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1 The Battering

Problem

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Over the past 10 years, the traumatic effects on children of exposure to batterers have increasingly entered the public and profes sional eye. In the United States, 10% or more of women in relationships

experience violence each year (Duffy, McGrath, Becker, & Linakis,

1999; M. Straus & Gelles, 1990), and a high percentage of these assaults

are witnessed by one or more children, leading to an estimated 7 mil

lion or more children being exposed to acts of domestic violence per

year (McDonald, Jouriles, Ramisetty-Mikler, Caetano, & Green, 2006;

review in Fantuzzo & Möhr, 1999). Domestic violence is perpetrated

at higher rates toward mothers than toward women who do not have

children (Denham et al., 2007; McDonald et al., 2006). A study of police

arrests in Connecticut over a 12-month period found that children

were recorded as present 4 3 % of the time (Connecticut Department

of Public Safety, cited in Berkman, Casey, Berkowitz, & Morans, 2004).

Children of battered women have been found to be at increased risk

for a broad range of emotional and behavioral difficulties, including

suicidality, substance abuse, depression, developmental delays, educa

tional and attention problems, and involvement in violence (Gleason,

Co py ri gh t © 2 01 2. S AG E Pu bl ic at io ns , In c. A ll r ig ht s re se rv ed . Ma y no t be r ep ro du ce d in a ny f or m wi th ou t pe rm is si on f ro m th e pu bl is he r, e xc ep t fa ir u se s pe rm it te d un de r

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EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 1/23/2019 10:28 AM via INDIANA UNIV OF PENNSYLVANIA AN: 525907 ; Bancroft, Lundy, Ritchie, Daniel, Silverman, Jay G..; The Batterer As Parent : Addressing the Impact of Domestic Violence on Family Dynamics Account: s3915756

2 THE BATTERER AS PARENT

1995; review in Kolbo, Blakely, & Engleman, 1996; review in Jaffe,

Wolfe, & Wilson, 1990). Half or more of children exposed to batterers

become directly involved in violence incidents through yelling at their

parents during the assault, calling for help, or physically interven

ing (Edleson, Mbilinyi, Beeman, & Hagemeister, 2003); children have

been found to be present at nearly half of all police calls for domestic

violence (Fantuzzo & Fusco, 2007; Gjelsvik, Verhoek-Oftedahl, &

Pearlman, 2003). In incidents that involve more severe levels of vio

lence and in those involving substance abuse, children are even more

likely to be present (Fantuzzo & Fusco, 2007). Furthermore, children

exposed to batterers are themselves at high risk to become direct tar

gets of physical abuse (McGuigan & Pratt, 2001; M. Straus, 1990; Suh &

Abel, 1990; Bowker, Arbitell, & McFerron, 1988) and of sexual abuse

(McCloskey, Figueredo, & Koss, 1995; Sirles & Franke, 1989; Paveza,

1988). The danger even extends to homicide: One multiyear study

found that, in approximately one fifth of domestic violence homicides

and attempted homicides, a child of the battered woman is also killed

in the process (Langford, Isaac, & Kabat, 1999; see also Websdale,

1999). Children exposed to domestic violence are also at risk for other

kinds of child fatality (Monemi, Pena, & Ellsberg, cited in Heise,

Ellsberg, & Gottemoeller, 1999; Pecora, Whittaker, Maluccio, Barth, &

Plotnick, cited in Edleson, 1998), and this risk has tended to be under

estimated (Websdale, Town, & Johnson, 1999). Finally, the violence

is known to be a recurring cycle: Studies consistently have found that

boys who grow up exposed to domestic violence have an increased

likelihood to batter their own partners as adults (review in Delsol &

Margolin, 2004; Ehrensaft et al., 2003; Whitfield, Anda, Dube, & Felitti,

2003; Silverman & Williamson, 1997; and many others).

The sources of emotional and behavioral difficulty for children of

battered women are many, with the actual seeing or hearing of acts

of violence being only the beginning. The presence in the home of a

batterer, usually in the role of parent or stepparent, has a wide range

of implications for family functioning. Batterers tend to be authoritar

ian yet neglectful parents, with far higher rates than nonbatterers of

physically and sexually abusing children (see Chapter 2). Battering

changes the nature of children's crucial relationships with their mother

through mechanisms that include undermining her authority and

interfering with her ability to provide care. Batterers often engage in

efforts to create divisions within the family (see Chapter 3) and can

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3 The Battering Problem

be highly manipulative (Lapierre, 2010; Bancroft, 2003; Jacobson & Gottman, 1998). They are more likely than nonbattering men to seek custody of their children in cases of divorce or separation (American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Violence and the Family, 1996; McMahon & Pence, 1995; Liss & Stahly, 1993) and can have several advantages over battered women in custody litigation (see Chapter 5). We believe therefore that the psychological distress observed in children exposed to domestic violence results not only from their witnessing of periodic acts of violence but also from expo sure to a batterer and to his parenting style in everyday life; in fact, we believe that the phrase children exposed to batterers is more accurate than the current phrase children exposed to domestic violence for reasons that will become clear in the pages ahead. For closely related reasons, we find that a batterer's parenting cannot be assessed separately from his entire pattern of abusive behaviors, all of which have implications for his children.

The mounting awareness that large numbers of children run the risk of being traumatized along with their mothers by domestic vio lence has led to a recognition of the need for improved interventions in the families of battered women and to specialized services for children. Skilled and sensitive responses are sought from child protective ser vices, battered women's programs, family courts, therapists, and the range of other institutions that serve families affected by domestic vio lence. In this book, we hope to contribute to the further development of these interventions b y offering an extended analysis of the batterer in the family setting. Clinical experience and research on domestic vio lence over the past 20 years provide a coherent and consistent profile of the attitudes and behaviors that define batterers and that in turn shape the experiences and functioning of their family members. This deepen ing grasp among domestic violence professionals of the psychology and tactics of batterers creates an opportunity to develop systemic responses to families that take into account the full breadth and com plexity of the injuries and challenges caused by batterers.

Research also points to an important degree of variability in how children are harmed by their exposure to domestic violence, including children who show mostly behavioral effects, children who experi ence emotional effects, and children w h o do not appear to be strongly affected in either category (Grych, Jouriles, Swank, McDonald, & Norwood, 2000). These findings point to the importance of developing

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4 THE BATTERER AS PARENT

well-informed responses that avoid, for example, increasing stress for children who are functioning fairly well.

• DEFINING BATTERERS

Given the many interpretations of the term batterer that exist, we begin by providing and elucidating our working definition:

A batterer is a person who exercises a pattern of coercive con trol in a partner relationship, punctuated by one or more acts of intimidating physical violence, sexual assault, or credible threat of physical violence. This pattern of control and intimidation may be predominantly psychological, economic, or sexual in nature or may rely primarily on the use of physical violence.

A number of points need to be made about this definition. First, the definition we are using takes into account the presence of con siderable variation in abusive style among batterers. This flexibility is important because, as we will see, the impact on children of living with a batterer varies depending on his level of violence, the extent of his cruelty and manipulativeness, his level of respect for sexual boundaries, his treatment of the children's mother, and various other aspects of his behavior.

Second, our definition does not require the presence of beatings, but it does require that there at least be actions clearly intended as threats, such as raising fists, cutting phone lines, or deliberately dan gerous driving. Although psychological abuse by itself can cause emo tional harm to children (Berlin & Vondra, 1999; Kashani & Allan, 1998), the presence of fear may dramatically intensify those effects; a pattern of name-calling, for example, can have more debilitating emotional sequelae if it is punctuated by, and therefore emotionally interwoven with, periodic physical assault (see, e.g., Adamson & Thompson, 1998).

Because our definition of a batterer requires a pattern of coercive or domineering behavior, we would not define someone as a batterer due to the use of a necessary level of violence out of a genuine need to defend oneself from harm; we do not in any way equate, for example, a batterer's aggressive violence with the physical efforts of a battered woman to defend herself.

