In this episode of Partnered with a Survivor Ruth Stearns Mandel & David Mandel discuss professional and mental health terms commonly used which hide perpetrator responsibility for patterns of abuse. They discuss how this impacts victims moving through systems which are not grounded in a practice of pivoting to focus on the perpetrator's patterns of behavior. David & Ruth also discuss viewing the effects of abuse only as a pathology, a deficit in victims and how this does not honor the full reality of how bodies respond to abuse and harm, and how this leads to victim blaming. They examine mental health and psychological diagnoses which are commonly used by reporting agencies with the intent to help the victim heal but which is often used poorly by systems to the detriment of safety, nurturance and healing. Ruth shares her personal experience in navigating mental health systems for her own healing, as well how words can be used to hide the realities of abuse in personal relationship.
Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real
Check out David Mandel's new book "Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to transform the way we keep children safe from domestic violence."
In this episode of Partnered with a Survivor Ruth Stearns Mandel & David Mandel discuss professional and mental health terms commonly used which hide perpetrator responsibility for patterns of abuse. They discuss how this impacts victims moving through systems which are not grounded in a practice of pivoting to focus on the perpetrator's patterns of behavior. David & Ruth also discuss viewing the effects of abuse only as a pathology, a deficit in victims and how this does not honor the full reality of how bodies respond to abuse and harm, and how this leads to victim blaming. They examine mental health and psychological diagnoses which are commonly used by reporting agencies with the intent to help the victim heal but which is often used poorly by systems to the detriment of safety, nurturance and healing. Ruth shares her personal experience in navigating mental health systems for her own healing, as well how words can be used to hide the realities of abuse in personal relationship.
Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real
Check out David Mandel's new book "Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to transform the way we keep children safe from domestic violence."
Speaker 1: [00:00:00] We're back, [00:00:01][0.2]
Speaker 2: [00:00:01] yes, we are. [00:00:02][0.5]
Speaker 1: [00:00:03] Episode number three [00:00:04][0.8]
Speaker 2: [00:00:05] partnered with a survivor, [00:00:05][0.7]
Speaker 1: [00:00:06] yeah, the last the first episode was about coercive control and consent, and then the next podcast was about victim blaming, which is a really big box, right? [00:00:21][14.6]
Speaker 2: [00:00:22] And for those of you joining us for the first time, I'm David Mandel, the executive director of the Safe and Tether Institute. [00:00:26][4.5]
Speaker 1: [00:00:27] And I'm Ruth Stearns Mandel, and I'm the communications and e-learning manager for Safe and Together Institute. And this podcast is is meant to be a reflection of that professional work, but also with a very personal look into the issues of abuse and and parenting and relationship and masculinity and femininity and and all of the above. So where you range a little far sometimes. [00:00:59][32.0]
Speaker 2: [00:01:01] Right. And this is this podcast will develop over time, and I'm sure it'll evolve and we're looking forward to your comments and your input. So as we posted on different social media platforms, please share, please make comments. We're looking to engage folks who are listening wherever you're listening around the globe. [00:01:20][19.2]
Speaker 1: [00:01:21] Yeah. And I just I want to acknowledge that recently two things have happened in our home state of Connecticut. One was that that Jennifer Dulos, I think that's the proper way to say her name. Who? So yeah, she was a woman who lived one town over from us, and her husband has been arrested and charged with her murder. And another family in Colchester, Connecticut, was found dead over the holiday. And it seems to also potentially be another case of coercive control. And it's very difficult for the systems as they exist now to really navigate that because they're severely uninformed about a domestic abuse and quite adversarial actually to to victims in many ways. And so those those two things are heavy on my on my mind as we as we record this podcast today. Yeah. [00:02:24][63.7]
Speaker 2: [00:02:25] And on my mind as well. And I think, well, this is not the the main focus of this podcast, but it will come up, obviously, as it doesn't all of them. But really, for us, the idea the importance of really understanding the nature of coercive control as a framework for looking at what is referred to as domestic violence or family violence or intimate partner violence is is really critical because we can't just be looking for physical violence. We have to be looking for other forms of abuse and control and that the second thing which is what's been a major theme in the work for us is also we're connecting the dots between child abuse and neglect and domestic abuse because those those two fields have often been separated and they're they're big issues for both family courts and and child protection systems. And and one of these cases, the Dulos case was really embedded or involved with the Family Court child custody system. And it's really important for those systems really understand the nature of these behaviors and the impact they have in the relationship between that and the custody decisions that those courts make. And so so this is just a major theme for us, though, not the the the headline theme of this this podcast with which Russo introduce. [00:03:52][86.6]
