that would help her overcome what she had suffered. What she found instead were books that were too intellectual, overly technical, or simply too long.

Too often, battered women do not have either the time or the freedom to read anything, let alone books that would challenge the authority of their abusers. MacKay designed her booklet as "waiting-room material," something that a woman could pick up in a doctor’s office and browse through.

MacKay said her ultimate goal would be to stop abuse altogether. Part of achieving this is helping victims of abuse become healthy and whole enough to refuse to put up with violence from their partners. It also involves the victims overcoming the belief that the abuse is somehow caused by their behavior.

"Dear Sisters," Mackay wrote, "I am like you. I am one of you, a sister joined by violence. . . . Dear sisters, break free."

Details concerning the Victims to Victorious workshop can be obtained by telephoning MacKay at 533-1139. Donations will be accepted for whatever participants can afford. For confidentiality and safety reasons, the date, time and location of the meeting cannot be published.