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5 The Battering Problem

Finally, definitions quite similar to ours are currently used and

endorsed by many professional organizations, thereby creating a com

mon terminology that facilitates the practical application of our discus

sion of battering.

The reader already will have noticed that, although it is not part

of our definition, throughout this book we refer to the batterer as "he"

and to the battered partner as "she." W e find this gender ascription

to be accurate for most cases in which a professional is required to

evaluate a batterer's parenting, and it is reflected both in our clinical

experience and in most published research. Sexual assault by intimate

partners occurs 25 times as often to women as to men, stalking by inti

mate partners occurs 8 times as often to women as to men, and injuries

from physical or sexual assaults by intimates requiring medical atten

tion occur more than 7 times as often to women as to men (Tjaden &

Thoennes, 2000). Female homicides of male partners are far less com

mon than the reverse (see Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1996), and those

that do occur tend to be carried out by victims of domestic violence

rather than by perpetrators (Langford et al., 1999; Websdale, 1999);

women are five times as likely as men to say that they fear that their

partner might kill them (H. Johnson & Bunge, 2001). The disparity

between male and female homicides of intimate partners grows even

larger postseparation (Langford, Isaac, & Kabat, 1998; Daly & Wilson,

1988). The incidence of parents killing children or other nonpartners

during a domestic violence assault is similarly rare with a female per

petrator (Langford et a l , 1999; Websdale, 1999; Daly & Wilson, 1988).

Women's violence toward their male partners has been found to be

largely defensive in nature, while this is not true of men's violence

toward female partners (Allen, Swan, & Raghavan, 2009). Finally, we

have not encountered persuasive evidence in our cases of mutual abuse.

(See Chapter 6 for further discussion of mutual abuse formulations.)

Of course, our gendered language does not apply to lesbian and

gay male relationships, but literature addressing the prevalence,

causes, and dynamics of same-sex domestic violence suggests con

siderable parallel to heterosexual battering (Rose, 2003; Turrell, 2000;

Leventhal & Lundy, 1999; Renzetti, 1997; Waldner-Haugrud, Gratch,

& Magruder, 1997). Despite popular stereotypes, same-sex violence

may have a significant impact upon children. Lesbians are increas

ingly choosing to have children and to raise them together. Although

joint parenting by gay male couples is less common in our experience,

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6 THE BATTERER AS PARENT

it does exist, and gay men also may have weekend care or primary

custodial care of children from earlier heterosexual relationships. The

behavioral profile of lesbian and gay male batterers appears to cor

respond closely to that of heterosexual abusers (Leventhal & Lundy,

1999; Renzetti, 1997), including, for example, the batterer's com

mon mistreatment of children or pets and the rarity of mutual abuse

(Renzetti, 1997). Clinical experience in this area leads to similar conclu

sions (Cayouette, 1999). Our book therefore may be useful in address

ing the parenting of lesbian or gay male batterers, but professionals

should be aware of the need for further education about the particular

dynamics of domestic violence in these communities, including the

particular tactics used by same-sex batterers and the additional obsta

cles faced by same-sex victims (Leventhal & Lundy, 1999).

• CHARACTERISTICS O F BATTERERS

We believe that the parenting style that batterers exhibit is grounded

both in their attitudes and perceptual systems and in their patterns of

behavior. In this section, after introducing the overarching concepts

of control and entitlement, we go on to discuss other attitudinal and

perceptual characteristics and then other behavioral patterns that are

typical of batterers. (We recognize, at the same time, that attitudinal

and behavioral qualities are not entirely separable, as our descriptions

will make clear.) Although our descriptions of these characteristics are

intended as an aid in assessment, it is important to keep in mind that

a batterer may be careful not to exhibit any of these traits to profes

sionals, and so assessment should not be based exclusively on psycho

logical testing of, or interviews with, the alleged batterer but should

incorporate collateral sources of information as well.

Control

The overarching behavioral characteristic of the batterer is the

imposition of a pattern of control over his partner (Lloyd & Emery, 2000;

Pence & Paymar, 1993). The batterer's control is carried out through a

mixture of criticism, verbal abuse, economic control, isolation, cruelty,

and an array of other tactics (Bancroft, 2003). Indeed, a majority of bat

tered women report that the psychological abuse that they suffer has

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7 The Battering Problem

a more severe impact on them than the physical violence (Follingstad,

Rutledge, Berg, Hause, & Polek, 1990), a finding supported by studies

from other countries (review in Heise et al., 1999). Psychological abuse is

a strong predictor of continued difficulties for a battered woman even if

the violence is suspended (Edleson & Tolman, 1992).

We observe that the batterer's imposition of control typically

emerges gradually and intensifies during the early years of the relation

ship. In some cases, there is a distinct period of a few months (or even

days) when the coercive pattern presents itself. Common points for the

onset of this pattern include when the couple first begins living together,

when the couple gets married, when the first pregnancy begins, and

when the first child is born. Subsequently, the woman's efforts to resist

these forms of control generally meet with an escalation by the abuser,

and thus the pattern of control becomes increasingly coercive over

time. A batterer usually perceives his controlling behavior as justified

(Pence & Paymar, 1993) and therefore sees his partner's reluctance to

be controlled as evidence of her mental instability, volatility, or desire

to control him. The batterer's control often takes the form of undermin

ing his partner's efforts at independence, thus increasing his power and

control in the relationship (Bancroft, 2003; D. Dutton, 1995).

Although the relationship aspects that batterers may attempt to

dominate are too numerous to list, we can identify the predominant

spheres: arguments and decision making, household responsibilities,

emotional caretaking and attention, sexual relations, finances, child

rearing, and outside social contacts (see also Lloyd & Emery, 2000). The

typical batterer will focus more on some areas than others, with his cul

tural training being an important influence over which aspects of the

relationship he feels most entitled to determine.

The controlling nature of batterers has important implications

for child rearing. Initially, the batterer may coerce decisions about

when and whether to have children. After children are born, a range

of decisions about how they are to b e treated, fed, trained, and edu

cated may fall increasingly under the batterer's control, even though

he is typically contributing only a small portion of the labor of child

rearing. Harsh and frequent criticism of the mother's parenting, often

audible to the children, can undermine her authority and incite chil

dren's disrespect of her. Institutions such as child protective services

often hold the mother primarily responsible for the children's well

being, unaware of the extent to which conditions may be beyond her

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8 THE BATTERER AS PARENT

control (Magen, 1999; Whitney & Davis, 1999; Edleson, 1998). A study

of restraining order affidavits found that one of the most common

reasons that mothers gave for why they needed the order was the bat

terer's "punishment, coercion, and retaliation against the women's

actions concerning children" (Ptacek, 1997, p. 112), including specific

references to the batterer's anger at the woman's questioning of his

authority over the children.

Finally, batterers tend to be controlling and coercive in their direct

interactions with children, often replicating much of the interactional

style that they use with the mother. Their coercive parenting has

multiple consequences for families, which we will examine in more

detail below. In particular, the batterer's tendency to be retaliatory has

important implications for children who disclose abuse to outsiders or

who call for police assistance during an assault. Professionals interven

ing in families affected by domestic violence need to remain aware at

all times of the high potential for punishment or intimidation of the

children by the batterer for discussing events in the home.

Entitlement

Men who batter have been found to not have a strongly elevated

rate of mental health problems (Gondolf, 1999—see discussion later

this chapter), so it is important for practitioners to understand the role

played by entitled and disrespectful attitudes in shaping a batterer's

behavior. As we discuss in Chapter 2, boys who grow up exposed to

domestic violence have been found to be at increased risk of becoming

batterers themselves only if they take on the abuser's attitudes, demon

strating the key role that the abuser's belief system plays in domestic

violence perpetration.

The overarching attitudinal characteristic of batterers is entitle

ment. Entitlement may be the single most critical concept in under

standing the battering mentality, and so we will discuss it in some

detail here (see also Bancroft, 2003; Silverman & Williamson, 1997).

