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Treatment of Violence in the Family

Class of 26/10

Main Focus of the course : violence t/w the women

-factors

-intervention/therapy strategies

-we’ll deal and emotionally touch w/ gender, family, parenting, æåâéåú

Now, to work:

Q) What is Violence?

A)

-Our definition shows our stance on the matter. We have to check the cultural and period background that gave the definition àeach culture has its own standards

-Violence doesn’t have an absolute definition – there are many diff. understandings b/w people in each culture about what is culture

-another element: the name that we give a phenomenon: shows the political and social dynamics

àIn 70s, when first spoken about, it was coined battered women

àImplies that the women are reduced to a one factor identity

-in 80s, started speaking about abused women

àAlso includes emotional component

-later: Couple violence/intimate violence

àTries to give a wider context

-Today, women marred by violence in the family

-w/ every definition, someone will object:

-feminists: want to show more equality

-in every abuser, there is an abused, and in every abused, there is an abuser

q) Do we deal w/ violence in the broad or narrow sense?

Narrow: physical- use of illegitimate of strength in order to harm another person

àIn accidents, to find out if there was an accident, got to ask: what there intent

-narrow def. gives us a good, clear definition.

Criticism: it narrows the range of what abuse really is àbut is does not relate to emotional abuse. Furthermore, it does not give the full context

àMany women state that emotional is worse than physical abuse

àMany times, there is more than just physical abuse

àThose w/ only emotional abuse more in risk of being murdered

Broader:

-this definition gives more validity to the recognition of abuse, which doesn’t have to be physical – swearing, degrading àw/ therapy, women often discover more and more abuses

àThe definitions affect policy making. Therefore, it is better to show the bigger numbers – reflect reality, as well as inflate #

-some think that this broad definition doesn’t fall under abuse

Dekeserdy and Mclead 1997

Broad definition:

Abuse of women: use for the worse of power against the women by the husband/partner (man/wife)/ex-husband/ex-partner that result in loss of respect control and security as well as helplessness and trapped, because of physical, psych, economic, sexual or verbal and or repeating emotional abuse. Abuse of women also includes repeated threats and or forcing - or force women to be witness of abuse of kids, relatives, friends, animals or objects of emotional value

-this definition gives every possibility: heterosexual/homosexual husband/partner

-here, we’re not speaking of ind. events but rather of a pattern

Handout: cycle of power and control

-from ‘power & control’, E. Pence & M. Paymar, 1986

1. Emotional abuse:
1. Many times, when we hear things often enough, we start to think it too.
2. Mind-games: make her think that she is crazy by intentionally changing or moving things and then blaming it on her
2. Isolation
3. Intimidation: it is enough to show my strength w/o actually doing anything
4. Men’s rights
5. Threats: in terms of danger, if person threatens to commit suicide, it is like threatening to murder, because people kill their spouse with themselves
6. Use of kids
7. Sexual: some women think that women’s job is to please the men. Therefore Some women don’t even know that they’re abused
8. Economic abuse: disturb her job, take her money, put her into debt, give her allowance

Development of the recognition of the problem:

In beginning of 70s, groups of women joint up in feminist discussion groups

--àwomen started talking not only about inequality but also about abuse

• At first, they asked the women dynamically: what brought the women into those situations? What is their pathology? Masochism, symbiosis?
• Later, the view was systems: what happens in the family system that brings on abuse?
• Feminists lurking in the background, saying that whatever in personal is political: i.e. whatever happens in the family is because of political inequalities
• Prob.: there is too much dichotomy in this view: abuser and abused.
• Today, we see both sides – ok, so the man is violent, but he had internal forces [that have to be dealt with]

-the women lobbyists in Israel: 200,000 women are abused in Israel

1994 survey: 214,000 were abused at least once

àStatistics:

• more in non-Jews
• unemployed
• low education
• poorer families
• overcrowded housing

1/11/2006

What causes violence in the family?

-we see it in all socioeconomic groups/education levels/ethnicity

-We will look at ecological approach – see how it happens in various levels

-estimate: in western world, one out of 10 women lives under violence

-It seems like violence is in the rise – now not in family but also outside it – on street

-meskovitz: most people had at least 1 violent episode against them

What causes this?

-etiology: various fields try to find the mechanisms leading up to this

Their problem: they only give 1-dimentional explanations

-we will look at various factors/approaches

Ecological model

-sees person in relation to his context/surroundings

-i.e. social context

-there is a transaction process b/w person and context

4 circles of context –from inside outwards

Ontogenic- person- whatever person brings from himself to situation

Microsystems – the people who person has contacts with

Exosystem- the social and cultural institutions who are around us – work/associations/university that I am in

Macrosystem: all the attitudes/values/views in my culture

Ontogenic factors

Psychological approaches

-psychoanalytic approach: basic destruction instinct Tantalus

-at first this aggression is focused on self

-later, focused outside

-if the individual doesn’t have good pathway to deal with it, then violence takes place

Other psychoanalytical: ego malfunction – not instinctual force

Psychopathological approach: psychological pathology: borderline/antisocial/schizophrenic/sadism

Later of: they didn’t look at violence as the main problem but rather as a symptom of something deeper.

-i.e. but of lacks: a psychological profile of people who have cognitive/affective lacks/low SE/fear of intimacy

-violence is a symptom of a lack and not of a

Another theory – generational moving

-whatever I saw at home as a kid, I am going to bring to my next relationships

àThere is a link b/w kids watching violence at home and being a violent husband

àAlso if girl sees mom being abused, that’s what she’ll expect to go through

à”intergenerational chain”

Microsystems:

-firstly look at spouse-dyad

Resource theory: the main factor here is power

-->people w/I the sub system have a certain amount of resources (i.e. education level/etc.)

-there is a constant struggle for the resources. Him with more resources – has more power and tries to use it to get more resources. The weaker partner tries to use violence to preserve whatever power he has

-less struggles when resources are equal b/w partners

Exchange theory

-assumption: people choose and are motivated by the an estimation of gain vs. loss in each situation

-will continue if he thinks there are more gains than losses

-Also the abused women think this way (gain/loss) – i.e. I am loved/not worth divorcing/for the kids/etc.

Exosystem

-the formal and informal institutions which the person is involved in

-if unemployed = more violence – b/c – less resources/poverty brings spousal struggled even to the point of violence

-Isolating the wife – way to keep the violence cycle going – doesn’t start it but helps maintain it

Macro-system

-society/norms/culture

-I.e. some cultures – you kill the women when she has her own say, etc.

-Violence has a tendency to infect – i.e. the people in an institution are violent, you also feel it in the staff

-in patriarchal societies (where men are supposed to be dominant), it no doubt influence the spouse dyad

Class, 8/11/06

-last time we spoke about the factors that bring to the development of violence

-The etiological approach allows us to see the phenomenon on a multiple level

-allows us to analyze the system on a broad level

• norms of the b/h (society/culture/unemployment) – macro
• Is there a power struggle here? - micro
• intergenerational –also micro

Typology of men who are violence

Question? What are their characteristics?

àWe’re trying to understand his experience so that

Extreme feminists: we don’t want to legitimatization of the men, so question is irrelevant

àBesides, it happens everywhere, so we’re ignoring violence against women outside family, so why define it by limiting it to a family context

-We must remember that also men are also clients in the welfare system – we must treat all aspects of problem, including men

-thus our way of treatment include men

àMust remember that women don’t always leave the violent partner!

