Domestic Violence Treatment Coordinator: 'DV laws are used to manipulate'
July 22nd, 2009 by Glenn Sacks, MA for Fathers & FamiliesJayne L Williams MS, is a Mental Health Therapist and the Coordinator of Domestic Violence Treatment Programs for the Human Resources Center of Edgar and Clark Counties. She has an interesting perspective on domestic violence, and recently wrote me this letter, which she offered to share with my readers:
Dear Mr. Sacks,
I have been receiving your newsletter for a few years and I appreciate the work that you do. I hope the research and clinical fields will agree that if one person is violent in the family, the whole family learns violence and most practice it.
I don’t have current statistics and I’m sure that they vary from study to study, but if someone lives with a violent partner, they become violent most of the time. So it is not a surprise that DV treatment has many similarities for both men and women and that often the "primary aggressor" designation is not very useful for treatment.
All families need education and to acknowledge their own violence and to have “becoming a nonviolent family” as the goal. The whole family must work on making nonviolent choices.
DV laws are used to manipulate (and in part be aggressive against) both men and women every day. This is not limited to parents and it is not limited to one gender. I am in the position to hear stories of DV laws being used in divorce proceedings with and without child custody issues often.
I also am in the business of confronting person’s aggressive behaviors (psychological, physical, sexual and destruction of property) without discriminating between the types and teaching nonviolence in relationships.
Thanks for letting me make my point. Domestic violence is a problem for all family members no matter what the source. And if there is violence by one, there is always or nearly always violence by other family members. All need individual treatment in a group setting (individual therapy does not work) before any family interventions are safe and effective. It is a dangerous problem. I hope you continue to work toward making a balanced presentation in your concerns for fathers.
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July 22nd, 2009 at 11:58 am
Wow,
What a non-ideological and well reasoned argument. Not because I agree with it, but because it attacks the PROBLEM and not a gender, or color, a religion, or a socio-economic status.
Thank her for us Glenn!
Steven
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:52 pm
There are two reasons why we need to treat women for DV not just men. First, as has been well pointed out on this site, violence escalates. If you hit someone you can expect to be hit back. That is true for men hitting men and women hitting men. Right or wrong, it is a natural reaction. We must have a zero tolerance policy towards domestic violence and ditch the fallacy of "Primary Aggressor". Everyone needs to be protected not just the predisignated victims.
The second reason is that children learn to hit from their parents. If a little boy or girl watches their mom hit dad or mom hit them, then they will grow up to hit. This is pretty simple. It we don't have a policy of zero tolerance then we will never rid ourselves of the problem.
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:05 pm
I am impressed with the integrity of this woman. There are many good women like Jayne Williams and I hope more of them step forward. I'm suprised at Moms, Grandma's, Aunt's, Sisters, Wives and girlfriends who sit silently on the sideline and let other women dictate such bad things towards their beloved males in their lives.
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:48 pm
DV laws are used to manipulate (and in part be aggressive against) both men and women every day.
Could you give us some examples of DV laws being used to pursue aggression against women?
July 22nd, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Shes going to get death threats from the DV mafia.
July 22nd, 2009 at 4:20 pm
"often the "primary aggressor" designation is not very useful for treatment." Could you expand on this please? Could you relate an example from your experience of how this designation lead to an inappropriate and failed treatment?
"DV laws are used to manipulate... both men and women every day." Could you be more specific about which DV law or aspect of DV laws is used to manipulate? Again, could you relate a story that demonstrates the manipulative use of DV laws and specifies the damage done?
Thank you for writing this and sharing it with us.
July 22nd, 2009 at 7:46 pm
All this talk about therapy and what kinds of therapy "work" neglects one important fact: Mandatory therapy cannot really measure its own effectiveness during the mandatory period. People in these programs have 52 weeks to learn exactly what to say in order to graduate. Failure to graduate means either repeating the program, or having your parole/probation violated (which means jail).
If you were convicted or took a plea-bargain for DV, then you're probably going to be required to complete a batterer's treatment program. These mandatory programs are not reliably measurable methods of therapy, no matter how well-intended the therapist may be. I was required to take one such program. I can remember people being asked to recount the incident that brought them there (i.e. "Tell your story"), and essentially "failing" at various points during the 52-week period. After seeing other people fail throughout this time period, those people whose graduation date was approaching consistently honed their stories so that they could graduate (either that, or they suddenly had an epiphany on or about the magical 52nd week).
When it's mandatory, it's not truly therapy.
July 22nd, 2009 at 7:50 pm
All this talk about therapy and what kinds of therapy "work" neglects one important fact: Mandatory therapy cannot really measure its own effectiveness during the mandatory period. People in these programs have 52 weeks to learn exactly what to say in order to graduate. Failure to graduate means either repeating the program, or having your parole/probation violated (which means jail).