Entitlement is the belief that one has special rights and privileges with

out accompanying reciprocal responsibilities. Batterers tend to have

this orientation in specific relationship to their partners and children

and do not necessarily carry it over into other contexts. The batterer's

entitlement leads him to feel justified in taking steps to protect his spe

cial status, including the use of physical violence or intimidation when

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9 The Battering Problem

he considers it necessary The belief that violence toward a partner can

be justified is a strong predictor of which men will batter (Margolin,

John, & Foo, 1998; Silverman & Williamson, 1997) and helps to distin

guish which boys exposed to domestic violence will grow up to abuse

their own partners (O'Keefe, 1998).

A recent study sheds light on one of the most crucial aspects of the

abuser's entitlement, which is his belief that he is entitled to use vio

lence. Neighbors and colleagues (2010) found that male domestic vio

lence perpetrators believe that violence by men against female partners

is much more common than it actually is; for example, they believe that

beating a partner up, threatening her with a gun, or strangling her are

twice as common as they actually are and believe that forcing her to

have sex is three times as common as it actually is. These findings rein

force previous research studies that have shown that the belief among

batterers that their behavior is normal and defensible is central to the

nature of their problem. A primary manifestation of entitlement is

that batterers expect family life to center on the meeting of their needs,

often to the point of treating their partners like servants (Pence &

Paymar, 1993). If a batterer's partner attempts to assert her own needs,

the batterer often characterizes her as selfish or uncaring. Batterers

thus are distinguished partly by their high and unreasonable expecta

tions, including forceful and urgent demands for catering (Bancroft,

2003; Pence & Paymar 1993; Adams, 1991). They may believe that they

are owed services and deference without regard to their own level of

contribution or sacrifice.

Batterers' expectations of service may include physical, emotional,

or sexual caretaking. The demands for physical labor can involve

expecting meals prepared for them in the precise way that they like,

shopping and housecleaning done, the children looked after and kept

quiet, school meetings attended, the social calendar arranged, and a

continuing list of family and household responsibilities. Batterers may

retaliate if this work is not done to their satisfaction.

Equally central are a batterer's typical demands for emotional care

taking. The batterers we have seen as clients in batterer intervention

programs tend to expect to be the center of their partners' attention.

They consider it their partners' responsibility to soothe them when

they are upset, to praise and compliment them, and to defer to them

in conflicts. Partners are expected to lay their own needs aside and to

cater to the batterer even in times of family crisis; for example, one of

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10 THE BATTERER AS PARENT

our clients complained angrily to his wife that she was ignoring him

during a two-day period when her teenage son was missing. In our

experience, batterers' demands for emotional caretaking are as likely

to lead to verbal abuse or to physical violence as are their demands for

physical labor.

Finally, our clients often define themselves as being wronged by

their partners if the latter do not cater fully to their sexual needs. Even

if his partner does engage in sexual relations, a batterer may feel mis

treated if she fails to exhibit adequate pleasure or, contradictorily, if

she initiates sexual contact with him at a time when he does not desire

it. He may particularly pressure his partner for sex following an inci

dent in which he has been verbally or physically abusive. Sex follow

ing soon after a physical assault should probably be defined as rape

(Bergen, 1996).

W e have observed that the higher a batterer's level of entitlement,

the greater his apparent perceptual tendency to reverse abuse and self-

defense. The typical batterer defines his abusive behaviors as efforts to

protect his own rights and defines his partner's attempts to protect her

self as abuse of him (Jacobson & Gottman, 1998). For example, he tends

to interpret occasions when his partner refuses to have sex with him as

her efforts to control or manipulate him (Mahoney & Williams, 1998).

Batterers therefore often claim to be the victim of the woman's abuse

or violence (Pence & Paymar, 1993). Entitlement can lead a batterer

to have double standards, such as the belief that he can have outside

sexual relationships but that it is not acceptable for his partner to do so

(Ptacek, 1997).

A batterer's level of controlling behavior and his level of demand

for service can be independent factors. Some of our clients are extremely

vigilant regarding their partners' movements or social contacts but con

tribute substantially to domestic responsibility. Others permit their part

ners considerable freedom but demand high levels of catering (see also

Jacobson & Gottman, 1998). A third category includes batterers who are

both highly controlling and severely demanding of service.

Batterers' senses of entitlement influence their parenting, begin

ning commonly with the expectation that their partners should handle

the most unpleasant or demanding tasks of child rearing, such as

changing diapers, rising in the middle of the night, or helping children

resolve their conflicts. At the same time, they often consider them

selves to be authorities on child care, and for this reason, they may feel

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The Battering Problem 11

entitled to custody after separation. In some cases, batterers attend

only to those aspects of parenting that they find enjoyable or that gain

notice from friends, school personnel, or other community members,

thus allowing them to develop reputations as excellent fathers.

High entitlement can also lead to role reversal, where batterers

expect their children to be responsible for attending to their needs. We

commonly observe that our clients maintain poor emotional boundaries

as parents, expressing to their children their distresses, insecurities, and

worries (including how wounded they feel by the children's mother).

Batterers are more likely than other men to use their children to meet

their own needs for physical affection or sexual contact, one of the fac

tors that leads to an elevated rate of incest perpetration (see Chapter 4).

Selfishness and Self-Centeredness

Largely as a result of their senses of entitlement, our clients per

ceive their needs as being of paramount importance in the family.

They provide less emotional support and listen less well to their part

ners than do nonbattering men (Adams, 1991). They expect to be the

center of attention, to have their needs be anticipated even when not

expressed, and to have the needs of other family members postponed

or abandoned. At the same time, they often expect family members to

respond to them as the generous, kind, responsible people that they

believe themselves to be, and they may react with a sense of wound

edness or injustice when they see themselves perceived as selfish. If a

batterer's partner pulls back when he makes a sudden movement, for

example, he may become angrily indignant, perhaps saying, "How can

you be afraid of me? You know I would never hurt you!"

Batterers are often preoccupied with their own needs and thus

not available to their children (Johnston & Campbell, 1993b) yet may

expect their children to be always available to them in ways that can

interfere with a child's freedom and development (Roy, 1988). Some

batterers show tremendous emotion when speaking to others about

their children yet quickly lose interest or become enraged when their

children's needs or independent personalities inconvenience them or

fail to give them the ego gratification that they seek. Children of a bat

terer are sometimes swayed by his grandiose belief in his own generos

ity and importance, enhancing their blame of themselves and of their

mothers for the violence.

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12 THE BATTERER AS PARENT

The self-referential tendency of batterers, characterized by gran

diosity and an unrealistic self-image, can be mistaken for narcissistic

personality disorder. However, we observe that the batterer's self

centeredness is primarily the product of his entitlement, whereas the

narcissistic personality appears to result from a severe assault on the

self during childhood (Lowen, 1985). There are two crucial points of

differentiation: (1) The batterer's self-centeredness occurs in specific

relation to his partner or his children, while in other contexts, he shows

less grandiosity in his presentation of self, less need to receive awed

deference, and a normal ability to take another person's perspective;

(2) apart from his denial of the battering, the batterer tends to have

a reasonably realistic view of himself. Moreover, the narcissist does

not have a particular tendency to violence by virtue of the disorder

alone. At the same time, a battering problem is quite compatible with

a narcissistic personality disorder, and the two conditions can coex

ist (Gondolf, 1999); in our clinical experience, roughly one batterer in

eight shows significant signs of a clinical level of self-centeredness, and

these clients are highly resistant to change.

Superiority

Batterers believe themselves to be superior to their victims (M. Russell

& Frohberg, 1995). Our clients tend to see their partners as inferior to

them in intelligence, competence, logical reasoning, and even sensitivity

and therefore treat their partners' opinions with disrespect and impa

tience. In conflicts and at other times, a batterer may talk to his partner

as if she were a willful and ignorant child whom he needs to educate and

to improve. Tones of disgust, condescension, or infantilization are com

monplace when a batterer addresses his partner, as are harsh criticism,

humiliation, and parent-like imposition of punishments.