Thus the problem will continue in that context, at you got to treat it!

-for example: what is man’s potential? What is his motive? Are questions that we got to see in evaluation the seriousness of the problem?

6 characteristics:

1. Emotional level: huge anger is the central experience – the violent men have a very narrow emotional spectrum.
1. Sometimes, under the anger sits depression. Not clear if the depression if b/c he cannot control himself and thus he is depressed, or vise-versa, t=he is depressed and it turns to anger. The suicidal angry men are dangerous b/c is they don’t differentiate enough b/e themselves and wives, and hit her instead of themselves
2. Sometime there is separation anxiety (gets expressed through jealousy) – there is a need for a huge emotional nurturance- often it is around the food – did she feed me? there is a paradox – he uses violence to keep her, yet w/ the violence, she wants to leave more

• The overriding anger shades the rest of their emotional life. The anger makes an emotional bottleneck. In treatment, need to deal with anger

2. Cognitive: what is the state of mind of the person who is violent. There is a misinterpretation of situation. We don’t see most things as malicious against us. The violent person will misread reality more – uses projection much more –projects his low SE much more onto others – we got to look at the personal schemes. Also got to look at his role expectations -how does he his and wife’s status? Does he think he needs to be dominant. If not, person feels degraded

-often, there is a denial of problem or a minimization of problem (I just touched her, not hit her)

3. Interpersonal approach: problem in communication skills – to tell when I feel, what I want àpeople make the mistake of mixing assertiveness and aggressiveness

àwe bottle up angers because we’re scared of the other 0 then it bursts

àit is also hard to say that I am weak

àpassive aggressive is also a problem of communication

-men also have hard time making social contact

-hard for violent men to trust people àhard for development of intimate relationships –the men have hard time showing that in that relationship, I am also in need of something and the issue is that those men don’t want to show their needs – they’re scared to be shown as weak

4. intergenerational transference: 50% of kids who had violence b/c violent adults!

• men tend to internalize the violence he saw as a kid more than women who saw violence as kids àwomen internalize the victim role less than the men internalizing the aggressor role. (identification w/ aggressor must be stronger in men)

5. Alcohol: we will not treat alcohol for violence sake! He must first treat the alcohol b/f dealing with the violence – when drinking, the violence is untreatable
6. psychopathology

Handout: holtzworth-Munroe &Stuart – 1994) – typology of violent men

Only within family – usually feel guilt afterwards, and don’t hit outside - have interpersonal communication problems – their violence is b/c hard time dealing with spouse – they are the ones coming to therapy, and are very treatable àusually in groups

Dysphoric/Borderline – 25% - violence is medium-to high. The violence is usually in the family but it sometimes it goes out (i.e. to neighbors, work, etc). Alcohol is a common thing. Hard for him to control anger. Low view of women. High levels of depression. This group needs intensive treatment. Will probably need individual and not group work

General violence/antisocial

-Medium to high violent – they are often in criminal activities, addicted to drugs. We will see that as kids there was a lot of neglect and violence towards them. They do not have a sense of guilt at all. His violence leaves the boundaries of family. Shows the incredibly low levels of self control – important for evaluation of danger.

àHere usually the law needs to be used to protect women

Dalit Yasur borochowitz - 2003

-Wrote a research about the emotional life of man, based on phenomenological approach (the experience level) – what is the experience-story that influences his experiences and behavior

3 types of violent men

1. The needy type: the person replays the victimization and the poorness and neediness of the man as a kid àdependency on wife. High on separation anxiety. Looks for acceptance as well (as a man)
2. confused type: he is ambivalent about relationship: has to play around b/w intimacy and distance his problem is in interpersonal The violence allows him to take a side in his ambivalence and thus reduce it
3. Gap type: there is a gap b/w his expectations of what a spouse should give and what the wife really is. The person wants the wife to give him the needs as a kid
   (that he didn’t get) yet his is not like that! His view of manhood is what leads him àviolence b/c of frustration

Class 15/11/2006

-last time, we spoke about typology of violent men

-The learning in this class is spiral – from general to specific

-definitionsàfactorsàspecific characteristics of the abusive menàexperience [of the abused women] (we’ll speak this class about that)

-how does the abuse psychologically influence the women?

-over time, three was an attempt to profile the personality of the women

àThe feminists were against this because it claims that there is a problem with the women!

• poor ego skills
• dependant
• low SE
• poor assertive skills
• denial/minimalization of problem
• poor emotional repertoire

Men

• low communication skills
• poor ego skills
• dependant
• not assertive (but violent instead)
• denial/minimization of problem
• poor emotional repertoire

Conclusion:

-the abuser and abused have very similar personalities

Today, we’re going to speak about experience

-the abused woman has different intimate experiences than non-abused women (as mother/spouse etc…)

Kirkwood - 1993:

-wanted to understand the experience of the abused women

-so she interviews them, and tires to look for common elements in their experience

1. Fear- (some on the existence level) – fears the physical emotional well-being àI fear that I as a person will disappear. Often those fears are based on threats

àThe violence/threats are signals of that the spouse is potentially able to do. He doesn’t really have to do something for the wife to fear it, since there were signals already

àUnpredictability: there is anxiety in that it could come from nowhere, so I am always worried àso I’d prefer to get him angry so at least it is predicable

àFear of hurting the abusive partner, so wife stays

Note: subjective feeling of wife might be that she is in danger. Sometimes she’s overanxious, but many times, she understands the risk correctly, and she might really be in danger

2. degradation – making her ‘small’ – the women internalized it and now claim that they really are not worth it (just like the husband said) – this leads to shame relating to the self = lowers SE. [It could also be sexual degradation]

àSE is built of feedbacks from environment/others. The feedbacks in those abusive only give negative feedback – she is usually isolated, so she doesn’t get alternate good feedback – you see wife often speaking in his words/through his eyes – their identity disappears – often when leaving the abusive relationship, the woman doesn’t know what to do when not told what to do

3. Objectification: we turn the person into object – the wife is meant to serve the man -not allowed to have own will/identity – to the point that a man might control when wife goes to the washroom! His control might be misunderstood as compliment! – “look how much he cares for me!” when questioned about the control, women might ask “so how do I know if he loves me?” and you can answer her “he has to let you be yourself!”

-Don’t see the wife as a separate person – no negotiation of both partner’s needs/differences

4. Lacks (chasach) - the women claimed often that she lives in lacks (economically, the husband controls $, he prioritizes the $, etc… the wife has to deal with the low resources herself. There is also a social lack, where the husband isolates the wife, so she won’t have support. Another factor is the shame that wife has and thus she contributes to the social isolation – the wife wants to keep the abuse a secret. Besides, the abuse causes lack of basic trust which is necessary for interpersonal interaction

5. Overwhelming of responsibility: there is a claim that she is responsible for the abuse- she has to fix the problems - she doesn’t realize that there needs to be mutuality about fixing the problem. Also takes responsibility for whole areas (taking care of kids - w/o husband) – she also takes on herself to fix all of his problems that he took onto himself. B/c of the emotional stressed from the over-responsibility, you might see it coming out in her parenting skills/etc…

6. Cognitive distortions: minimalization/denial of problem – sometimes we see split! Good parson when he’s good and bad when he’s bad – can’t integrate them both.