Speaker 1: [00:03:52] Oh yes. Yeah, yeah. So what is the headline theme of this podcast? So actually, in a subtle way, it does have to do with coercive control. Yes, it does. [00:04:00][8.1]
Speaker 2: [00:04:02] Of course it does. That is we're not going to we're not going to stray that far from that. Probably. [00:04:05][3.1]
Speaker 1: [00:04:05] We're really not. And so really, what I want to talk about today is how we use language, particularly professional language. You know, the language of of mental health and psychology, as well as reporting language in case histories, and it hides the realities of abuse and in fact is is quite detrimental to understanding what coercive control is and then kind of Segway into the language that we have adopted, the things that we say that hide abuse in personal relationship between between couples and really how to spot that language over time to understand if if somebody or even yourself, maybe in a course of controlling. Relationship. Right. So I'd love to start with the professional languages that we hear that hide coercive control and maybe beginning actually a little bit in the in the realm of mental health and psychology. Okay. Because I believe that that that those, you know, terms that we used we use with pathologize, particularly victims has done a lot of harm. But the terms that we use for perpetrators really doesn't speak to their behaviors of control and power. Right. And how that is so detrimental to the work. So go for it. David Mandel. [00:05:39][94.0]
Speaker 2: [00:05:40] Well, you you brought this up earlier today and and Ruth was talking to me about her dislike and of the word or the phrase that refers to trauma bonding. The word [00:05:51][11.6]
Speaker 1: [00:05:51] dislike is not [00:05:52][1.1]
Speaker 2: [00:05:53] strong or not strong is not strong enough and and that she was really talking about how the term trauma bonding really obscures the nature and dynamics of curse control, and also the strengths that survivors bring to managing situations where they're faced with coercive control from a partner and moves it into the realm of a mental health issue instead of a safety issue. And instead of an issue that that focuses on the perpetrators responsibility for setting up certain dynamics in a relationship. So I don't know if you want to say more about this. [00:06:32][39.7]
Speaker 1: [00:06:33] Yes, I both the term trauma, [00:06:35][1.9]
Speaker 2: [00:06:36] both the term sloth is a good thing, [00:06:38][2.7]
Speaker 1: [00:06:39] and actually, I actually despise most of the terms that are used in psychology to define victims and survivors and and as a way to explain away why it is that they don't leave again. We're always. That's the one place we're always knocking up against. And I get that it is a control issue that we feel as if safety is predicated upon leaving. When the reality is, is that when you are in a coercively controlling situation with a violent abuser or just a coercive controller who is not physically harmed you but has probably subtly threatened you and shown you that ability to control you, that actually that action of leaving is really high risk. It really does push that perpetrator to a place where they've lost control and then that's when women and children die. And so all of our systems focusing all of their efforts in their terminology to try to force or explain away why victims don't leave perpetrators to me is one of the most harmful things that we have done. And so with trauma bonding, I think of myself from my own perspective and and and I am not trained in mental health and psychology, but I have read quite a bit in my journey. And as a person who has experienced being in a committed relationship, being in relationship with family that was abusive, that the term trauma bonding totally and completely hides all of the strategies that I employed or that my siblings employed in order for us to be able to placate a violent or frightening or coercively controlling perpetrator. Keep them in our line of sight, keep our safety, keep our cohesion and our unity, you know, between right children and siblings. That's right. Right. And and that really hides all of that, right? And it puts everything on on the victim, right? Right. There's no you don't see anything about the perpetrator in the trauma bonding language, right? [00:08:51][131.6]
Speaker 2: [00:08:52] So, you know, it's it's this is such an important topic to be talking about, and it's it's so important to have a survivor's voice in in this conversation because I think that at its most generous terms like trauma, bonding and codependency, you know, and one of my most generous understanding of them trauma, bonding, codependency, phrases that we're all kind of refer to a PTSD diagnosis. You know, they're at with the most generous understanding. They're really designed to help help people heal from harm and to function better. And it's so critical for us to understand the limitations and and in a lot of ways, the political nature of these diagnoses and these these ways of of of thinking that they're not value neutral. And I think a lot of times that they're they're presented as value neutral. And and if you want to read about the politics around post-traumatic stress disorder, still one of the best books around this is Judith Lewis Herman's book Trauma and Recovery, where she compares the conversations about. Rape survivors to two World War one soldiers and vets and how they were being, you know, term was shell-shocked and there wasn't language and and all these things come with a tremendous amount of political quote unquote meaning significant cultural meaning judgments, assessments baked into them. And she was really a groundbreaker in terms of pointing to us and saying or pointing to these issues and saying, Hey, these aren't neutral discussions. These aren't just scientific discussions. These are these are are value laden discussions, right? You know, so that's I mean one of the things that's what I'm hearing you say when you're when you're talking about this, it's one of things that comes to mind, right? [00:10:41][108.5]