A recurring element in the tone of most batterers' discussions of

their partners is contempt. Our clients have difficulty describing serious

conflicts with their partners without expressing ridicule of the women's

opinions or behaviors, using such approaches as mimicking their part

ners' voices or making sarcastic exaggerations of arguments that the

latter have made. It is valuable for professionals to note that the level of

contempt and the level of anger are distinct issues: Both batterers and

battered women may exhibit high degrees of anger when describing the

histories of their relationships, but the extent of disrespect and ridicule

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The Battering Problem 1 3

that we hear from our clients does not usually appear in our conversa

tions with their partners, even in cases of severe abuse.

Superiority can sometimes include elements of depersonaliza

tion or objectification (Pence & Paymar, 1993). According to Bandura

(1978), "Maltreatment of individuals who are regarded as subhuman

or debased is less apt to arouse self-reproof than if they are seen as

human beings with dignifying qualities" (p. 25). Our clients sometimes

are uncomfortable referring to their partners by name rather than as

"my girl," "the wife," or similar terms, and they often have limited

knowledge about their partners as people, being largely unable to

answer questions about the women's interests, personal strengths, or

family relationships. A batterer in this category may view his partner

as a depersonalized vehicle for sexual gratification and thus be prone

to sexually assaulting her (see also Campbell, 1995). In many batterers,

these attitudes of superiority generalize into hostility toward women

in general (Pence & Paymar, 1993), although this outlook may take

time to detect (Edleson & Tolman, 1992).

The superiority, contempt, or depersonalization that children may

observe in a batterer's day-to-day treatment of their mother can shape

their views of both parents. Children tend to absorb the batterer's view

of their mother over time; we observe in custody evaluations, for exam

ple, that children of battered women sometimes describe her in terms

similar to ones that the batterer would use, saying that she "nags," that

she "doesn't know what she's doing," or that "what she needs is a slap

in the face." For similar reasons, children can come to see the batterer

as the parent who is most knowledgeable, competent, and in charge.

Possessiveness

One useful way to encapsulate the nature of the batterer's problem

is that he perceives his partner as an owned object (Lloyd & Emery,

2000). A number of studies have shown, for example, that men who

use violence against partners are more likely than other men to believe

that a female partner should not resist the man's sexual advances

(e.g., Silverman & Williamson, 1997) and to become angry if she does

so (Adams, 1991). As one of our clients expressed in confusion, " I

told the police that she was m y wife, but they arrested me anyhow."

Referring to times when their partners refused to have sex with them,

many clients of ours have made reference to the woman's signing of

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14 THE BATTERER AS PARENT

the marriage certificate as conferring an obligation upon her to con

sent. In dealing with infidelity, the batterer may assault the other man

rather than his own partner because "nobody touches my girl." Sexual

jealousy can be an important indicator of possessiveness (Adams, 2007)

and is present at elevated rates in batterers (Raj, Silverman, Wingood,

& DiClemente, 1999), but possessiveness can also take other forms and

thus should not be assessed on the basis of sexual jealousy alone.

A batterer's possessiveness sometimes exhibits itself starkly when

a relationship terminates, commonly leading to violence against the

woman for her attempts to leave; nearly 9 0 % of intimate partner homi

cides by men have been shown to involve a documented history of

domestic violence, and a majority of these killings take place during or

following separation (Websdale, 1999). Batterers cite various reasons

why their partners " o w e " them another chance, including the marriage

vows, the good of their children, and their own efforts to change. One

illustration of this value system is a client of ours who admitted that he

had committed a near-lethal beating of his partner (which led to her

hospitalization) yet continued to insist that she had a responsibility to

reunite with him because he had stopped drinking and could "help her

get her life together," pointing to the other people with w h o m she was

spending time as "bad influences." A high level of possessiveness is an

established marker of which batterers are more likely to kill (Adams,

2007; Campbell, 2007; Websdale, 1999).

In attempting to understand the propensity of batterers to kill or to

seriously assault partners who attempt to leave them, some theorists

have concluded that batterers have an inordinate fear of abandonment

or are unusually despondent after separation. However, we find no

evidence that females are less prone than males to fears of abandon

ment or to postseparation depression, yet their rates of postseparation

homicide are far lower (Websdale, 1999). Nonbattering men rarely

commit postseparation homicides (Websdale, 1999) despite some

times suffering serious emotional crises when relationships end. Our

clinical experience reveals no connection between a batterer's level

of dependence and his level of violence; rather, our clients who have

become the most terrorizing of their partners after separation stand

out primarily for their high levels of possessiveness. Those batterers

who go beyond the terrorizing behavior to actually commit a homicide

do appear to have elevated rates of mental illness combined with high

possessiveness, although mental illness is much less consistently pres

ent than possessiveness (Websdale, 1999).

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The Battering Problem 1 5

The extent to which a batterer carries his possessive orientation

over to his children has important implications for his parenting. Large

numbers of our clients over the years have made comments regarding

physical abuse of their children such as "No one is going to tell me how

I can discipline my children" and "Whether I hit my children or not is

nobody's business." At the same time, they commonly express disap

proval or outrage at adults who hit children who are not their own (such

as stepchildren or grandchildren). For these batterers, the connection

between possession and the license to abuse children is stated explicitly.

We find our clients especially vulnerable to the existing social tendency

to view children as owned objects (see also Liss & Stahly, 1993), with its

unfortunate tendency to create a context for child abuse.

Possessiveness plays an important though less-recognized role in

fostering child sexual abuse and boundary violations. Sexual abusers

are notorious for the attitudes of ownership that they exhibit toward

children (e.g., Salter, 1995), and incest perpetrators sometimes perceive

sexual access as a parental privilege (Leberg, 1997; Groth, 1982). We

have found that an incest perpetrator is sometimes sexually possessive

toward a teenage daughter, for example, accusing her of having sex

with boys or even assaulting boys who attempt to date her. This style

of abuser treats his daughter more like a partner than like a child and

can behave like a rejected lover when she begins a serious dating rela

tionship for the first time.

The batterer's mentality of ownership also can shape his post-

separation parenting. For example, some batterers are nonthreatening

for a period after a relationship ends but revert rapidly to the use of

intimidation when their former partners develop serious new relation

ships. In session, these batterers make statements such as "No other

man is going to be around my kids" and " I f she lets them call another

man Daddy, she'll be sorry." In some cases, these statements mark the

beginning of a pattern of threats to the mother, psychological pressure

on the children, and litigation in pursuit of custody.

Confusion of Love and Abuse

Batterers often explain their relationship violence by describing it as

a product of the depth or intensity of loving feelings that they have for

their partners. Many of our clients see their abusiveness as actually prov

ing their love, stating, for example, "I wouldn't get like that if I didn't care

for her so much." We have found that friends and relatives of batterers

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1 6 THE BATTERER AS PARENT

can adopt similar analyses, as do many mental health providers, court

personnel, custody evaluators, and other professionals. The batterer thus

may experience strong social reinforcement for this construction.

It is true that a link can exist between love and anger, in that inti

macy creates vulnerability to hurt feelings and therefore can lead to

anger as a response. The error, however, is to connect anger to abuse.

Anger, including rage, occurs both in abusive and in nonabusive

people and thus is not in itself a cause of abuse or aggression; indeed,

we have observed over our extensive case experience that anger need

not even necessarily b e present while a batterer is abusing his partner

or may appear only after his intimidating acts fail to have their desired

effect. In any case, anger tends to be overestimated as a cause of batter

ing behavior (Healey, Smith, & O'Sullivan, 1998).

The confounding of love and abuse can contribute to the confu

sion of children of battered women. For example, they may hear the

batterer, with anger mounting in his voice, listing off the generous or

loving things that he has done for his partner as he escalates toward

finally assaulting her. An hour after a beating, they may hear him

crying and saying that he loves her. He may tell the children directly

how much he cares for their mother, perhaps in the same conversa

tion in which he also says that she is an incompetent parent or a drunk.

