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Emotions drive behaviour.
Most abusers entering a third sector organisation seeking to change their violent and or aggressive and or abusive behaviour with a partner or spouse are not interested in achieving "power and control" over a partner. The risk of them wishing to do this with a former partner, after they have split up is much greater, but the vast majority are still only really interested in managing themselves. You can read about the statistics on this linked page, opposite. Graham Kevan and Archer 2003 illustrate.
Conclusion
The vast majority of work carried out by a 3rd sector organsition is going to be with people who fall into the category of using common couple / situational violence. A very much smaller group will be so-called "intimate terrorists".
Radical pro-feminst work set out from 1975 onwards and focused only "power and control" it was misplaced then, it was rejected by its originator, Ellen Pence in 1999 and it is effectively disproven now by the appalling drop-out and non completion statistics achieved by those organisations . You can read the arguments against it by clicking the link on the opposite page.
To be effective work with abusers needs to be focused on common couple / situational violence and be able to accommodate the occasional intimate terrorist.The work needs to be carried out in entirely new and different ways from those proposed by the feminists in 1975, those same methods which are still advocated by RESPECT. RESPECT seeks to accredit abuser programmes in the UK, but the evidence of their first "accreditation" DVIP, which shares many officers with RESPECT and is historically inseparable, is that their methods are ineffective, outdated and mis-focused. Again the chapter and verse evidence of this is given in the documents opposite.
Both men and women are abusers, vastly more men than women. But work needs to be available for both. Violence exists in gay and lesbian relationships, too, in significant and similar volumes percentage-wise as in heterosexual relationships. It follows that gay men and lesbian women also need to be able to attend services. There is no "theoretical" reason why this work may not be undertaken in mixed groups, together. It might not suit the "desires" of a minority group not to be treated specially, but everybody is entitled to similar treatment.
What does the work need to focus on?
Emotions drive behaviour.
Therefore the first focus has to be on "which emotions" are driving the behaviour.
Fundamental to all human group behaviour is Attachment Theory, so an understanding of emotions in the context of Attachment Theory is the underlying content of the work. Individuals taking part do not need to know and understand the "grammar" of this language, the theory, they need to be able to regulate the emotions arising.
As well as the declarative emotions given in the little presentation, other emotions might also be the focus of the individual's need to regulate them. Obvious candidates for this are jealousy, envy and competitiveness. From the little slide show, where would these emotional "blends" be placed?
What does the person need to be able to do to start regulating these emotions?
On the one side, the "focus in" the person needs to be able to recognise these emotions in different ways.
1 a) they need to be able to recognise signs that an emotion has become engaged
b) they need to be able to define it and
c) they also need to have an idea of the likely "course" of this emotion "running" in them.
2 This implies that they have a clear picture of the emotion, of their "historical" context with this emotion - i.e. they have some insight into their workings when this emotion is engaged in them .
3 They have to be able to evaluate their current emotional position and predict their likely next steps as the current emotion abates.
4 This implies that the individual has some knowledge about themselves and about the way they react. This also means that this area has to be explored and largely understood, by the individual themselves rather than by the therapist, after all he or she is going to be the one responsible for regulating their own emotions.
5) New skills needed. Obviously a great deal has gone wrong and a great deal of damage may have been caused by one (or both) people getting seriously out of their own control.
Verbal skills are needed to express clearly the emotion going on in themselves, any discontent and the reasons for this.
Ellen Pence's own observations about "Power and Control" in this client group.
Johnson's and Graham-Kevan's statistics
Latest radical feminist developments:
When the police attend an "incident" where the woman was violent they are encouraged to take away the man because this will have been a one-off (legally justified) incident of violent retaliation - according to feminism - rather than the typical male "battering" scenario. (7 per 1000!)
RESPECT believes that the work needs to "hold men accountable", whatever that might mean. In "male language" we would suggest men understand that as being "do something about it". Attending an abuser programme is "doing something about it".
According to RESPECT men have a sense of "entitlement" to dominate women, this is based on historically universal patriarchal societies. Nobody would deny that historically this is correct. Few would deny that there are not still "dominating male influences", even in "egalitarian" Britain. But "Miss" was permitted to marry in 1948, women have had the vote since 1908 and Mrs Thatcher ruled with a "rod of iron" for 10 years before the "absolute power" began to "corrupt". "We are a grandmother", as she apparently began to usurp the regal status of the queens of Britain, who have reigned for X of the past 500 years!
Another stumbling block for feminists is the Jingle" He does it for the power, he does it for control." The circular logic of this argument simply defies all logic!
See Ellen Pence!
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0BxcVYKrhnJNhMWU3NDcwM2MtM2QyOS00NTkzLTljOGItNDZmMWE4Y2MwZDZi&hl=enhttp://www.favtea.com/Book.flier2.pdf
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