Speaker 1: [00:10:41] Yeah, I mean, I think that as any. OK. And so I'm going back to my previous training. [00:10:47][6.1]
Speaker 2: [00:10:49] All right. [00:10:49][0.3]
Speaker 1: [00:10:49] I'm going, you know, any diagnostic tool is imperfect and that it is it is not going to tell the full picture, right? And when I was training doctors, I would say this over and over again that you do have to really map out the histories and and look at the case and its individuality and and see the way that that person has moved. Now, you know, going back to my training where I I look at trauma from the perspective of a biological response, right? So to me, it's not a pathology. It's actually a normal response of the body to a certain series of events which causes stress to the limbic system. And the body is trying to modulate that now that down over time during particular developmental phases for children or the severity of the incidences is has a profound impact on the body in a chemical way. And so one of the things that really helped me as a survivor because I've heard all those terms I I put myself into counseling at the age of 19. Mm-Hmm. Somewhat to my detriment, because the first person I encountered was was not prepared for me. Right, right. So I received trauma from from from watching this, this this licensed professional counselor completely spun out in meltdown, as I disclosed to her. So one of the things that I really had to learn in going through all these different methods EMDR and you know, all these different psychological methods that I used for my own recovery was that really the most simple thing for me is to say, of course, my body respond to that right, right? That is absolutely natural, right? There is no judgment in that right. I my body is absolutely flawless and perfect in the way that it responded. And it simply needed the tools in order for it to complete that right healing so that I could I could not be in trauma all the time. Right? But going back to the language piece of that, that doesn't tell that story, both for the individual person who's trying to recover, but for the system that's trying to report on that person on the risk, on the impact to that person and on the impact to the wider community or the wider family ecology. [00:13:24][154.2]
Speaker 2: [00:13:25] And I think you know what's developing here is this idea that in my mind, as I'm listening to you, is, you know, we're not trashing the reality of trauma impact, whether it's in, you know, symptoms of anxiety, symptoms of depression, all the different things that may show up and people impact on their functioning. And then we're not also denying or at least I'll speak for I'm not. I value the clinical work that's been done and can be done, the importance of that work with people who need help. When I think about this, that people often talk about what we want systems to be trauma informed, and they're often talking about the clinical aspects of being trauma informed, the treatment aspects of trauma informed to understand the dynamics and where I see the big gap is and I think it's what you're saying and tell me if this is right, which is that it's not connected to the patterns. Of course, control is not connected to looking at safety and looking at the behaviors of others who are causing these things. And most of my experience with systems who are looking to be trauma informed, this has been a major critique of mine is they would throw all the different causes of traumatic impact and they call them potentially traumatic incidents as a potentially traumatic exposure. As you know where you have these things that could produce traumatic effects in people, but they lump them all in the same basket. So exposure to an earthquake or a car accident is. Hawked around the same way as a child like childhood sexual abuse or ongoing coercive control and or community violence, or you see somebody died of a drug overdose on the street or shootings and and and each of these things come with different packages around safety, around supports, around experiences of connection. And you kind of alluded to all that where you're saying you're right about family dynamics in the context of your abuse. Right? [00:15:23][117.6]
Speaker 1: [00:15:24] And pulling that apart and really recognizing because you had said in one of the previous podcasts about the severity, right, the severity. So you're not going to take all actions as being the same when you're looking at a course controller, right? You're really going to look to see what was the intended impact, what was the intention in controlling and how severe was that particular action? And how much did it limit the ability of that person to move freely in their own mind? Because now they're terrified, right? Or actually physically because something was removed from them, such as a vehicle or a cell phone or access to food or water or education, whatever it may be? Right, right. So you really have to look at this from the standpoint of what what was the impact on the survivor? Because most of the time the course of controller is going to say, Oh, I didn't, I didn't mean that, right? I was just joking, right? Oh, I was just messing around, right? That's just me. That's just how I communicate well. [00:16:35][71.8]