Through receiving these contradictory messages, children can form

convoluted understandings of how kindness and cruelty interrelate,

which may contribute to difficulties in their present or future relation

ships. One example of this dynamic, commented on frequently by

clinicians specializing in working with children exposed to domestic

violence, is that some young children struggle with the belief that a

person who doesn't abuse them must not really love them.

Moving from emotional to physical impacts on children, our pro

fessional experience indicates that adults who believe that abuse is evi

dence of love are at increased risk to abuse children. Batterers appear

to be particularly prone to using culturally supported arguments of

this kind in defending their abusive parenting, making comments in

session such as "Spare the rod and spoil the child" or "You want me

to be like those other parents who don't care what happens to their

children." Furthermore, this value system can lend itself to child sexual

abuse. Incest perpetrators, when their actions are uncovered, some

times describe the violations that they have committed as having been

acts of tenderness or caring, using such rationalizations as "I wanted

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The Battering Problem 17

to help her learn about sexual relationships in a safe w a y " or "She was really starved for affection because her mother doesn't give her any, and it just got a little out of hand" (see also Salter, 1995; Herman, 1981).

Manipulativeness

W e observe that few of our clients rely entirely on verbal or physi cal attack to attain control. Rather, batterers employ a wide range of behavioral tactics, foremost among which is often a pattern of manipu lativeness. Immediately following abusive incidents, a batterer may strive to manipulate his partner's perceptions of his actions or to cre ate confusion about the causes or meaning of the incidents, which has been described as a form of mind control (Jacobson & Gottman, 1998). Over the longer term, his manipulativeness may take a different form: Periods of abuse are usually interspersed with times of relative calm, during which the batterer may b e loving or friendly with shows of generosity or flexibility in an attempt to regain his partner's trust and to create the hope that he has changed. Given the traumatic effects of his history of abusing her, the respite and sense of hopefulness engen dered by his good periods can cause serious confusion in her. He thus may be able to reengage her over and over again in a way that can be baffling to outsiders who do not understand the deep combined effects of trauma, mtimidation, and manipulation, which can form strong trauma bonds (D. Dutton, 1995; D. Dutton & Painter, 1993; Herman, 1992).

Batterers' manipulativeness often extends to the public arena as well. The great majority of batterers project a public image that is in sharp contrast to the private reality of their behavior and attitudes (Jacobson & Gottman, 1998). They may impress others as friendly, calm, and reasonable people, often with a capacity to be funny and entertaining. The public reputation that a batterer can build may cause people to be reluctant to believe allegations of his battering, thus mak ing it more difficult for his partner and children to obtain emotional support or assistance. Our clients shape the public images of their partners as well, describing them to others as controlling, demanding, and verbally abusive at the same time as they paint themselves as car ing and supportive partners who are earnestly trying to make things at home go well. The cumulative effect of these behaviors on those out side the family is to build sympathy and support for the batterer and to isolate the battered woman b y damaging her credibility.

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18 THE BATTERER AS PARENT

A batterer's family members and his surrounding community

generally find manipulation harder to identify than more overt tactics

of abuse. For example, many of our clients use arguing styles at home

that rely more on twisting their partners' words, distorting past events,

and other tactics of confusion than on loud yelling or name-calling. The

partner of this style of batterer may suffer from increased confusion

and self-blame and, in some cases, may become emotionally unstable;

the batterer may then use her deteriorating emotional condition to dis

credit further her disclosures of abuse.

The manipulativeness of batterers can create ambivalence and

disorientation for their children. For example, children sometimes say

to us that they don't understand why their mother gets so angry dur

ing arguments in which their father seems calm because they do not

grasp the significance of his words or his underlying tone. Following

incidents of overt abuse or violence, he may be charming and attentive

to the children while the trauma of victimization causes the children's

mother to be short-tempered, withdrawn, or fragile (see Chapter 3).

The batterer thus can shape the children's perceptions of the incident

that has just occurred, leading them to form the impression that their

mother is aggressive and that the batterer is the "nice" parent. Children

also appear to sometimes be confused or influenced by the positive

public reputations of their battering fathers.

Manipulation is in itself a psychological risk to children. For

example, experts in treating schizophrenia have found that severely

contradictory messages from parents appear to play a greater role than

overt abuse in engendering children's psychosis (Karon & Vandenbos,

1981). When these tactics are combined with the dynamics of domestic

violence, the risks to children's mental health increase further.

Batterers are also adept at manipulating those attempting to inter

vene. Our clients are commonly able to lie persuasively, sounding

sincere and providing an impressive level of detail while sometimes

weaving together multiple fabrications. We find that it may be impos

sible to uncover accurate information except by reviewing police

reports and child protective records, speaking with probation officers

and therapists, and interviewing the battered partner and other wit

nesses. In a number of our cases, evaluators working for courts or child

protective services have made errors due to their failure to adequately

test the batterer's credibility.

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The Battering Problem 19

Contradictory Statements and Behaviors

Assessment of batterers and their impacts on families is further complicated by the contradictions typically present in a batterer's thinking and presentation. Many of our clients, for example, state that they oppose any use of violence toward women, that men should treat their partners with respect, that decision making should be 50-50, and that the needs of the children should be the priority. Some clients make forceful, articulate, and appropriate confrontations of other men in their abuser groups while themselves continuing to b e abusive and violent at home. Evaluating professionals should be cautious not to assess an alleged batterer simply by asking his beliefs, as he will gener ally be able to tailor his statements to the response that he believes is desired. The more educated batterer is sometimes especially adept at concealing his underlying thinking. A batterer's destructive attitudes may be revealed better by statements he makes while under confron tation than while being interviewed supportively and, in some cases, are only exposed when he is in private or when he is caught behaving abusively by outsiders.

Externalization of Responsibility

Our clients are consistent in holding beliefs that relieve them of responsibility for their abusiveness, and they exhibit patterns of justify ing their actions and making excuses (see also D. Dutton, 1995; Edleson & Tolman, 1992). They shift blame to their partners' conduct (e.g., "She really knows how to push m y buttons") and to other supposed causes such as stress, substance abuse, issues from childhood, and intolerable emotional states. This belief system leads our clients to make contradic tory statements such as " I know you should never hit a woman, but there's only so much a man can take" or " I know I'm responsible for my own actions, but she pushed me too far."

The batterer tends similarly to shift responsibility for the effects of his actions. For example, if his partner flinches during an argument because she thinks he is about to strike out, he may ridicule her as hypersensitive or theatrical (Bancroft, 2003). If she becomes depressed (which is a common symptom of abuse), he may call her lazy or say, "You just want to live off my hard work." He then may use the effects of his actions as an excuse for further mistreatment of her. Our clients

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20 THE BATTERER AS PARENT

take the same attitude toward the effects on their children of exposure

to domestic violence, attributing their difficulties to the mother's poor

parenting or to inherently weak character in the children. W e find

that the behavioral and emotional problems of our clients' children

often increase over time and that therefore a batterer's criticism of his

children (and of his partner as a parent) can mount in frequency and

harshness.

A critical family dynamic that we observe is that batterers tend

to have some success in persuading their family members to take on

responsibility for the abuse. Children may blame their mothers for the

abuse, mothers may blame children, siblings tend to blame each other,

and all family members tend periodically to blame themselves. Family

members may accuse each other of having made the batterer angry by

challenging him, failing to cater to him adequately, making too much

noise, or other actions that displeased him. When a woman attempts

to end a relationship to escape abuse, the batterer may tell her that she

is the one causing harm to the children because she is breaking up the

family (Pence & Paymar, 1993). If his abusive behavior drives his chil

dren away from him emotionally, he is likely to accuse the mother of

alienating the children from him (see Chapters 5 and 6).

In a substantial proportion of batterers, their externalization of

responsibility extends to their interactions with their children. This

tendency is a risk factor for children, as "abusive parents often project

responsibility for their abusive behavior onto external factors, includ

ing the child" (Milner & Chilamkurti, 1991, p. 352). W e often observe

our clients using excuses for their mistreatment of the children that are

similar to those that they use in justifying their abuse of the mother.

