With the introduction of laws which recognise coercive control and mental cruelty, it is time for the broader women’s movement to take a new position when working with clients who are living with or in contact with male intimate abusers. In taking a new position we must be fully informed about the problem. We must examine the tumour at the core of all intimate abuse.
The man who treats his wife/partner as a second-class human being does so on the understanding that she will see herself as the problem. His ability to control her mind is developed by constant degradation of her humanity and persistent undermining of her femininity. This bombardment of her spirit causes her to focus on her own inadequacies while ignoring his behaviour.
This deviousness allows the man to develop an ability to invade the thoughts of his partner until she is unable to think for herself. He fills her analytical mind with doubt and confusion until she loses faith in her own intuition and her own opinions. She lives with this anxiety as it grows to fear and then to terror. She becomes afraid to be herself.
It is in this highly ambiguous state that she presents to agencies and support services:
- She arrives believing that she is partly to blame for her own misery.
- She also is aware that she cannot explain her confusion as she is unsure about the setting-up and grooming phases that she has been subjected to. [Read: How the male intimate abuser sets-up & grooms a target woman.]
- She is conflicted between her need to be both truthful and loyal, which leads her to minimise his abuse and to maximise her own inadequacies.
While she is in this turmoil we, the domestic violence and support services, offer her support, empowerment and sympathy. We begin to encourage her to ignore him or to challenge him. Many of my clients have been encouraged to leave him. Some of my clients have been required to have him barred before further help will be offered to her. This is an inadequate response. It is inadequate primarily because it puts the onus firmly on the person with the least amount of power to solve the problem. Our support adds to her responsibility, while we can witness her further abuse without sharing that responsibility.
Evan Stark says the revolution is stalled. It is stalled because the movement has realigned its position from one of protection to one of support.
[Watch: Evan Stark didn’t interview abusive men to analyse their thinking and behaviour.]
When intimate abuse and violence first became an issue, our reaction was to build physical refuges. This response was predicated on the belief that the problem was one of male violence and sexual assaults. We now know that these abusive behaviours are developed and maintained after a level of mind control is achieved. This mind control can be triggered into action in many ways and will allow the abuser to repeat the abuse and not suffer any sanction.
Our response needs to move from requiring the target woman to solve the problem, to one where the whole community moves to protect her and sanction her abuser.
Rather than being critical of our work, let us acknowledge that we have all been hoodwinked by the male intimate abusers.
These men, whom I have labelled psychephiles, are more cunning and more devious than pedophiles. [Watch: The psychephile befriends the mind of the target woman and surreptitiously brainwashes her, while pretending to be in love.]
Psychephiles weave their self-centred way through society while devastating the lives of their intimate partners. They also manipulate their children in whatever way is most painful for their mother. The damage done to children when he uses them as pawns in his game is both traumatic and hidden.
He is an expert in avoiding exposure and can divert any attempt to focus on him. [Read more: How He Wins.]
We all – professionals and bystanders – are guilty at times of seeing his partner as inadequate and of seeing his parenting as being helpful. This has been our excuse for failing to intervene in the relationship, and it is the psychephile who has groomed us into this false sense of being helpful. [Read more: Society has been hoodwinked by men who abuse their female intimate partners.]
If we accept that the basis for all intimate abuse is an ability to control her thoughts and an ability to groom her into forgiveness or at least into ‘moving on’, we must also accept that we all have been groomed by him. This grooming can happen even when we only meet her, because she brings his thoughts to our conversations, and she brings his reaction to our suggestions. [Read more: For professionals who work in Domestic Abuse.]
If we wish to intervene in this process, we need to do so in at least two stages.
The first stage is to attempt to protect her mind from hearing any more of his messages. If she is living with him she can tell us what he is saying and invite us to respond to his agenda by text, email, or a face to face encounter. This intervention requires skill and timing but can be effective if we impress on him that we will now be privy to his behaviour, and that we will be obliged to report him if it occurs again.
The second stage is to encourage her to begin to be herself again. She does not need therapy as she is a decent woman. When she reassesses her talents, her kindness, her loyalty, her honesty, and her dedication, she can use these gifts to make her way in the world. Our role then becomes one of shielding her spirit from his influence. In order to do so we need to work together so that the psychephile is confronted by a barrier of goodness against which his malevolence will fade.
I will develop some detail on both stages one and two in subsequent blogs. I will do a post on team-work, and also a post on the recruitment and training of practitioners.
We can no longer leave the target woman alone to cope with a man who acts as a psychopath and a sociopath within the confines of his relationship. We are failing her if we let her feel abandoned when she hears him arriving home or when she sees another text or email from him.
Before any intervention is used, we must get the permission and co-operation of the target woman. This is a skill that can only be developed while working with experienced practitioners. Each client must get the benefit of all the skills of our agencies. Instead of working in isolation, with occasional supervision, we need to work in teams that use the combined wisdom of all our colleagues. We should not do the work unless we are clear that what we are dealing with is criminal behavior.
I do not wish to change any services that are proving effective but I believe that until the community response actively includes protection, the behavior of the psychephiles will be repeated. The psychephiles can be ruthless until they find out that they are being monitored. Because they operate in the secrecy of the home, they find it difficult to cope with outsiders who are not groomed by them. When the whole community send a clear message that any future abuse will not be tolerated, most of them change tactics. They do not give up their control but they attempt to exercise it in more subtle ways.
I despair of the legal and justice systems. I don’t think they will ever understand the abuser. I believe that we must not wait for these systems to reform. I am convinced that if we are to eradicate intimate abuse we need society to declare it abhorrent and for all of us to become active.
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This post was written by Don Hennessy. Links have been added by Barbara Roberts. Barb will add this post to her Don Hennessy Digest.
Read and watch: Don Hennessy and Barbara Roberts talk about Domestic Violence and Abuse, Part 1
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