Speaker 2: [00:16:36] And I think what you're saying is that that part of what we're were asking people to consider is that if professionals aren't trained to to look to draw the line back to source's behaviors that are causing the trauma and identifying whether there's current safety risks or current control issues, that one is, the diagnosis may be flawed. Right? And then the treatment may be compromised. And and in all of that, well, often it kind of. It's almost like the board kind of gets tilted to to blame survivors because they're not going to complete the treatment because he stopped them from going to the appointment or control that an insurance card. Right. And and so when the treatment of of of trauma symptoms is disconnected from the context, right, then there are real dangers in lots of different directions, including continued abuse and lack of of of physical safety, but also compromising of the survivor's success in their treatment. And and then that can have broader implications in a family court or a child protection system where they're looking for positive outcomes in her treatment. [00:17:46][70.3]
Speaker 1: [00:17:46] Correct? And obviously also in that context, if we were just to be looking at something like Family Court, where you have allegations of abuse that have come up in the context of a custody dispute and you have, you know, we're going to use our gender pronouns now because this is the most likely scenario, right? You have a woman who's been abused or coercive control by a man who has more power. More financial power has threatened on the backside to destroy her, to take away vital monetary support, which was supporting that family and those children. And that's what that family was used to rape. And so what we have on the other side is is a perception of a person, a woman who's spinning out, who's very anxious, who's hard to pin down because she's working in an adversarial system already and she has a coercive controller who hasn't battered her. He hasn't punched her in the face. Or maybe he's just threatened her [00:18:48][61.2]
Speaker 2: [00:18:48] or he has. And maybe in that setting, they're not taking that as relevant to decisions about the kids that we see that as well. But go ahead, correct? [00:18:55][7.4]
Speaker 1: [00:18:56] Yeah, so. So I think I think understanding how trauma impacts people in those adversarial situations is really important actually for people who are in those professional situations, like judges and lawyers and psychologists to understand that when you put something in a case history that says, for example, a woman has a history of multiple abusive relationships that is actually victim blaming, right? Because number one, she hasn't chosen that right. Those were the choices of the perpetrator. She was probably habituated that way and modeled that right. And also, it's not it's not her responsibility, the choices of the person who is accusing. So that type of language is really clear to us. That's victim blaming, and it hides the reality. [00:19:45][49.6]
Speaker 2: [00:19:47] A colleague of mine, you know, says this really eloquently and very directly, and I think he gets to say this so easily because he's Canadian Alan Wade and he he's he's one of the. Creators of response based therapy, which is really focused on resistance of survivors to violence, and that includes survivors of domestic abuse of colonization and really is he he uses different language to talk about a lot of the same things we talk about, you know, around survivors strengths and, you know, needing to be strength based and and he names sort of the the mental health industry and insurance industry. He points to the United States and says, you know, the need to pay for problems and the focus on pathologizing is really hard to escape and has really shaped the way we approach domestic abuse survivors, even as we're trying to help them. And I'm trained as a mental health professional and really, I have been deeply impacted by the the power of the work. Mental health practices might have been a lot of body centered work that that I've done have had to heal people and really change their lives. So there's there's there's a deep connection for me to the power, the positive power of of healing arts, whether physical healing arts or emotional mental health or spiritual healing arts, and when they're often tied up in these frameworks of deficits of of focusing on symptoms that they're often breaking things down into bits and bytes that are that they are disconnected from really important things like the perpetrator's pattern of behavior and their responsibility. [00:21:32][105.4]
Speaker 1: [00:21:33] Right. So so what I would love is if you kind of went through and listed some of the most common terms that you hear both in the mental health field and in reporting for caseworkers in child protection, but in other other, you know, sectors as well. What are some of the most used terms that you hear that are hiding the realities of abuse? [00:22:02][28.3]