Denial, Minimization, and Victim Blaming

Batterers rarely disclose their violence fully, even in the face of con

siderable evidence (Heckert & Gondolf, 2000; Healey et al., 1998). Our

clients also deny the effects of their battering on their partners. This

denial can sometimes hold firm through months of participation in bat

terer programs, though the existence of independent evidence, such as

police reports with which to confront the client, can assist in breaking

down denial.

Even those men who admit to some portions of their violence typi

cally minimize their history of abuse (Lloyd & Emery, 2000; Healey et al.,

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The Battering Problem 21

1998; D. Dutton, 1995), reporting significantly less violence and threaten

ing behavior than their female partners attribute to them and than is

revealed by court and police records (Adams, 2007). They sometimes

will admit to violence but characterize it as necessary self-defense; in

these cases, careful interviewing along with examination of outside

sources of information may b e necessary to distinguish between a

batterer and a man who was genuinely acting in an appropriately

self-protective way. In assessment of an alleged or established bat

terer, minimization by the offender can be more effectively misleading

than denial. By expressing remorse while simultaneously portraying

his victim as provocative and dishonest, a batterer is sometimes able

to persuade a professional that he has been wrongly accused or that

his efforts to change have not been recognized. The batterer w h o uses

this approach often states that his partner is falsely alleging domestic

violence because she found out that he was involved with another

woman, he refused a reunion that she desired, she was pushed into the

accusations by an overzealous advocate, or she is using her claims as a

weapon in custody litigation. W e have had clients say roughly the fol

lowing, for example: "I did shove her a couple of times, and one time I

hauled off and slapped her when she called my mother a whore, and I

really regret it. But now, she's saying I grabbed her by the throat and

threatened to kill her, which I would never do, and she knows it."

Our clients often characterize their actions as defensive in nature

or as being necessary to prevent more serious harm (see also Lloyd &

Emery, 2000; Healey et al., 1998; Pence & Paymar, 1993). The most com

mon explanations that clients of ours provide include claims that his

partner was assaulting him and he injured her when he was warding

off her blows, that he was enraged by her frequent assaults against him

and "finally decided to show her what it's like," that she was assault

ing one of the children and he stepped in to protect the child, and that

she was attempting to drive while drunk or to act self-destructively in

some other way. Further inquiry typically reveals distortions in these

accounts.

Child-abusing batterers exhibit similar patterns of denial, minimiz

ing, and victim blaming regarding their parenting. Information that we

receive from child protective services often contrasts sharply with our

clients' minimizations of their violence, threats, or boundary violations

toward children. Many of our clients distort or exaggerate their children's

behavior, tending to cast the child as highly troubled or destructive.

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22 THE BATTERER AS PARENT

Furthermore, the descriptions that we receive from the partners of our cli

ents suggest that the behavioral and emotional problems that the children

do have may be largely a product of exposure to battering behavior.

Serial Battering

Batterers tend to abuse more than one woman over the course of

their adult relationships (D. Dutton, 1995; Woffordt, Mihalic, & Menard,

1994). Child protective services and family and juvenile courts should

avoid operating on the mistaken belief that a batterer's likelihood to

assault a female partner can be reduced through the ending of his cur

rent relationship. The high degree of conflict in his current relationship

is probably the result of his abusiveness rather than its cause, and if he

replicates these dynamics in his future relationships, his children may

be at risk.

• MISCONCEPTIONS A B O U T BATTERERS

Important myths about batterers are widespread, and some of these

have taken hold among professionals in ways that can lead to errors in

assessment or in intervention. The most common misconceptions are

examined here.

Substance Abuse

W e believe that the available research on batterers and substance abuse indicates that the overlap between the two is not as great as many people have assumed. Most incidents of domestic violence take place without the use of alcohol by the batterer, and roughly 8 0 % of alcohol-abusing men do not beat their partners (Kantor & Straus, 1990). Alcohol and most drugs do not have physiological effects that cause violence, and indeed alcohol is most likely to contribute to violence in those who believe that it will do so (Gelles, 1993). A large proportion of our clients, including some who are highly physically violent, show no signs of substance abuse (see also Zubretsky & Digirolamo, 1996), and those clients who do have addiction problems commit serious acts of abuse even when sober. In cases where a battered partner reports that the man is violent only when drinking, further questioning usually

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The Battering Problem 2 3

reveals that lower-level violence, such as pushing and threatening, has

happened at other times. Moreover, any increases in violence associ

ated with substance abuse should still be understood as a matter of

choice: Our clients admit to us that they give themselves more permis

sion to be violent when intoxicated (see also Edleson & Tolman, 1992)

and reveal similar attitudes and decision-making processes regarding

their violence whether or not they are intoxicated. Similar observations

have been made regarding lesbian batterers (Renzetti, 1997). Thus,

the particular constellation of attitudes and behaviors that typically

accompanies battering cannot reasonably be attributed to an alcohol

problem (for similar conclusions, see Zubretsky & Digirolamo, 1996).

The impact on battering behavior of recovery from addiction is

mixed. A fairly small but significant number of our clients become

more dangerous and dictatorial when they stop abusing the substance,

apparently because of their increased irritability and their ability to

more closely monitor their partners' behavior. W e have observed

another group of abusers w h o exhibit a period of substantial reduction

in violence during roughly their first 4 to 12 months of sobriety, but as

the batterer reaches a point of feeling more secure in his recovery and

therefore less consumed by it, his abusive behavior tends to reemerge.

Indeed, certain concepts that batterers learn in 12-step programs some

times become new weapons integrated into their systems of verbal

abuse, such as accusing a partner of "being in denial" about her own

problems or labeling her "codependent." Clients in a final group—

again, fairly small—do appear to make lasting changes in battering

behavior following recovery from addiction. However, it is important

to note that these are men who have been participating simultane

ously in specialized batterer programs with a minimum duration of

11 months. Reports of long-term improvements in overall abusiveness

coming from addiction recovery alone are rare (Bennett, 1995), and

professionals should avoid suggesting to the family members of a bat

terer or to the batterer himself that his recovery will increase physical

or psychological safety in the home.

Although substance abuse is not causal in domestic violence, it can

contribute to a batterer's frequency and severity of violence (Bennett,

1995), and the most dangerous batterers have elevated rates of heavy

substance abuse (Campbell, 2007; Websdale, 1999). Substance abuse

history is thus one important factor in risk assessment.

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24 THE BATTERER AS PARENT

Mental Health Problems

Most of our clients have no detectable mental health problems.

The available studies suggest that, aside from those who are extremely

physically violent, batterers do not appear to have substantially higher

rates of psychopathology than do nonbattering men (Gondolf, 1999;

O'Leary, 1993; review in Tolman & Bennett, 1990). Clinicians have dif

ficulty in reliably assigning batterers to types within a psychological

typology (Langhinrichsen-Rohlins, Huss, & Ramsey, 2000), and there

is no particular personality disorder or mental illness that batter

ers show consistently (Langhinrichsen-Rohlins et al., 2000; Gondolf,

1999). There is especially strong evidence of a characteristic absence of

psychopathology in those batterers who are not violent outside of the

home (Holtzworth-Munroe & Stuart, 1994).

We have had infrequent cases where a client's violence did appear

to be produced primarily by a mental illness with the following distin

guishing characteristics:

a. The men's partners reported that they did not exhibit chronic

patterns of controlling behavior or entitled attitudes.

b. The men showed unusually low levels of investment in justify

ing or rationalizing their violence, even under confrontation.

c. They had higher levels of empathy and lower levels of negative

characterization with respect to their victims than did other

clients.

d. They had histories of explosive behaviors with nonpartners about whom they expressed remorse and embarrassment. W e estimate that such men have been 1% or fewer of our clients.

