Helping Men Who Batter…

Campbell, M., Neil, J., Jaffe, P., & Kelly, T. (2010). Engaging Abusive Men in Seeking Community Intervention: A Critical Research & Practice Priority Journal of Family Violence DOI: 10.1007/s10896-010-9302-z

Violence by men against women within the context of an intimate partner relationship is a common crime in most developed nations. Hugely under-reported, this heinous behaviour has defied the interventions of lawmakers and policy-makers over the years, to remain a critical social problem. In Australia, for example, it is still socially acceptable for husbands (under certain circumstances) to beat their wives. Perhaps the most controversial aspect of how to deal with such violence has been responding to the actual perpetrators. Do we lock them up? Do we bar them access to their (former) partners? Do we name and shame them? Do we rehabilitate them?

In this compassionate article by Campbell, et al. (2010), they lean toward conceptualising ‘batterer’ (their word) behaviours as a mental health issue. I can see some merit in that approach, so long as perpetrators are not allowed to use madness as an excuse to obviate individual responsibility. Anyone who has worked therapeutically with perpetrators would be familiar with their tendency to shift blame elsewhere. It could be their upbringing, their addiction, their partner, or their madness, but it is seldom their own violence. The great challenge of working therapeutically with perpetrators, therefore, is to keep in clear focus those three essential words: ‘you did it’.

 Campbell, et al. (2010) raised two key points that interested me somewhat:

 1. That of the 73 perpetrators who they interviewed, 38% would be too embarrassed to ask for help…

The refusal by men to seek help for their violent behaviours underscores just how fucked masculinity is in its current, dominant form. We uphold the virtue of men toughing it out alone, even when their behaviours can be so unequivocally destructive. Then we make that situation worse by refusing to provide perpetrators with appropriate, therapeutic services.

 2. That for most of those 73 perpetrators, any help they sought would have to be ‘non-judgmental’…

The term, ‘non-judgmental’ has several shades of meaning. I think that when you work therapeutically with perpetrators (or anyone else, for that matter), you are not in a position to be judging who they are or what they have done. However, as I alluded to earlier, that does not mean that you collude with their violent behaviours by fudging the reality or the ownership of that violence.