Speaker 2: [00:22:02] Well, I think the you know, one of the oldest terms in some senses is codependency. And it's I think it may be a little bit less popular now, but I think the idea is is still there. And it's a term that was almost practically always used with women. And a lot of these terms are are gendered or have a gendered aspect to them. You know, like borderline personality disorder is often almost always or historically was used for women to describe women and and and also you have codependency, like I was just saying in this idea that that somebody is is attached to somebody and is codependent on them and it comes out of the drug and alcohol field. The subject is field and and it was really a way to to implicate usually women in somebody else's choices. And it didn't account for domestic abuse to account for control. You know, so that would be one term, right? And another one is is really how are you putting me on the spot here to think about other, you know, she's she's asking me as much as I can, you know, I think the the the big bucket really is this entire discussion about trauma. And we don't go anywhere anymore where agencies don't particularly child protection or other agencies don't want to be trauma informed. And so I want to be really, absolutely clear about the importance of of becoming for professionals who are not doing clinical work. Mm hmm. You know, treatment itself by case managers and others to really understand trauma and its impact. I think that's so important to to understand that somebody is going to present who's been traumatized. They may they may present as anxious, they may present is depressed. And and to understand where that comes from to me as trauma informed right to move into a space of non judgment is to me as part of being trauma informed. But in systems that are set up to assess and often make decisions about whether kids safe or not. Oftentimes, a history of being traumatized by other people's choices and behaviors and often being victims of crimes, you know, actual crimes is often can be seen as a deficit. And I still remember the story of sitting with a team of mental health professionals and child protection professionals who are talking about this very same issue. And the clinical people with the best of their intent, the best hearts they're in the room wanted to to train the child protection workers, to go in there and better identify parents and kids histories of of trauma. Right. And and and sort of identify when there was one or more, you know, and so we can talk about complex trauma and all these things. And they're go, they're they're very pure. And I mean, without any any irony goal was to really provide better trauma treatment to those those those families. So they could be. Better functioning families and heal, so there's no question. We're butted up against the child protection system way of functioning, and I was sitting in this room and I was the domestic violence person in the room and I and we went through that and I turned to a colleague of mine, a close friend, and everybody said, If you heard that a kid in the household had been exposed to three or four different forms of trauma, usually meaning they've been exposed to physical violence may have been physically maltreated, maybe sex abuse. What would be your response? And they said without blinking and we would take those kids. And I think it's sort of a meeting of of two different frameworks, at least, that we really need to understand that that in a clinical setting in an alliance with a with a patient or a client, that trauma history is very valuable. Right. But it takes on different meanings in these systems that are making decisions around custody, access, child protection and meanings that are often very negative for survivors. [00:25:56][234.2]
Speaker 1: [00:25:57] Right. And and I think that the key point is just a really solid ground that that you land in. And that is is that when we when we focus on on the victim or the children and their responses to the actions of a perpetrator, when we really put our focus there, we are truly doing a disservice to them because what I needed as a survivor is I needed acknowledgment of the behaviors that had harmed me, right? Okay. Now the reality is, is you're not often going to get that from a perpetrator, but you can get it from the systems that are charged in safety if they assist you in getting to that place. And that is having a social worker or a mental health worker go through that history with you and then say to you, of course you're traumatized. Mm-Hmm. It would be absolutely abnormal if you were not traumatized, right? And that is because of the choices of the other person who chose those behaviors to harm you. And to me, it is a very simple equation. And as a survivor, I'm not always quite sure why people haven't made that leap right into it yet. It doesn't make sense to me in a rational sort of framework. And I understand that there's lots of lots of things that we've attached ourselves to as practices, which, you know, people consider to be very scientific and outcome based and, you know, policies and programs. But for particularly victims in an active state, the acknowledging of the patterns of harm and the behaviors of harm which led them to that place of trauma feels like a safe place. And you know, you have that little quiz that you created is, you know, quick quiz. Who would you rather partner with, right? Somebody that assumes that the choices or blames you for the choices of your partner and assumes that you know you're responsible for the well-being of the children, even though somebody else chose to do the harm or somebody who partners with you and doesn't blame you for other people's choices [00:28:08][131.3]