If you were convicted or took a plea-bargain for DV, then you're probably going to be required to complete a batterer's treatment program. These mandatory programs are not reliably measurable methods of therapy, no matter how well-intended the therapist may be. I was required to take one such program. I can remember people being asked to recount the incident that brought them there (i.e. "Tell your story"), and essentially "failing" at various points during the 52-week period. You "fail" if, during your story, you don't accept responsibility for having caused the incident. After seeing other people fail throughout this time period, those people whose graduation date was approaching consistently honed their stories so that they could graduate (either that, or they suddenly had an epiphany on or about the magical 52nd week).
When it's mandatory, it's not truly therapy.
July 22nd, 2009 at 7:57 pm
"Domestic violence is a problem for all family members no matter what the source. And if there is violence by one, there is always or nearly always violence by other family members. All need individual treatment in a group setting (individual therapy does not work) before any family interventions are safe and effective."
With all respect, one could hardly be expected to ignore the earnings effect on the DV treatment industry if such an attitude were to become more widespread. Instead of only one client per family (the man), the entire family would be up for treatment. I wonder who would pay for it? Could non-violent family members choose to opt out? Would it be possible to concede that in some families all violence originates from the mother, and that the father is the chief pacifying influence (I have seen enough of these to know they are common)?
Why must we accept that more expensive treatment from professionals is the only option in dealing with problems. It seems to me that introducing the profit motive into personal problem resolution has been the root cause of ineffective, over-priced and other-agenda serving outcomes.
July 22nd, 2009 at 10:30 pm
"Primary aggressor" isn't even about the PRIMARY aggressor. The term "primary aggressor" is a disguise for "the person who, in reality, could beat the snot of out the other if they wanted to." Typically, that would be the male in an overwhelming majority of the cases.
The primary aggressor is the person who initiates the violence, whether they get the snot beaten out of them in self-defense or retaliation or what-not.
Many reputable studies now show that to be virtually equal in terms of gender.
July 23rd, 2009 at 5:43 pm
What's mandatory doesn't work. As the psychologist joke says: "How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the light bulb has to wanna change." I asked, especially in mutual violence, why one person is arrested, and ordered to classes. The answer I received was (1) ordering the alleged victim, would be re victimizing them, and (2) If one attends, they can teach the other.
Imagine, two people arguing, and one saying, just a second, we should practice this technique I learned from class. Right, they'd tell them where to stick that technique. When violence happens in a home, damage is done to the other person, self esteem, fear etc. So, instead of having "offender management classes" change the name to "family maintenance" and require both to attend. Not at an additional fee, but kind of a buy one get one free program.
Many churches require pre-marital counseling before presiding over a wedding. So, if they believe it to be important to go into a marriage with developed tools, why would it be less important for someone who's already in a relationship to develop tools. What I find when working with non violent and domestic violent relationship issues, is that many of these issues can be solved by simply knowing what to do. It's not that they don't want a relationship to work, many people aren't given the tools to better their success. It's like a touch and feel learning process. Don't repeat the same mistake twice. Not about preventing the mistakes from happening to begin with.
July 28th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Sorry, maybe I've been blinded by too many annecdotals , ie. not seen, nor subsequently followed up, after the sensationalist headlines.
In My Humble Opinion...
All I can see here is an awful lot of " I hope the research and clinical fields will agree...(with my premise)" and "I don’t have current statistics (information) ..". We recently heard that one from the White House. "I also am in the business of confronting person’s aggressive behaviors (psychological, physical, sexual and destruction of property)...". I Hope such confrontation is excluded from..um... psycological aggression!
Sure, she's "heard stories" of DV accusations being used in courts, as have we all, yet can't seem to bring herself to actually go "on the record" citing the fraudulent nature of (dare I say) MOST of them, nor recognize their nature as violence by proxy.
Divorce/"Family" court specialists, and DV "advocates", have no bones about coaching in abusing these "issues", if one is to believe "annecdotal" locker room testimonies from lawyers, and their ancillaries, "In the business."
Mail order bride legislation "checklist" comes to mind.
I'm only seeing a lot of well worn weasel words by someone promoting the expantion of a court ordered client base for an industry with underwhelming value, other than a steady diversion of (de facto)fathers assets from (so-called) child support to those in the "research and clinical" field.
Let us know if she shows any further practical effort , and -continues to work toward-,promoting actual consequences for disingenuous fraud in her industry, lest
the "assets" available to address genuine family violence
issues aren't simply embezzled more broadly.