àWife also questions her perceptions of reality/self. She’s in doubt that she has the right to say no. she thinks that she is not normal

àDistortions in guilt: “you-name-t” phenomenon: guilt that she chose him/stayed with him/guilt that can’t stop him/guilt that he’s supposed to protect kid. Guilt is meant to say that /I have the ability to change and thus am supposed to change, yet she is not responsibility for man’s violence and she can’t do anything about it o the guilt is not appropriate

àHusband might feedback this: “why are you making me hit you?”-as if he is not responsible for his actions

-low SE. we don’t know whether SE causes violence or the violence causes the SE

Golding – 1999 – depressive of the abused

-Golding did meta-analysis of various groups

• 47% of abused women were diagnosed as depressed
• 20% of non-abused wives are diagnosed as depressed

“Abused wife syndrome” – walker

-the psychological problems if the abused women is b/c of the abuse that she got. The syndrome is similar to PTSD. The abused women like the PTSD, uses fight-or-flight

-This means that women is constantly on the lookout – they constantly deal with survival

-you got to speak of abused as a survivor, not a victim – so you have those defense mechanisms that we spoke about, which helps her live her day

-there is something feminine about walker: it is all the man’s fault – the wife has nothing to do with the abuse. Otherwise, if it wasn’t for the abuse, she’d be normal – the problems are all the man’s problem

Criticism: you’re right, the actual abuse is not your fault, but do you also have a finger in the episodes? Perhaps you did not leave when the signals started?/etc… you got to help the women help how she got to be with the abuse, so that she can deal with the abuse that’s being forced on her

Class 22/11/06

-last class we spoke about the typology/experience of women

Question: why do women stay in the abused relationship?

-this is a central question along the attempt to understand why abuse happens

-50% of women in abusive relation tend to stay or at least to return -even after getting help!

Answer:

1. Functional: the woman has basic needs: being loved/taking care of kids/economics/etc… - the women stays b/c the relationship gives her benefits

2. Pathology: bad object relationship: over-dependency/bad object relationship/attachment independency problems/low SE – thinking that no one else will give her what she needs/don’t deserve any better/leaving any relationship is hard – in abuse, it is more complex since there are threats/degradation as well!

Until now – focus is on woman

Now, theories will focus on interaction b/w partners in the abusive relationship

3) Walker: interviews abused women. She is looking for patterns. A common pattern is of abuse w/I the relationship:

The violence cycle:

1. the partner accumulate tension/stress (partner compresses the stress/ increases anger)
2. explosion t/w wife
3. calms down (w/ guilt feelings)
4. “Honeymoon period” – the partner “make up” and partner tries to change/give presents/etc… then wife thinks that everything is so wonderful! àand then anger starts building up again (stage a)

-the honeymoon makes wife have hope that everything is ok. She thinks that this is authentic self, and she’ll change him to get back to real self. She makes a split b/w good and bad husband and realize that the good and bad come together!

àWe have to show the wife that the benefits of the “honeymoon period” come with the price of violence. The more she accepts the guilt/regret of husband, the violence increases and honeymoon period decreases

àHusband thinks that she accepts the violence anyways, so he has to spend less effort in PR t/w her!

àIs wife only sees him as bad, then the choice would have been easier to leave

-most women come to therapy ambivalent – the job is to decrease ambivalence-yet when you tell the women to leave, she didn’t necessarily make a process, and return to him very fast

4)traumatic attachment: there is a relationship b/w wife and abuser through identification with the attacker – the wife stays/increases loyalty to abuser àhe might be abusive, but he’s the only one taking care of her (since he isolates her)

5)learnt helplessness: as seen with seligman’s animal study – animals ran away from electric shock. Yet when the shock is random, then they didn’t run away, b/c they didn’t know to where – learnt helplessness! – They were passive – didn’t run away

àSo when wife can’t expect when attack will come, she will be passive/just trying to survive, yet won’t run away

6)economic: - the woman often pays a heavy economic price for leaving/husband won’t pay child support/etc… àwoman who work – tend to leave more!

7)social aspect: they don’t have social support – so they don’t have resources/sense of staying alone

Question: when is the turning-point - where the wife says -that’s enough!

Isikovitz/buchbinder

-Qualitative study of women – what is the turning-point?

Answer:

-It’s a long process w/ a series of losses (personal/interpersonal) – only when she experiences those losses, she decides to leave. The losses include loss of love(the abuse weakened the love)/loss of belief in the positive elements of the husband/loss of hope for change/loss of authenticity of self àthings I do (i.e. as a mom) changes b/c of the abuse/sense of loss of security in the house

-those losses are what the women in the study spoke about

Class of 29/11/2006

50% of women decide to stay in violent relationship

-we see phenomenon of women that come go and return to women's shelters

àThey do so not b/c they want to leave the abusive relationship, but rather scare the husband. There is an expectation that husband will change. This is an attempt to draft the partner to therapy/change. We have to make sure to know if there is a gap w/ our wishing she'd leave the relationship and her ambivalence.

Progressive process: the staying in woman's shelters advances them, raises awareness, and empowers the women. When they come back to the home, something has changed – new content to the relationship. In the shelter, the women there go through a process that we might see after a while, perhaps after several revisits to the shelter. The women come ambivalent and often go through a process, which we see only much later.

Kids in violent families

Exposed vs. witnessing kids

Witnessing: passive

1970s awareness of abused women

1980s awareness that kids are also victims in abuse of wife

Einat peled: 4 themes in kid's life

1. life in secrecy
1. A kid is born into a reality where there is violence. He does not know that there is an alternative, especially since the family gives messages that he has to shut up problem: the kid spends so much energy in keeping the secret that he doesn't have energy for other things
2. the kid stays alone in the experience since he has no one to share the experience with
3. The secret is sometimes withheld w/I the family. The issue is not spoken. Mom might think that if violence happens when kid don't see, then he doesn't know àdenial! In therapy, women come to realize that kids are also aware

2. life in fear and terror

• Kids at a young age are at symbiosis with mom. So when mom is in grave danger, he kid feels existential terror too.

• There is fear that mom will die/get hurt/leave me

àThere is an existential fear àthat world is not a safe place

• Shame/embarrassment – what will people say?
• Sometimes, kids don't go to school in order to protect mom. They think it is important since mom is perceived as weak. Kid thinks that it is his job to save her. Therapist needs to free kid from this notion
• Fear of dad –sees him as sick and weak. The kids fear and feel mercy on mom
• Fear that dad will get punished or will be lost
• 28-70% of cases, the kids are also victims, i.e. of sexual abuse
• The mom being a source of security – if she's hurt, the kid fears that no-one will be there to protect him
• some women leave as soon as they find out that dad hurt the kid

3. life with the violent model

• kids live with adults who serve as their [violent] role-models

• When born to violent families, the violence comes from primary socializors, and the kid learns these violent behaviors – that in intimate relations, and in any relationship for that matter, there should be violence. Those kids are at high risk to b/c violent adults
• If mom reacts and learns to curb the violence, it is a protective barrier for those violence-risked kids – its serves as a positive model. A good way to get women to be assertive in his regard is by reminding them that they do serve as a role-model too, and when they're passive, they are a negative role-model for parenting/family/feminine and masculine roles. And when they stay in the relationship, they also serve a negative role-model for her kids
• the kids identify with their violent parents, yet fear that they too will be violent
• the violent family is a very insecure place

4. life in a loyalty conflict

• The kids are helpless/fear/anxiety àthat the person across from me is violent. That the world is not safe and I have no control over it