Speaker 2: [00:28:09] and just you don't deserve to be treated this way. And we're concerned for your partner's behavior and its impact on the kids and what you and your kids to be safe. I'm thinking about one of the things I learned in my training to be a therapist, to be a mental health professional, which is which is my part of my my background and training, which was when when you can say to somebody looks in the eye and say, you came by this honorable and in fact, you've I say that all the time. You use that phrase as well. And I think it's it's such a simple, beautiful phrase to say, but to understand that when you're seeing somebody and struggling or are there, they're dealing with, you know, depression or anxiety and their trauma survivors. There are people who have experience abuse, whether it's a child or an adult, to really have that ability to say to them, You came by this struggle honorably or [00:28:59][49.5]
Speaker 1: [00:28:59] honestly [00:28:59][0.0]
Speaker 2: [00:28:59] or honestly, right? You know, I think that I think it's just a really beautiful and and sweet and true sentiment to express to somebody so. So I think I invite people to try that on and in the right context to say that, you know, say to somebody who's in that situation, right? You know, to say, you've come by this, honestly, you've come by this honorably. [00:29:21][21.9]
Speaker 1: [00:29:22] Right, right. Because of the choices of somebody [00:29:24][2.1]
Speaker 2: [00:29:25] else of somebody else. [00:29:25][0.8]
Speaker 1: [00:29:26] Let's keep our focus there, right? And in keeping our focus there, it's almost like it puts the bumpers on. It protects it that that focus on the perpetrator actually puts the bumpers on and protects, protects victims from further harm and further trauma. And and all that that research on disclosing and that I had done right into the truth commissions, it became very clear that, you know, part a big part. Of a healthy disclosure which didn't retraumatize right victim, it was that those bumpers were on that the focus was on the perpetrator, that there was no mandate for that victim right there to forgive that person or trust that person or be comfortable with co-parenting with that person. But that acknowledging the harm and the choices that they had made and creating a place of safety right for for that acknowledgment and saying, of course, of course you're traumatized. Of course you're angry. Of course you're distrustful, you know? And so not turning that into the language of paranoia, not turning that into the language of codependency. Not turning that into the language of trauma bonding. Right. But it's a reasonable and rational response of a human being to harm and to patterns of harm over a long duration of time. [00:30:52][86.0]
Speaker 2: [00:30:53] And I think, you know, we and we've written about this in our online courses and put out a research briefing on on domestic abuse survivors, parenting strengths and their strengths as it relates to their own safety and the safety and well-being of their kids. And and and it's important just to recognize that the deficit based lens, how how much the mental health diagnosis out there are designed to fix problems. And there's nothing wrong with that. If people have anxiety issues, they deserve and need support and healing and and and that includes may include specific kinds of treatment, maybe medication and maybe talk therapy, maybe groups and support around safety and well-being and basic needs being met and other things. Because because domestic abuse survivors are impact on all those domains. But there's nothing that substitute in in our in our thinking to to actively go looking for strengths, actively going again. I'll kind of quote kind of want to attribute this the way this language has seeped into my talking, at least around from from Alan Way and his colleagues, you know, around acts of resistance, right? And and and if you don't have a place for that kind of looking and curiosity and seeking out an understanding, then then then we're at the mercy of this very powerful paradigm of trauma and deficits and codependency and PTSD and trauma bonding. And and again, this is one of those don't throw the baby out with the bathwater moments, which is I'm not I'm not throwing those things away. I'm just saying, I'm just saying that we need to look at them critically, understand what they are and they aren't what they can do for us and for survivors, right? But also actively choose as professionals or people who care about somebody who should be as family or friends to look for what they've done right to look for their strengths to to see how they've resisted to validate that back to them. Right. To me, I'm so deeply passionate about this piece of practice and way of relating those time call practice, this way of relating. [00:33:11][138.7]
Speaker 1: [00:33:12] And I'm going to say really quickly that if you want to get more information about how to do that, then you would go on our website, the Safe and Together Institute, and we do have courses that you can take that can help you to start shift your focus in that direction. And so now we've talked about systems and we can talk man, because we can. 31 minutes we've been talking. [00:33:34][21.5]
Speaker 2: [00:33:35] Two seconds just goes by quickly. [00:33:37][1.6]
Speaker 1: [00:33:37] And but I want to talk about actual personal experiences because one of my main things is that I know as a as a survivor that my ability to disclose and find safety and find healing and nurturance was severely limited by the responses of friends and family. And that's true both in my childhood and that was true later in life as I was trying to leave an abusive relationship. And so I want to talk about some of the things that people habitually say that we can recognize as being potential blinds for coercive control and abuse, you know, and some of the things I can think of as I used, I used to say, Well, he loses it, right? OK. Right. All right. That's a broad and general general blind for behaviors that are are harmful and obviously traumatizing in some way. OK. So I that's one of them. A few of the other ones are we have relationship issues, right? Our relationship is difficult, right? It's complicated. [00:34:46][68.5]