A second and much larger group of men with whom we have

worked have serious indications of mental illness or have already been

diagnosed but also exhibit the central characteristics that make up the

batterer profile. In such cases, the mental health problem should not b e

seen as the cause of the battering but rather as an important aggravating

factor and as an obstacle to efforts at rehabilitation, analogous to the sub

stance abuse of other batterers (see also Edleson & Tolman, 1992).

A number of subtler emotional problems are widely assumed to be causes of battering, including low self-esteem, insecurity, child hood victimization, poor impulse control, and feelings of inadequacy.

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The Battering Problem 25

Our clinical experience, however, does not support the belief that such

problems are consistently present in batterers. Similarly, a number of

studies have examined the role of life stress in causing battering and

have found little evidence of any connection (review in Tolman &

Bennett, 1990).

In an attempt to address the fact that battering behavior rarely extends

outside of the family, one formulation has portrayed batterers as having

profound emotional issues regarding intimacy (e.g., D. Dutton, 1995).

However, this theory does not offer an explanation of why so many men

(and women) with severe intimacy problems do not batter, nor can it

account for the multiple aspects of battering behavior that have little or

nothing to do with intimacy, such as a batterer's tendency to become

mtimidating when his authority is challenged. It also does not account

for batterers' tendency to have peers who are also abusive to women

(Silverman & Williamson, 1997). Cross-cultural studies of domestic vio

lence indicate that battering occurs in a range of different structures of

intimacy between partners, including where there is no expectation of

emotional intimacy between spouses (e.g., Mitchell, 1992; Levinson, 1989).

Psychotherapy appears to have low rates of effectiveness with bat

terers (Jacobson & Gottman, 1998), which we observe to result from

their high entitlement and from their tendencies to manipulate the

therapeutic process. W e have received only rare reports from partners

of our clients of behavioral improvements in the abuser through par

ticipation in psychotherapy or through the use of psychotropic medi

cation, and none of those improvements have been maintained over

the long term. Furthermore, w e find our battering clients to be highly

resistant to using psychotropic medication regularly and responsibly.

A similar misconception about batterers involves their purported

deficiencies in conflict resolution, communication, assertiveness, and

anger management skills. However, D. Dutton (1995) himself observed

that the batterer's lack of assertiveness was present only in partner rela

tionships and not in other contexts. Another study found that skill dif

ferences between batterers and nonbatterers were small (Morrison, Van

Hasselt, & Bellack, 1987). These findings strengthen our clinical observa

tion that batterers are generally not unable to use nonabusive skills but

rather are unwilling to do so because of their attitudes. In our experience,

batterer intervention specialists are in wide agreement that the teaching

of conflict resolution or anger management skills to batterers is only use

ful if the clients' underlying attitudes are also confronted.

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26 THE BATTERER AS PARENT

A particularly prevalent misconception about batterers is that they

have poor impulse control. However, it is unusual to find an abuser

who has a history of lost jobs due to impulsive behavior at work or

other indications of low impulse control. Moreover, a complete history

of a man's abusive and controlling behaviors toward his partner gener

ally reveals some actions that require forethought or even planning.

Exploration of an abuser's nonpartner relationships, his handling of his

own finances, and other spheres of life generally reveals no severe his

tory of impulsivity.

One mental health diagnosis that should be treated as a special

case is antisocial personality disorder, also known as the psychopathic

or sociopathic personality. This is a condition in which the person lacks

a social conscience, leading to manipulative and exploitative behavior,

a tendency toward violence and intimidation, and chronic law break

ing. The male sociopath typically has superficial, dishonest, and abu

sive relationships with women, including chronic infidelity (American

Psychiatric Association, 1994). Although the sociopath and the batterer

are similar in their exploitativeness (Jacobson & Gottman, 1998), there

are two key differences between the two personalities:

1. The sociopath exhibits his antisocial tendencies with many dif

ferent people (typically including employers) and not just with

intimate partners.

2. The sociopath's behavior pattern begins no later than midado

lescence, but the batterer's problem emerges more commonly

in his late teens or 20s. Antisocial personality disorder is dan

gerous and highly resistant to treatment, so a man who has

both this diagnosis and a history of battering may be a serious

risk to his partner, former partners, or children.

Similar to what we said about narcissism, the antisocial personality disorder is compatible with domestic battering, and the batterer is at a somewhat increased risk to have this diagnosis compared to a nonbat tering man (Gondolf, 1999). Again, though, it should be understood as a co-occurring and exacerbating problem, and not necessarily as a cause.

Generalized Violence and Criminality

The great majority of our clients, including some of the most

severely or dangerously violent, have not had any chronic problems

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The Battering Problem 2 7

with violence outside of partner relationships. Studies have similarly

concluded that, although batterers do have a higher rate of generalized

violence than do nonbatterers, the majority of batterers restrict their

violence to intimate relationships (Holtzworth-Munroe & Meehan,

2004; Jacobson & Gottman, 1998; Hotaling, Straus, & Lincoln, 1990).

They are not generally perceived as violent in nature by people who

interact with them in other contexts; the exception to this is in certain

situations where they are confronted about their battering behavior or

when they perceive others as interfering with their control over their

partners or children. In other situations, batterers are known for their

self-control: For example, their ability to calm themselves abruptly

when police arrive at the home and to behave reasonably and amicably

in the presence of the officers is a standard subject of police training on

domestic violence.

Class assumptions have played a role in the construction of the

societal image of the batterer as a generally violent man who is poor or

blue-collar, often allowing batterers w h o are well educated, successful,

and self-assured to escape detection. Similarly, the public imagination

has exaggerated the contribution to battering of the macho, tough-guy

personality style with its stereotypic class and racial associations.

Those batterers who do exhibit generalized violence have been

shown to be an increased risk to their partners and children (Campbell,

Soeken, McFarlane, & Parker, 1998). Men in this category can exhibit

less concern for the consequences of their actions to themselves, are

less restricted by their own guilt, and can be familiar with particularly

destructive methods of violence (including weapons use). The presence

of a pattern of generalized violence therefore does need to be taken into

account as one factor in assessing a batterer's dangerousness.

Race, Cultural, and Class Stereotypes

Battering has been established to be a serious problem in the great

majority of racial and cultural groups that have been studied in the

modern world (Heise et al., 1999; Levinson, 1989). Within the United

States, rates of battering are high among all racial groups (Tjaden &

Thoennes, 2000) and do not appear to differ dramatically between dif

ferent races and cultural groups when class is controlled for (Denham

et.al., 2007; McFarlane, Groff, O'Brien, & Watson, 2005; Silvern, Karyl,

& Landis, 1995; review in Hampton, Carrillo, & Kim, 1998, and in Koss

et al., 1994); for example, Latino couples are no more male dominated

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28 THE BATTERER AS PARENT

or approving of violence than are Anglo couples (review in West,

1998). There is, however, a general dearth of research on batterers of

color (Kanuha, 1996), forcing us to rely primarily on clinical experience

in discussing the relevance of race and culture.

In our experience, professionals handling domestic violence

cases—perhaps especially child protective service providers but also

judges, therapists, custody evaluators, and others—have been prone to

make errors based on cultural and class assumptions. These assump

tions often come to our attention through the professional's state

ment that the family in a particular case "comes from a culture where

domestic violence is considered acceptable." Such a view confuses and

obscures the fact that modern cultures are made up of complex cross

currents, with values constantly being debated and undergoing shifts.

To summarize a culture's view of domestic violence in one phrase

is culturally insensitive; moreover, values among men in any given

culture can be in sharp conflict with those among women. In addi

tion, even in cultures where men's right to control females is largely

accepted among both men and women, abusers still have higher-than

average levels for their societies of beliefs in their right to exert power

(review in Heise et al., 1999). Visible individuals and groups working

in opposition to domestic violence exist throughout the world; at least

53 countries now have laws against domestic violence, and 41 have

criminalized marital rape (Heise et al., 1999). In short, we are unaware

of evidence indicating that any culture has a broad consensus explicitly

condoning domestic violence.