• The kids are torn b/w the 2 parents. This is a very strong loyalty conflict
• sometimes, the parents might ask kid to take side, and if kid doesn't, then it'd be considered treachery
• the kid's moral stance is with the mom –she is weaker and the victim
• choosing the mom: she is weaker but his source of security [albeit a weak one]
• choosing the dad: a moral treachery – choosing the bad which can protect

• the prince of stopping the violence is conflict
• on one hand: wants the violence to stop
• on the other hand: the dad will go to jail and family will fall apart

Other cases: kids identify with dad – the stronger side

• mom is guilty for the violence
• wrong perception of women

-the kids are ambivalent, yet the mom doesn't let them be b/c she wants them to take a side

-sometimes parents use things to get kids on their side: give other side bad name/threats/presents

Parent alienation syndrome

-sometimes, kids don't want connection with the other parent, not b/c of violence but b/c of incitement. The kid distorts perception of the mom and alienates her –sometimes to the point of irreversible damage

Disturbances seen in kids exposed to violence

Defense mechanisms:

1. denial
2. repression/suppression of the event
3. dissociation –detaching emotion from event – just like watching violence on TV

Other behaviors:

-kid might do things to leave the situation:

* go to room/play/covers himself in bed

* leaves the house

* justifies attacker – makes his world clearer – gives reason [justified] for violence

Hardships that kid shows:

In educational system:

Boys: externalize behavior – i.e. violence to others/things/destroys stuff

Girls: either

* externalize: aggressive t/w other girls, emotionally or physically

* internalize: depression, introversion, fears and phobias, passivity, boredom, lack of liveliness, sadness, nightmares

Physical elements: bed-wedding, thumb-sucking, lack of appetite àregression

-often, you have psychosomatic stuff since the kids can't express themselves in other ways

Social difficulties

-those kids lack social skills

* Boys: intergenerational transmission of skills

* Girls: find violent partner, find marginal group, sexual invitations, aggressiveness

Cognitive/intellectual deficits

• problems concentrating – too much energy is spent suppressing secret
• behind in their studies
• bright kids – they don't want to strain mom too much

Protective factors

1. Kids who witness and get the violence are at hugest risk. When such a kid is hit, he knows which side to take about who's good/bad, vs. the kid who just witnesses is ambivalent
2. age – the younger, the more difficulties
3. a positive figure – i.e. kindergarten teacher/grandparent –will moderate the effects of violence
4. The mom who within all the violence sees firstly the kids' needs first leaves her kids in much better shape!

Class 6/12/06

-last class, we spoke of the experience of the kids in violence families, as well as central themes in their lives. We also so how the problems get expressed in those kids' lives

Today: were going to speak about the protection of the women/danger evaluation of man/preventive measure

Danger evaluation

-when woman comes for help, we're dealing with a decision made after many internal debates. In this dialogue, the woman came to the conclusion that she needs external help. She thinks that this is the only "other" person in her life, since often, they're in isolation. This usually happens after particularly violent case/feels that she's in danger. On the other hand, she might be ambivalent and comes to help b/f she's sure that she wants help/leave the relationship/etc.

-regardless of stage she's at, we got to give her the immediate/most professional help. We need to give her an approach which gives answer to her situation. We have to remember that on the other side of the phone is a woman who is in distress yet very ambivalent. When we get this call, we do not know yet what the exact situation is there, or the level of danger. The first thing you evaluate risk- you want to do is set up a meeting as soon as possible. We need to evaluate over the phone – i.e. if she just got a second to call yet she is usually locked up in her house. If there is an immediate threat, she's told to take her stuff/kids, and come to a shelter. Sometimes, you see women come with their stuff. Optimally, a woman comes to a meeting regularly and the partner's danger – is it a woman that can return home, or not. Or goes her need immediate or continual slow process. We can't send her home w/o knowing what's up

Danger evaluation

We want to know what is the likelihood that woman will be harmed by partner is certain situations and in certain seriousness

We look at

• partner's interaction
• Partner’s emotional state during the test time. The danger level might change so we can't say – we saw that he wasn't dangerous a year ago, so everything is ok!

-purpose of test:

• defend the women from injury
• strategies of treatment

We have a values conflict: value of right to run own live vs. life value

-Law runs with the first – right to run own life – so we as SW don't have to report. The fear is that woman will eventually return after reporting, and then her danger is higher

Orly ines: develops a danger evaluation tool based on 2 studies done in the field (Izikovitz – studies the connection b/w the factors causing violence and the danger that took place. The second one is the legal reports of cases. She analyses the connection b/w the seriousness of violence vs. the characteristics of victim/partner/intimate relationships as seen in the court proceedings.

If court decides to have a distancing order b/c partner is abusive. He won't do this fast since there is not enough evidence

-in her model, there is a questionnaire that includes 6 categories of elements:

• violence in present and past
• gets worse lately -1
• violence in past – 3
• violence t/w kids – 1
• violence to others/animals -1
• threats to injure
• concrete threats-3
• new murder threats – 2
• acing out past threats - 1
• background of attacker
• drugs/alcohol addiction -1
• violent crimes -1
• weapons -1
• psychopathology -2
• unemployment -1emotional state of attacker
• emotional state of attacker
• hard loss experience -3
• no alternative to loss -1
• obsessive dealing with wife -2
• relationship dynamics
• extreme jealousy -2
• extreme possessive -1
• stalking/limiting actions -3
• victim state
• she wants to make change -1
• fear for her life -3
• is not free to defend herself -2

-each clause has a weight [range 1-3] more than 10- points – high risk. More than 20 – very high risk.

-we have to extrapolate from what she's saying. We can ask her:

First clause –violence in present/past

• What happened now that you're coming [i.e. is there an increase in the violence? Raises danger. Some people live year w/ violence w/o feeling at risk. Sometimes, pregnancy/birth increases violence]
• We can ask what he's doing to her, how long its happening/isolation/economic abuse?
• What is the worst he's done to you [implication: what is he capable of? – also check what he does]

Second clause: threats

• if there is concrete threats, there is increased risk – it is no longer in the fantasy stage, but in the planning stage [b/c concrete]
• If there is new threat, might change the fact that for years she's been threatened and everything went by w/o high danger. [chronic = less risk]
• did he carry out threats in the past [are threats actualized]

Background of man:

• addictions: drugs/alcohol -1 – cocaine/heroine – les than other dugs in predicting [have to check usage/which kind/chronic]
• does he have a criminal past [is he normative or does he think that he is above the law] -1
• Does he have weapons? -1 – doesn’t influence whether injury takes place – just its extent
• Does he have mental/psychiatric treatment -2 [especially paranoid/bipolar-mania/antisocial]
• Unemployment – has less to risk by violence/loss of manhood/control over life/status in family-1

Emotional state of man:

• hard loss –there are men that feel that if the wife leaves, their lives fall pall apart [hard loss] -3
• no alternative to loss – if he losses her, he has no other sources of support – no friends/family -1
• obsessive about wife – can't even look at himself in treatment – always speaking about her -2 [ he’s not positively but rather negatively obsessive]

Relationship

• extreme jealousy -2
• extremely possessive of her -1 [woman is seen as property – her external interactions are seen as a threat
• Stalking -3 – the implication of stalking comes from jealous – I constantly need to know where you are. Even happens after divorces. The woman in constant fear looking, there is just the threat of following yet you have no idea what he'll do to you

State of victim where is the woman in the process – is she in denial of the dangers?