Speaker 2: [00:34:47] Right? [00:34:47][0.0]
Speaker 1: [00:34:48] Oh, he has a bad temper, right? Yeah. Well, I take care of the kids because he helps a lot. OK. And so these are really subtle ways when some of the imbalance in the system is that women are expected to do these things, they're expected to be the primary nurtures. And again, this thought about masculinity and males as behaving in a certain way because of their gender, because of their biology, because of their sex, because of testosterone. Whatever people want to attribute it to as being acceptable in a baseline for male behavior that men cannot control is also part of it. So we kind of buy into that paradigm and these things can really hide abuse. They can really take it and put it underground. And I think that it's really important for us in our own personal conversations about relationships that we have experience that has elements of coercive control and abuse to learn, to call it out in a more clear way. And here, when we hear that from a person who looks chronically tired, who's having a hard time managing their children, who is obviously depressed, and we hear that over and over again during time, over time, then more than likely that person is in an abusive relationship is in a course of a controlling relationship. And society is very poor at recognizing it because we give permission for that to happen. [00:36:21][93.0]
Speaker 2: [00:36:22] And I think that, you know, the theme tying together the professional in this personal pieces is this idea of again, words matter, and I think that's going to come up a lot. You know, for us, you know, words matter and and and and they're laden with meaning and and values. And I think in the scenarios where I've had conversations about abuse or victimization with with close friends of mine and trying to understand what's going on. And it's even trained as professionals. Not always the easiest thing to do if I have a personal relationship to translate this into right into a personal space isn't is an automatic. You know, I would always really be careful to make sure I was asking some very specific questions, you know, which gave me a sense of what does that look like? Mm-Hmm. You know, and then sometimes very specific questions, well, how has this person ever hurt you physically [00:37:16][54.0]
Speaker 1: [00:37:16] or are you afraid? [00:37:17][0.6]
Speaker 2: [00:37:17] Are you afraid? [00:37:18][0.3]
Speaker 1: [00:37:18] Do you feel safe? [00:37:19][0.6]
Speaker 2: [00:37:19] Right? And it's and I again, if that helps people to understand that even after years and years of professional work in this area, that those are still awkward, tentative conversations for me in many cases. But I know that I can't really understand or really be helpful, supportive if I don't ask that direct question. [00:37:41][21.6]
Speaker 1: [00:37:42] Yeah, well, I think we're trying to balance off a few realities. Relationship is an interesting little thing where you have these people locked in these, you know, patterns of responsibility and you create dynamics between two people, which are, you know, unique and different. But the reality is, is, is that we haven't fully drilled down into the reasons why there is this inequality and why this happens so much in a very gendered way. And that does directly have to do with our our beliefs about masculinity, right? And our beliefs about the roles of women and family and about men as fathers and nurtures and partners. And so it's it's very important to come at it from a from a different angle because we have really made it normal. That's part of the norm. And again, I want to just come from my my, my personal experience, where I can say that all of us have poor patterns of behaviors can be emotionally irresponsible. And and that's not the same as being a coercive controller. Right? Because then you can I want you to speak to the difference between the two because it's very, very important. [00:38:58][75.9]
Speaker 2: [00:38:58] Well, and I think it's it is it is important to get the distinctions because I think and we we've seen this with different kinds of groups, groups for women or men who've been arrested and they they interact around the issue, abuse very differently and women are more likely to judge themselves for their behavior. And and you see this actually in victims and same sex relations and lesbian relationships where a victim somebody is truly been victimized will often present themselves to a therapist or somebody else as being the perpetrator because they they acted violently in self-defense, they protected themselves. And this is why this our base. [00:39:41][42.4]
Speaker 1: [00:39:41] So let's just lay out this scenario. Yeah. So let's lay out this scenario in a very clear form. So you have you generally have the one partner who has operated habitually right in aggressive behaviors controlling behavior. Demeaning behavior. Right. And and then the person who is being abused loses it, right? Right. And then there they're there now on the hook for that. [00:40:08][26.9]
Speaker 2: [00:40:09] And in some of these cases, we know we're talking about same sex relationships, women. Some of the women were coming in present and say, Well, I'm the perpetrator. Other instances you have people actually arrested for it and and and being held responsible criminally for those actions because they technically are a crime. But there is a wider issue there. They're actually they're actually a victim. [00:40:29][20.2]