In more sensitively discussing the influence of racial, cultural, and

class factors on battering behavior, we must begin by stressing the high

level of implicit support for domestic violence in mainstream culture

in the United States, including among the white, educated, and eco

nomically privileged sectors of society. For example, college students

given a scenario involving domestic violence by a man tend to blame

the woman and to relieve the man of responsibility; this tendency

increases the more the scenario portrays a high degree of intimacy in

the relationship, with few research subjects believing that the man

is responsible for his actions (Summers & Feldman, 1984). Another

study found that over 2 5 % of college males studying undergraduate

psychology believe that it is appropriate for a man to beat a woman

whom he believes to be sexually unfaithful, and over 1 0 % believe

it is appropriate to beat a female partner who repeatedly refuses to

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The Battering Problem 29

have sex (Silverman & Williamson, 1997). In addition, batterers can

read cultural messages in the failure of some police departments or

courts to take domestic violence offenses seriously or to hold batterers

accountable for their actions; for example, sentences for crimes related

to domestic violence are generally lower than those for comparable

violent crimes among strangers (Gender Bias Study Committee, 1989).

Batterers may take similar lessons from the reluctance of police to take

action regarding spousal rape (Bergen, 1996).

Moreover, international studies are helpful in considering further

the importance of race and ethnicity in patterns of battering. Overall,

the level of domestic violence in the United States is comparable to that

of other societies (M. Straus & Gelles, 1990), appearing to be among

neither the highest nor the lowest; for example, domestic violence rates

in Puerto Rico have been found to be higher than the U.S. average, but

those in Cuba are much lower (Kantor, Jasinski, & Aldarondo, cited in

West, 1998; see also Levinson, 1989). The best predictors of level of bat

tering in a society have been found to be economic and social factors,

including the level of economic inequality between men and women

and the level of restriction on women's economic rights (such as the

right to inherit land or money); the extent of husband dominance in

family decision making; the level of access by women to divorce; and

the overall level of violence in the society (Heise et a l , 1999; Mitchell,

1992; Levinson, 1989). Rates of partner abuse appear to be lower in

societies where women have more power and authority outside of

the family as well as inside (Heise et al., 1999). Thus, a global perspec

tive reinforces our view that battering cannot be explained in terms of

racial or ethnic factors in themselves.

Battering is also not the province of a particular socioeconomic

class. Although most studies suggest that poorer families have a higher

incidence of domestic violence (e.g., Bachman, 2000; M. Straus, Gelles,

& Steinmetz, 1980), there are also findings that rates are elevated in

the wealthiest families (review in Stark & Flitcraft, 1988), that men

of higher occupational status have higher rates of chronic offending

(Woffordt et al., 1994), and that women at both the highest and lowest

economic strata find it the most difficult to get away from abusive part

ners (Woffordt et al., 1994). A higher level of education does not appear

to make a man less likely to batter (review in Hotaling & Sugarman,

1986), and a batterer's level of education does not significantly affect

his likelihood to physically abuse children (Suh & Abel, 1990).

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30 THE BATTERER AS PARENT

The preceding points are not meant to suggest that cultural literacy

and class sensitivity are irrelevant to professionals addressing domes

tic violence. Batterers' styles do vary by culture, so that the particular

spheres of greatest control, the most likely excuses for abuse, and

even the forms of violence used follow some cultural generalizations

(Levinson, 1989). Cultural literacy is important in understanding how

a particular man may construct the rationalizations for his actions and

what some of the moments or situations of greatest danger may be for

his partner and children (Haj-Yahia, 1996) and therefore also in design

ing effective services for batterers (Carrillo & Tello, 1998).

Similarly, the challenges faced by a battered woman are cultur

ally specific, including what kind of support (if any) she can expect to

receive from relatives, police, clergy, and other key institutions and

how her own cultural and religious beliefs shape her perceptions of

her options (Bonilla-Santiago, 1996; Haj-Yahia, 1996). Latina women

who are battered are even more likely than other abused women to

be socially isolated and even more likely to have children (Denham

et al., 2007), and the decision making of battered Latinas is focused

heavily on their roles as mothers and on their need to protect their

relationships with their children (U. Kelly, 2009; Klevens et al., 2007).

Immigrant Latinas struggle with lack of information about services

and laws and with fears of having their children taken from them by

child protection if the domestic violence is revealed (U. Kelly, 2009).

One study found that religious participation increases the ability of

African-American women to avoid abusive relationships (Raj et al.,

1999), contrary to the expectations that many professionals have based

on the experience of white women. An immigrant woman may face

language barriers when she attempts to get assistance, or her legal sta

tus may present her with the additional fear that the batterer will have

her deported (Klevens, 2007). With respect to class issues, the higher

rates of domestic violence found among low-income families appear to

reflect the additional obstacles that poor women face to leaving rather

than a greater propensity of poor men to batter.

In our clinical experience, although we do observe some racial,

ethnic, and class variations in the tactics and justifications used by bat

terers, we find the commonalities stronger than the differences. Our

clinical experience with batterers involves primarily white, African-

American, Caribbean, and Central-American men, as well as some

Portuguese and Cape Verdean individuals. The class makeup of our

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The Battering Problem 31

clients has been fairly representative of the United States, with higher

incomes among our self-referred clients and those mandated by courts

in wealthier areas.

Lack of cultural awareness can lead to underreactions and over

reactions by professionals. The belief that domestic violence is the

norm in certain cultures can cause child protective workers to over

look potentially dangerous situations, just as the belief that men from

certain groups are likely to be batterers may lead to a prejudicial court

response or cause child protective services to remove children from

a home prematurely. Class assumptions can have similar effects; we

observe, for example, that both courts and child protective services

sometimes underreact to the well-educated, economically comfortable

batterer (see also S. Weitzman, 2001).

W e do see indications that some better-educated batterers may rely

less on physical violence and draw more on sophisticated techniques

of psychological abuse that they have at their disposal. These obser

vations are consistent with findings that, at lower levels of violence,

more privileged men are just as likely to batter as are low-income men

(Hotaling & Sugarman, cited in A. Moore, 1997). However, this style of

abuser may be at less risk of arrest because his incidents of physical bat

tering tend to be lower in frequency and severity. Overgeneralization

should be avoided, however, as we have also worked with upper- and

middle-class clients who were violent to the point of terror and with

working-class clients who used low levels of violence and high levels

of psychological abuse.

As with culture, the obstacles faced by a battered mother are spe

cific to her class position. A poorer woman may have few job options,

her friends may be unable to take her and her children into their

already-crowded houses, and her relatives may not have money to

lend. A wealthier woman may find the contrast between her lifestyle

and the conditions in a battered women's shelter overwhelming and

may find her children resentful toward her if she takes them out of

their comfortable surroundings.

Two final points need to be made regarding race, culture, and

class. First, we observe clinically that cultural mores play a role in

shaping the strengths and weaknesses of a batterer's parenting (as they

do anyone's) and interact with his battering problem in complex ways.

(Research on the parenting of batterers that examines cultural varia

tions is virtually nonexistent at this point.) Second, class and cultural

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32 THE BATTERER AS PARENT

expectations affect how able children feel to disclose the abuse to

outsiders and to process their emotional reactions to it. For example,

wealthier children may be socialized more strongly to avoid harming

the family's reputation and may also assume that they would be disbe

lieved if they disclosed the abuse. Immigrant children may be afraid to

disclose any personal information to those perceived as authorities.

• S U M M A R Y

Domestic violence perpetration involves a definable and identifiable

pattern of attitudes and behaviors. Batterers share key characteris

tics, each of which has important implications for the experience of

children in the home. The battering problem has unique etiology and

dynamics and cannot be reduced to any other cause, such as substance

abuse, mental illness, or violent personality type. Effective assessment

and intervention with families affected by domestic violence require

a grasp of the central elements of the battering pattern and of the

dynamics that it may set in motion in a particular family. Cultural and

class awareness are also indispensable, for the social context in which

the parents live shapes their behaviors and their real and perceived

options, which in turn shape the children's experience.

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