• if she wants to change [or leave] – raises risk -1 – at first she thought it won’t escalate/she can change him/etc… when she realizes that situation got really bad and wants to leave, that is when it gets dangerous
• fear of life – 3 [her subjective feeling is based on her experiences with the attacker
• not free to defend herself -2 [how much can she physically/emotionally defend herself/turn for help to outside sources]

-this tool is a supporter and not a decision maker. You also need to mage an overall judgment/intuition. By the way, we rather make a more stringent mistake than more lenient-leaning mistakes

Question: how do we deal with the high risk?

Answer: öå îðéòä/äøç÷ä –is a court order saying the guy has to leave the house -but only if we're sure he won't return. (Both terms are same thing) We can take her out of the house to her family if we know he won't come there. There are also shelters. Sometimes the recommendation is to have bag/documents w/ neighbors, or signals to neighbors when woman are at risk. Today, almost every town has a place treating violence in the family.

Class – 13/12/06

-The danger evaluation is first step to violence treatment – it gives me a diagnosis. With his tool, I can recommend how to deal with the violence

2 components

• treating the victim woman
• treating the man

Treating the woman – that is what we're going to speak about today. Next time - men

Help centers

• shelters
• centers of violence avoidance
• social services department – abused woman's groups

Therapeutic principles

• we're not neutral in the sense that we don't accept violence, and the attacker is at fault
• woman is responsible for her security
• there is an educational message here – you have rights/violence is bad, and thus you have a right to defend yourself and not agree to violence
• Most of treatment is shot-term interventions; we thus focus on her strengths and not her pathology. How did she manage to keep a normal element within their lives

• psycho-educational besides the therapeutic help, we'll also refer her to other sources when needed –i.e. legal advice/help with other community services i.e. speaking to police who is not acting appropriately
• Not being judgmental – we have to keep on working on ourselves – i.e. in your äãøëä
• when we estimate that there is danger to her or kids, we have to bring it out – and for that point suspend the non-judgmental principle

• Empowerment: returning her sense of control [over body/surrounding] – fight the learnt helplessness –Dutton speaks about empowerment in the sense that we let the women choose from a broader range of choices. If you give more resources/changes, women is broadened in her choices [+higher SE/new self-definitions/new skills] - we also want to broaden her external sources – i.e. giving her knowledge – how to use legal system/social networks àlearn how to adaptively deal with life [vs. acting in ways which ruin]. SW is a tool fro the client [client participation approach]

Tools to treat the woman

-of course danger evaluation, but what focus should we have?

Focus of therapy w/ violence-victim woman

-sometimes we have a fantasy as SW that victim should leave. If she chooses not to, then we see this as a failure of the treatment

-We have to remember that there is a mutual contract in treatment – we can't treat her if we're judgmental, yet if she is not doing her part, it is not our fault

-we need to see her uniqueness in her world story. We need to go from where she's at

-We need to work on her choices – we don't tell her what to do, but should rather help her do her choices with the most knowledge possible. She's probably heard a gazillion times from professionals that she should leave, and that's what she expects you to say too. Instead of falling into that, we should get the message of understanding her plight/understanding that she's here to examine her life and she'll ultimately be the one choosing over her life – message is that therapy is broadening of choices and not convincing her to leave

• we need to go from where she's at, and give her the message that she has control over her life
• We sometimes have to have a mixture of educational/therapeutic elements: we need to help her define herself as a woman living under violence/knowledge of violence affects her and her kids. Some women still are in denial that they themselves are under violence. We have to teach women that violence is not only physically but is also economic/emotional. We need to give validity to her experience. Her fear [and sometimes experience] is that no one will believe me/think that I am crazy. Often, there is denial/minimalization. Only when there is trust b/w SW and client can you work on defense mechanisms. If PTSD, explain to victim
• help women see how it affected her life [why they can't get up in morning/what is happening with her parenting b/c of the violence] – help her seeing the connections
• Helping her dealing with ambivalence t/w leaving/dealing with situation – we first have to accept that women have mixed feelings: wants to leave, but she also misses the good elements/kids/etc… - we have to give legitimacy to the ambivalence. We can't make her good feelings disappear! So we miss her point and she leaves treatment. We have to help her see both sides – not only good or bad sides of attacker. First have to deal w/ ambivalence b/f anything. If she doesn’t present their ambivalence, then we should fear that she's hiding something. If she chooses the good sides of attacker and stay with him, we have to remind her of her bad sides àhelp her see the complexity of situation – see that there are 2 sides [and essentially, we're fighting her split – integrate both sides]
• Dealing with anger/guilt/shame/fear – victims tend to have a lot of shame. Make a differentiation b/w shame and responsibility. Ok so she didn't do the right thing then, but can she today take responsibility today. Deal w/ fear – of revenge/estrangement/of living on her own – often women see themselves as stigma [shame]
• grief period – those women have any losses –women in 40s-50s who realize that dreams were wasted/I did not actualize them/self-esteem/relationships that I couldn't develop/economic lowering/kids' harm that is irreversible – the grief is not only about what was not, but also about what will never be.
• Change social/gender-role perception - Often done in groups. Question brought up like who is responsible for family cohesion? The women? Questions of equality. Gender roles learning include skills – i.e. assertiveness [vs. aggression]
• In long term therapies, which b/c more dynamic, refer to old experiences and see how they come back in today's choices

-Usually Short term therapy is used for abused women – so he focus is not skills/strengths

-If women stick around for long term therapy, we can afford to be more dynamic – go back to old experiences and see how they influence today's choices

Key points that we need to be careful in, in abused women therapy:

• gender of therapist [more complex transferences]
• culture of victim [what is her values from her culture]
• power-struggle – easy to tell woman what to do especially when she's confusion/ambivalent [we do the same thing as done before – an authority figure just told her what to do

-Next class- treating the men who abuse

Class – 20/12/06

-last class, we spoke about foci of treatment of women living under violence.

Today: we’ll discuss treatment of violent men/principles/focuses/dilemmas/etc…

Feelings of the therapist

Sometimes, when treating women, there is tendency to link up to the victim role/treating men might link up to aggression roles.

-the complexity, there is a projective identification b/w couple – her aggressive parts is projected onto him and his victim part are projected onto her

Do we need to treat those men?

-With the years, the view was that we don’t need to that the men – they don’t deserve it –

1. he needs to be treated as criminal
2. lets send the $ if anything, to the victims
3. He’ll b/c more complicated in his abuse b/c of the treatment. He might learn the therapeutic jargon
4. the punitive element gets reduced when judge knows that he is in rehab

But with time, there is increase in voices saying that the abusive men are clients worthy of treatment. Their claim is:

1. most abusive women keep on living with man, so you got to deal with the violence problem
2. the law doesn’t stop violence
3. The moral claim: we’re dealing with people who need help. The abusers are people in distress. They are motivated by tough life experiences. We need to put a stop to the intergenerational transmission.