Speaker 1: [00:40:29] Yeah, I actually I'm sorry to interrupt. I want to tie it into one really important thing. So, you know, in my in my previous life, I had dated a captain in the special forces, right? And he had gone through the sere school, which is essentially where you go through every small bits of torture that may be, you know, enacted upon you if you were a prisoner of war. And one of the main ways that they would torture these soldiers in order to train them was actually through deficit. They would remove, they take things off, they take things away, and they would become very unpredictable. You never knew what was going to happen. You didn't know when it was going to happen. So you lived in this altered state of high alarm all the time. Right? They wouldn't let you sleep. You know, they they would remove privileges of food, or you'd be cold or you'd be hot. And so we know through psyops in the military that those tactics, which are used by coercion controllers, are actually torture tactics, right? And yet when somebody reacts to them and responds to them in a way that is trying to facilitate their liberty? Right. Then we look at them as if they are the perpetrators. And that's actually the David challan case. David Challenge, the son, actually Sally Challen in the UK followed that, and eventually she was released from prison because they recognized that she had been tortured for years and was responding to that torture in a way to enact her own liberty. [00:42:05][95.1]
Speaker 2: [00:42:05] And that's and that's why they in the US at different times has been works or movements towards clemency for battered women who've killed their partners or, you know, or to try to avoid prosecution. In some cases, because there's a successful understanding that this is a response and self-defense. Even though it doesn't look like the classic definition of self-defense, which is often been created around men in a bar fighting. And but it but I think it's again, this is where these things are not immune from values. In fact, they're very value laden because if you create a legal definition that's around strangers who don't know each other, who don't have an ongoing relationship, and then you add the definition of self-defense in that scenario. Then, of course, it's not going to carry over to a situation where people have an ongoing relationship, shared children, assets, cultural kind of identity as a couple or a unit connected to family and friends. And that escape is, is is is in retreat, isn't doesn't have the same meaning, which is part of usually a definition of self-defense that you you use at retreat, if you can. [00:43:13][68.0]
Speaker 1: [00:43:14] I can honestly say very clearly, and I'm not. I'm, you know, I don't hesitate to disclose this information that living in abusive and coercively controlling situations. I believed the only way out was for me to commit suicide, right? Because I didn't believe anybody would help me, right? And in fact, nobody truly did. I had to extricate myself from those situations and it had to happen over time. And so really, in reality, if you were to look at how many victims commit suicide, get out of these situations, that the domestic violence, you know, mortality counts are much higher. [00:43:51][37.1]
Speaker 2: [00:43:51] And we know that's true. Yeah. So we're going have to figure out a way to end this within a reasonable amount of time. And I don't know. You asked me a question a while ago, and I don't know if I answered or not, you know, and for those of you who are OCD out there, you may go away. You go. You go, wait a second. And it's that question, you know, it's sort of this is not the podcast. For people who are like linear linear, this is not a linear effect. We're embracing the non-linear as we kind of ramble through. Yeah, we kind move from topic to topic. So we're hoping that works for you. And it's it's it's part of the design of this, this podcast, and it gives us both some freedom to talk and to riff off each other and to kind of explore topics in a non-linear way that that isn't what is is just captured in the safe and together model trainings. [00:44:36][44.6]
Speaker 1: [00:44:37] Right. And it's it's it's actually just a daily fixture of our lives. This is this is how we operate. That's right. All day long. And and it is. It is mission based. We we want this to really impact people. So as David said, he had asked for feedback. So we would love to hear your feedback and. Also, if you have topics that you want us to talk about, we would love to hear that as well. [00:45:01][24.1]
Speaker 2: [00:45:01] And so to wrap up, you know, if you want more information about the Safe and Together Institute, go to Safe and Together Institute dot com, check out all the stuff there. And then also subscribe to this podcast. There's more coming because people have asked us forever how many are you and me doing? And we said Indefinite. We don't have a plan. That's, you know, that's that. There's no plan here yet around numbers of these and and [00:45:22][21.3]
Speaker 1: [00:45:23] we're just going to pop up. [00:45:24][0.8]
Speaker 2: [00:45:24] We're going to keep doing and we keep doing it as long as we enjoy doing it. And and part of enjoying it is hearing from you and hearing what your thoughts are about this and if it's helping you and we've already gotten some positive feedback already on it. So I think we're like at 40 minutes or yeah, we're at 45. Oh, wow, okay, this is the longest one yet. We're this is we're [00:45:44][20.0]
Speaker 1: [00:45:44] going to try to keep it to 30 for now. Yes, exactly. Sign it off. [00:45:48][3.5]
Speaker 2: [00:45:48] Tell that to the next time. Bye bye. [00:45:48][0.0]
[2703.2]