Limitation of therapy:

• Therapy doesn’t always cause change [women hang a lot of hope on this – we have to remember that the man might want to change but just can’t – no awareness/insight]. Also sometimes therapy is very slow
• Sometimes, the treatment is not the conventional way – i.e. when violence is based from addiction – you first got to deal with the addiction. Antisocial people will be less open to therapy. Thus we need to diagnose from the start that the person is, so we can evaluate [already in the intake] which kind of setting is good. For example, some people can’t sit in groups w/o ruining them
• Disagreement as to how effective the treatment of the abusive men. This is a difficulty defining success [is it just the violence/also emotional?/etc…] studies show 53-85% pf men stopped being violence. But those studies didn’t show us about stoppage of emotional abuse

Different programs for abusive men:

• áéú ðåòí – hostel for violent men as a alternative to arrest – 3 months stay. They have to work during the day and in the evening they have different therapy settings
• ÷øáä áèåçä – another such framework
• Centers for violence prevention
• ùøåú îáçï
• ùá"ñ

When do violent men come to therapy?

• Court system refers them. Court can’t force men but the sentencing usually gives a conditional – if you don’t go to therapy, then X. or if you do go to therapy, them we’ll have a better sentencing for you. This is often through ÷öéðú îáçï
• men who come from their own will [rare] – usually when he knows wife is going to leave
• jail system also has therapy
• Police: you have volunteer SW in family-violence departments àìî"á = violence in the family – the police interrogators there are specialized in interrogating family violence. The SW is responsible to refer them to therapy. B/c such programs, more men turn to rehab.

-when you have a violent man coming to rehab, you need so evaluate what’s his story – alcoholic – first addiction treatment if psychiatric case – then first psychiatric system. We also have to see motivation [one of best predictors of change]

-First we have to say no to violence and get him aware that it exists. Secondly, we have to have him be aware of his hardships

-you have groups on many levels

• educational – values and views [i.e. roles w/I family/gender] that deal with the violence
• Cognitive – we help the man identify his violence patterns. Draw up a map of how he gets to violence. What did he feel/think
• Physical signs leading up to violence/automatic thoughts. The thoughts lead to emotions – we have to help him identify the feelings that are linked to thoughts. Goal to make a space b/w event and reaction by stopping his automatic thought. Thus we can change his basic assumptions. For example, if he thinks that woman’s role is to take care of man, but we need to change that assumption and we need that space for that. Another cognitive thing to work on is generalization/black and white/predicting bad things from the start/self-reference [she did it on purpose].
• Those cognitive distortions need to be worked on. We need to have him think differently rather than automatically. He has no space to do so, so we help him with that.
• Another goal is to help him with self-controlling skills we need to give him skills. i.e. when you feel you’re getting heated up, take a break [i.e. take a walk] – in this break you can eventually start working on the automatic thoughts
• In any case, we need to get the man to have a different internal monologue that is more controlling of their emotions/thoughts after they are identified. Sometimes, in therapy, he breaks
• This approach is limited b/c it is short term/doesn’t get to the bottom of signs. If we really want to get to the bottom of things. The dynamic therapies do a better job of that – of past experiences that led him to the violence in the present. I.e. separation anxiety/violence at home when he was a kid. At almost any violent man, we see either an abused kid [even witnessing violence at home] or a kid that was neglected. We might also deal with transference; b/c how he treats us is how he treats others outside the therapy room. There is also a modeling approach in groups where you have a man and a women leader of a group – see how a couple deals with problems/conflicts.

Dilemmas in treating violent men:

• the knowledge that most men don’t change -fear that some men do make a change
• How to deal with violence that occurs when the guy is in treatment? When the woman is at risk? What if ÷öéðú îáçïcalls for info? What is the limit of privacy? Thus we need to have a therapeutic contract saying that if we see that violence continues, we’ll have to report
• man not coming to therapy [when person is there on court-order] – also here we need to have a contract clause saying that if he doesn’t come for a lot, we’ll just stop the therapy and report the ÷öéðú îáçï
• Contact with wife/or she calls – there is a dilemma. Some therapists do have contact with wife/other don’t – should also be included in contract
• sometimes, we have to be part of other systems – thus also we need to explicate it in contract

Class 27/12/06

-today, we’re going to speak about parenting in violence families

Characteristics of motherhood/fatherhood under violence

Generalization

-motherhood is at risk vs. fatherhood which is threatening

àThere is also a threatening element in the motherhood

Motherhood:

-Our society sees motherhood as important – society leans on motherhood and gives it enormous weight.

àSometimes, women’s whole identity is around the motherhood.

àThis contributes to the notion that woman have that they can’t break families.

à In some societies, you can’t even divorce or be a single parent.

Main point: This contributes to the woman’s choice of staying or leaving.

To see how he violence affects motherhood

-abused women’s sense of parenthood was developed under violence. Thus, their starting point is different from the average mother

àThus, the child born into that relationship is in a different situation too.

Mother might have:

• SE
• Helplessness
• PTSD

Starting point downsides

àSo she is less free/available/emotionally available to the kid.

àBesides not being emotionally available, the woman is not free to make decision relating to the kid

àAbused wife w/ low SE will probably think that too about her motherhood – she is also bad parent, not only bad person. She feels like a failure

àMom usually has a poor parenting model herself. As her parents rejected/conflicted w/ her, she had internalized to have such a situation at her home

àBirth under stress – was pregnancy young/got married b/c of pregnancy/some kids were born from husband raping wife – those kid have problems if they know that they are unwanted

àSometimes, the abused women expect the kid to make peace in the family –thus she gets pregnant

àLack of resources and supporting figures

Literature/studies show in parenting problems:

• Less time for kids – she doesn’t have time. This is not unique to abused women. But in those families, the [abusive] husband imposes himself too on the wife
• less emotionally availably to kids
• Irritability/stress/aggression and even violence t/w kids –identification with aggressor/identification with own parents who were violent.

àIn PTSD, irritability is high b/c “nerves are exposed”, so every small thing blurts out

• mom doesn’t have skills with child who has a tantrum – so mom gets aggressive/violent non know other ways to dealing w/ it
• no ability to set borders/be authoritarian, since those skills are shaken up by husband

àSometimes, wife feels sorry for kid for being in his situation, so she doesn’t give him borders, as an appeaser.

Then this exactly does not help him. Alternatively, she sees borders as equal to aggression – “saying no is aggressive” – thus, again, she doesn’t place borders

• Mom makes split b/w kids – boys are like dad and girls are like me. Saying “he’s like his dad”.

–mom can’t see the kid as individual, and doesn’t deal as a parent with the boy’s needs. Sees his needs as aggressive, like his dad. For the girls, mom tries to over-defend them/

• Guilt – even if it might be deeper/camouflaged. When we see denial –i.e. bigger gap b/w what wife and others say about her – the deeper the denial. I.e. kids would also know what happen t/w mom or t/w kids. Wife might say that everything is fine, and when asking her what the kids would say about the situation, she’d say, everything is fine, even though it is obvious that that is not what they’re going to say

Eli buchbinder – studies experiences of abused women -2004 “the fight to fixing the past”

-phenomenological study. Looks for the narrative

-often people want to do differently from parents. Sometimes, the parents placed no borders b/c their parents placed too tight borders

-when the abused was ask what their task in motherhood is, they answered hat the want to fix her own experiences as a kid – I don’t want my kids to go through what I have gone through with my parents. There was a fear that she’ll end up like her parents: no empathy/warmth/not functioning parents. The abused wife, as a kid looked for other models in life. Paradox: the abused wife did not succeed in leaving the past behind, even though they really want to. This often happens b/c they are so busy dealing with their need to be different than their parents. Thus she is not able to freely think of what is best for child/what are his specific needs as an individual. Thus she does things that are not fitting the kid’s situation. Thus the troubles begin…

-furthermore, the mom does not succeed in saving the kid from the violence/whatever they have internalized, she does, even though she might want to be different. – She forgot to do work on herself

2 options

1. Past wins over her will -pessimistic approach – the women b/c just like her parents. Here there is a gap b/c fantasy and reality and this realization hurt
2. Past as a jumping board for the future – optimistic approach - she undergoes internal change [i.e. through therapy]. Here, she detaches herself from the intergenerational change

-pitfall: the pull t/w what we saw as kids is incredibly strong

Fatherhood

-literature is very ambivalent about the kid. As seen by not much being written about abusive fathers. [As if to say that the kid doesn’t have a father]

-it is hard to make a separation b/w the violence of the man and him being a good father.

In practice:

When dad doesn’t allow kids to have a functioning mom, he is not really a good dad.

àEspecially at young age, when there is no clear differentiation b/w mom and kid, it exposes the kid to trauma of undermining the figure that kid is supposed to lean on

Characteristics of the father who abuses wife

• Too rigid/trouble being physically close to kids. Dad can’t perceive the concept of being even physically close to kids
• dad is distant – not involved with kid – even when he’s home, he’s very little w/ the kids
• especially is times of stress, it is hard to see the kid’s needs as an individual – the kid is perceived as an extension of either his own or the wife’s extension

àThis is seen strongly in divorces where there is a debate over seeing the kids. Often, when the abuse dad sees kids as an extension of mom: if you divorce, I won’t want to see the ids – hurt them in order to hurt the wife [the kids are seen as an extension of her]. Sometimes, the kids are used to passed messages to abused wife

Tactics:

Indirect

• using of kids against the partner [i.e. not paying child-support] over-spoiling him, filing complaint against mom, even if she didn’t really do so]/using kids as messenger

Direct

• dad says to kid –“if you do this, I’d love you”
• Rebuilding the family history: telling the kid version of the abusive dad “dad hit mom because she did a.b.c.
• destabilizing mom’s situation
• showing kid how dad is the victim

Ethical dilemmas in who keeps the kids after divorce after the violence.

-despite his fatherhood being problematic here, he still has right to kids/also kids have right to dad

Ethical question #1

-should we separate father/kids?

Views

• The extreme view says: we need to totally separate kid from father. Dad needs first to go through therapy himself. b/f that, he is not øàåé to be a parent
• there are parent/kids rights – they should see each other, concurrently to therapy
• we need to weigh cost-and-benefits on the specific case level

-in practice, unless the relation is very harmful, the courts won’t disallow dad to see kids [even despite SW recommendation]

àThus the courts see the kid’s needs of a father. For whatever reason, if he doesn’t see dad, he feels abandoned

Ethical question #2

What is the wife’s responsibility to protect the kids in such violent relationship [even if she’s powerless]? And what should be done when she can’t succeed in protecting the kids?

Class 3/1/07

Note: the test won’t include the law issues

-last class, we spoke about parenting under violence

-today, we’re going to speak about women being violent to their men

Abuse t/w men:

-only in the last 15 years did the issue of husband-abuse

70s – Women’s abuse was discovered

80s - Kids abuse was discovered

90s – Husband abuse was discovered

Studies: show disagreement about extent of abuse t/w men

-question: is the violence t/w man self-defense or is it like other abuse: need for power/control

-there are 2 trends in the literature:

1. negate/minimize the problem
2. Accept the problem and give high # of it. Sees women’s need for control/power

Questions: what is the characteristics/terminology of man-abuse? Is it parallel to wife abuse?

-some claim that both kinds of abuse are parallel. Others claim that the two phenomenon are not parallel and thus must call man abuse something else/

Question: is man-abuse a social problem?

-the central question that comes up in if this is a social problem is whether that this affects many people/threatens society/gets people speaking about it/gets funding

àStats show that [abroad]: this kind of abuse happens often, but there are people cast doubt those studies

Gelles/straight show: men and women report equally violence by partner. This is reported on the dating stage à”dating violence”

àWomen were more violent in dates

Differentials in violence patterns

-I.e. dating violence was more emotional and less physical –i.e. limiting his normal rights – see families/friends – if man did this, we’d call this isolation

Those who doubt the results:

• stats are not reliable
• research tools are not good

Luckal: a sociologist who tried to analyze and explain the reduction of awareness of this problem as a social problem

-3 factors reduce society’s recognition of man-abuse as abuse

1. The social movements that deal w/ problem of violence against women did a good job of bringing into social awareness the women abuse. They do a good job of lobbying/getting budgets/etc… the men did not succeed in getting good movements. The one movement around in Israel does not have professional backing. Also, instead of violence, they brought up other issues especially around child support and îùîåøú of the kids. The women’s organization fought against the men’s organization. Some claim that they did so in order not to lose budget/attention, or in order not to have delegitimization of their cause
2. Social studies and media: from the 70s, there is a constant increase in social sciences that especially deal with violence t/w women/kids, and this trend was not seen in men’s abuse. This trend was seen as marginal. On the media level, also they tended to report violence t/w women and not report men abuse. Wife-abuse gives a good picture, but men-abuse does not. This media trend effects the low level of discussion about it and thus there is lower social dialogue about it
3. Gender stereotypes: we tend to think that women are more passive/dependent, and thus it is easier for us to see her as a victim than a perpetrator [and men are seen as more active, and thus more violent. Thus we as a society acts according to over-generalized stereotypes and thus need to be aware of it so we can see the problem of men abuse. Even men who are abused don’t define themselves as victims because of the gender stereotypes: [“i.e. it is not manly to be a victim/I am supposed to be strong”]

What are differences in violence t/w women and violence t/w men

• the seriousness of violence is lower when perpetrator is a women
• Finth: even if women are violent, they tend to do it more in self-defense, while men do it more in attempt to control. This is because socialization in our culture teaches women to control her impulses more
• flinth 2: men are less verbally expressive, and thus men are more physical and women are more verbal
• men end to be physically stronger, and thus the violence has more damage than the women’s violence

Abusive women’s typology:

Can we identify types of women who are abusive?

• Babcock ET all, 2003, we want to give typology of violent women similar to violent men. They find 2 kinds:
• violent only at home –assumption – probably in self-defense
• Generally violent -also at home and also outside – here, those women also have the need for control/power. Those women see the violence as legitimate way to solve conflict. They violence tend to be more serious than the abusers only at home. There is a broader use of emotional abuser. Those women were also found to be PTSD and other pathologies, usually based on violence in family of origin. They saw more violence in family of origin, including mother’s violence t/w men.

Phenomenon:

-when we look at narratives of victim men:

• even when men who view themselves as physically stronger than the wife, they do not use their physical strength to stop the partner
• low SE
• helplessness
• guilt

àSuch factors stop men from reacting.

-another fear: if I stop/file a complain her now, then it will continue later [similar to women’s fears]

-Men report the jealousy of the women – try to limit the men. Usually guilt is used. Terrorizing is used. The subjective feeling is that I can’t be me – I’ll have a scene when I come home. Sometimes, there is manipulation in the communication t/w the man

-men tend to use same kinds of defense mechanism as abused women [i.e. rationalizations/splits {seeing her good sides}] also here, there is a ‘honeymoon’ period

Another difference

-police tend to arrest women, especially in mutual complaining to the police

Why do men stay?

-men are better off economically/work/etc… the kids/property might be an issue though

-but so why do they stay?

• Economically: don’t want to deal with property division – it will harm my economic status
• Stay for the sake of the kids, since they kids usually stay w/ mom. The law in Israel says that up to age 6, kid automatically stays w/ mom. More and more men ask for joint custody –half the time at each parent’s house. Here the studies are spilt as to whether this is good for the kids or not
• The men know that when they leave, regardless of anything, he’ll see the kids less
• The man doesn’t trust wife to be a good mother

• feeling of failure [in the marriage], but there is a loss of a fantasy – that I failed in my fantasy of a complete family [especially strong in some sub-cultures who see family as holy]
• separation anxiety
• love is still there despite violence
• maybe something is wrong with me if I go

Main point

-many of the victim men have characteristics parallel to the victim women

Class 10/1/2007

Test:

Test has 30-35 questions.

We’ll have a model of violence assessment so we don’t have to remember by heart the weights

Subject of today’s class: Helping the helper

-his question is important

-in Israel, the laws fighting the violence are pretty advanced. For example, in some countries, i.e. Germany, there are no restraining orders for abusive husbands

Which victims were discovered

-First kid’s issue was seen

-then abused women were discovered

-then abuser’s world was discovered

-lately, the therapist’s world was discovered

Trauma

-In the last 10 years, there is a lot of weight given to trauma therapy – much more research and therapy lately

-new ways of therapy are springing up.

-in Israel, the treatment of trauma started with treating holocaust survivors. Then also terror victims. The new discovery is the also abused women were victims

-except that with women, the trauma is chronic and might even continue while the therapy is starting

-lately, also therapists report feeling influenced by dealing with this! – Secondary traumatization – symptoms come up in the therapist with the constant contact with the violence

Question: why do we need to deal with this?

Answer: therapist sits across from a person telling a trauma. Sometimes, the client describes the abuse in gruesome details. Therapist is exposed to this trauma and this might be like witnessing.

-we have schemes about how people behave and the juncture of therapist/victim might shake the therapist’s basic schemes about people

-dynamics might be coming from empathy/identification/transference processes/gender identity/stress of responsibility/what if she’s at more risk than I thing/what if I don’t succeed/what if I don’t get resources from my organization

Negative and positive interactions of treating abuse victims

Negative:

1. secondary trauma – figly- the implications [also on the emotional level] based on exposure to other/significant person’s trauma and the stress felt by my want to help the victim àtrauma is infectious àso sometimes the therapist also gets PTSD symptoms: helplessness/confusion/memory flashes/avoidance of memories/bluntness of feelings/dissociations

àMost at risk: young therapists

àCompulsed memory repetitions includes memories of the victim telling me

àDissociations: the victim might tell me something and I am not there. It even comes to violence by therapist t/w the victim [I don’t want to feel that powerful pain/identification with aggressor as a defense for this]

àDialectic dynamic b/w çåãøðåú vs. avoidance

àTherapist might feel overwhelmed by those identifying emotions

àSome therapist takes a rescuer approach based on being overwhelmed àfighting victim case for her

2. Vicarious traumatization - úøàåîèéæöéä îùðéú-perlman –not talking about emotions but a change of internal experience: there is some unbalancing of schemes/assumptions regarding trust/security/humanity/ability to predict àyou even have cognitive distortions by therapists. This change is longer/more internal/more fundamental

Therapist dynamic

-usually, therapists who face those problems are those therapists who have not based their professional/personal identity or that they have a latent trauma that is resurfaced during therapy

Positive:

-some therapists report growth out of such experiences of treating abused women:

• finding their strength – I see my ability to deal with such tough situations
• both victim and therapist might experience their situation as good or that could be made better!/more open to experience: I have to seize the moment [i.e. empowerment]

Question:

What can we do as therapists in order to avoid getting into such emotional symptoms?

Answer:

• Self awareness/being able to split my experiences from his experiences. One way to do this is to under therapy yourself
• äãøëä – giving place to the therapist to bring up his issues/influences of the treatment he does on himself. It can also bring up issues like gender/aggression/control issues
• Support from professional peers/boss – this allows for sharing of responsibility b/w the staff by discussion decision-making
• Knowledge/skills – if I learn skills/knowledge, I feel less helpless when treating the victim
• Border: i.e. giving myself personal life space: I.e. that I should take vacations/not giving cell-phone # out – balance b/w my personal life and professional life

-But some therapists feel isolated by privacy policy – that is why you have äãøëä and professional peers

Question

-what happens to students?

Answers:

Goldblatt and buchbinder, 2003:

-qualitative therapy of 20 SW students working in family violence centers. They wanted to see how those students’ int4rvesions shaped their experiences/life attitudes in relationship to family origin/intimate relationship/gender identity

Several issues came up:

• In beginning: feeing overwhelmed, both cognitively and emotionally. There is a diffusion b/f self and personal self. I.e. they asked “what is the diff. b/w me and her?”. Those students often looked for differences in their äãøëä
• Restructuring of experiences in family of origin. i.e. redefinition of some memories: in retrospect, some things are relabeled as control/violence
• Reexamining the intimate partnership: is there control in my current intimate relationship
• Reexamining the gender roles: question is re-asked: what is it to be a women

Class 17/1/2006

Visit by manager of an Arab Shelter for abused women

-we need to be sensitive to cultural norms of client

-stats don’t reflect true # of abuse

-Arab women don’t dare report –especially ‘milder’ abuse

Characteristics/profile

-the emotional characteristic of abused women is similar to normal people. It is just their experience of the abuse which is diff.

-abused women are generally speaking about dual emotion: I love him/he is the father of my children yet he is bad to me/hopelessness/lack of trust that anything will change. On one hand she expects the situation to change [so I can return home]/isolation/anxiety/shame. Shame is one of the main factor stopping women from complaining at the police. Sometimes, they don’t even tell their close people. In extreme violence, she gets to hospital and there they complain [they have to by the police. Every ER has a SW dealing w/ violence.

Experience:

Cultural factors:

-The women try to get help with violence – automatically her family of origin takes the woman and children. They tend to support her [if they can]

-the cultural expectation of the woman in Arab culture is to keep the unity of the family. When violence comes around, this b/c conflictual! They are expected to maintain unity of family, yet she has to survive. When women complain, then the man’s first stage is to say that he wants divorce. Often after therapy, the family can still unify, even after the man’s initial anger stage.

-often the women turn to family of origin for advice since she is not expected to make decisions by herself. Even if she decides to leave, she has to do it w/i the context of the family [or family of origin]. The family usually gives support, but they don’t always condone the leaving. So they say: “you can rest here, but you’ll have to return soon to your husband.” – but the women who come to the shelter already gave up trying to get support from family [of origin] so those women usually don’t return to husband

-One of the hardships of those women is that until shelter, they had $ support of husband – all she had to do is to take care of family. Now, they have to support/work for themselves. Most women go working in homes.

-except Bedouin, the women usually come w/ kids

-Druze/Bedouin tend to be harsher on wives – even smoking/dress/cell-phone is a reason for “honor-killing”

-often, the family will do with her just leaving to a far away place

-main emotion of the abused Arab women is shame

-2 centers dealing w/ violence in Arab families in Israel. There is also therapy for the man

Models of empowerment w/ Arab population:

-An idea came up first return the childhood fun experiences to the women who never had it – i.e. let the adult women play

-we often see the abused women let out steam by hitting their kids – even in shelters

-33 multiple choice question

End of course!