Spiritual trauma: did you have any?

[_Jersey Girl]

charity

I don't know Loran.

If TD has never heard that many women provoke a battering incident because of the absolutely unbearable tension, then she can't know much more than the pop psych approach to counseling victims of domestic violence.

The key phrase here is ABSOLUTELY UNBEARABLE tension. And she doesn't know much about the the relief that occurs during the calm periiod.

I may have been wrong in my assessment of your earlier statement regarding provocation. Are you saying that (many) women intentionally provoke the abuser in order to arrive at the "calm period"?

[_beastie]

I may have been wrong in my assessment of your earlier statement regarding provocation. Are you saying that (many) women intentionally provoke the abuser in order to arrive at the "calm period"?

That is how I interpreted her comments, and that does happen in some cases - or at least so I've read. But even then it must be understood that the real "trigger" is nothing the victim did or did not do, and has entirely to do with the internal voices in the abuser.

There are even some cases wherein the victim hits the abuser - which, of course, makes the picture more difficult to dissect, and this demonstrates why the most important thing to figure out is power and control.

[_harmony]

Google sources don't compare to college courses and workshops on the subject.

Ummm... charity? You might want to ask TD what she does for a living, before you go off half-cocked and make yourself into a Loran-clone.

I don't know Loran.

You obviously don't know TD either.

If TD has never heard that many women provoke a battering incident because of the absolutely unbearable tension, then she can't know much more than the pop psych approach to counseling victims of domestic violence.

The key phrase here is ABSOLUTELY UNBEARABLE tension. And she doesn't know much about the the relief that occurs during the calm periiod.

By definition, women cannot provoke a battering incident. That is what TD is getting at. Just like victims of rape, victims of domestic battering cannot be blamed for what happens to them. The battering is not their fault. It is always the fault of the batterer, not the victim of the violence. Don't you understand that the batterer always has the choice between not battering and battering, and that is a private choice? One in which the victim has no voice?

[_Jersey Girl]

I may have been wrong in my assessment of your earlier statement regarding provocation. Are you saying that (many) women intentionally provoke the abuser in order to arrive at the "calm period"?

That is how I interpreted her comments, and that does happen in some cases - or at least so I've read. But even then it must be understood that the real "trigger" is nothing the victim did or did not do, and has entirely to do with the internal voices in the abuser.

There are even some cases wherein the victim hits the abuser - which, of course, makes the picture more difficult to dissect, and this demonstrates why the most important thing to figure out is power and control.[/quote

I'm still hoping that charity will discuss power/control and trigger issues.

[_charity]

I may have been wrong in my assessment of your earlier statement regarding provocation. Are you saying that (many) women intentionally provoke the abuser in order to arrive at the "calm period"?

That is how I interpreted her comments, and that does happen in some cases - or at least so I've read. But even then it must be understood that the real "trigger" is nothing the victim did or did not do, and has entirely to do with the internal voices in the abuser.

There are even some cases wherein the victim hits the abuser - which, of course, makes the picture more difficult to dissect, and this demonstrates why the most important thing to figure out is power and control.

Beastie is right. Pretty much.

And it isn't so much to arrive at the calm period, as to escape the tension. I keep saying UNBEARABLE tension.

[_harmony]

There are even some cases wherein the victim hits the abuser - which, of course, makes the picture more difficult to dissect, and this demonstrates why the most important thing to figure out is power and control.

Then this is not a classic abuse situation and calls for a different approach. In a classic abuse scenario, the victim and the batterer play out the same scene over and over. The victim never takes on the role of the batterer.

It might be helpful to note that not all victims are women, and not all batterers are men.

We don't know enough about the situations mentioned in the opening post to know exactly what was going on in any of those households.

[_Gadianton]

Not that Charity doesn't bungle up just about everything that comes out of her mouth. But, if psychology is a dispassionate science of human behavior, then it would stand to reason that a psychologist's training does not focus on who has the moral right in human interactions. It is clearly reasonable to judge a series of human interactions, including spousal abuse, without blaming anyone in order to figure out the mechanics of the situation. It's even reasonable, upon developing some good theories, to help the parties within the situation understand the mechanics without assigning blame. To me that seems like useful information.

In fact, the other night I had a conversation with a neighbor who just had his car stereo stolen. He was taking increased measures to prevent it from happening again and we discussed how things could play out, for good or ill, temporarily bracketing what appears to be the obvious fault of the thieves in order to get a better handle on the best ways to proceed.

[_Jersey Girl]

Not that Charity doesn't bungle up just about everything that comes out of her mouth. But, if psychology is a dispassionate science of human behavior, then it would stand to reason that a psychologist's training does not focus on who has the moral right in human interactions. It is clearly reasonable to judge a series of human interactions, including spousal abuse, without blaming anyone in order to figure out the mechanics of the situation. It's even reasonable, upon developing some good theories, to help the parties within the situation understand the mechanics without assigning blame. To me that seems like useful information.

In fact, the other night I had a conversation with a neighbor who just had his car stereo stolen. He was taking increased measures to prevent it from happening again and we discussed how things could play out, for good or ill, temporarily bracketing what appears to be the obvious fault of the thieves in order to get a better handle on the best ways to proceed.

Yes, but based on charity's previous comments regarding the role of therapist, that's not the role she expressed.

[_Coggins7]

At this juncture, it seems fitting to point out that prayer itself also produces a placebo effect. Which theorist do you personally subscribe to regarding personality development? Thank you for your response. Now if you don't find it too rude of me to say so, I'll wait for harmony to blow smoke out of her credentialed and degreed ass.

LSD

(For got I was here didn't ya?;-)

No, I've never forgotten your evil twin. I'd prefer to stay with Jersey Girl, thank you.

Now, prayer probably does produce a placebo. The problem you're going to have, if you're coming from a secularist position, is the problem of whether all prayer is gold prayer. That a placebo exists doesn't tell us anything regarding the range or depth of its effects, or where and at one point actual divine intervention takes place within the context of prayer. You would have to find the interface, and unfortunately this is quite beyond the means of any secular methodology, including scientific.

As to therapy, I've gotten into CBT over the last couple of years as a new approach to my own addiction problems (as well as general thinking patterns that tend to self sabotage) and I find many of their ideas quite helpful. I also like, not necessarily in any particular order, the Family Systems model, Rational Emotive, Reality Therapy, and some ideas garnished from Maslow. Humanistic ideas are nice because they have tended to concentrate on psychological health and optimum functioning and were an antidote to the dreary traditional Freudian medical model. Unfortunately, although Psychodynamic theory is now passe, a remedicalization of psychology has taken place over the last 20 years or so, and much of it (especially addiction counselling), has descended into sheer biological determinism and preoccupation with social control (ADD, ADHD, and the present rage for Ritilin).

The idea that there will eventually be a pill that will 'cure" alcoholism, Cocaine addiction, gambling addiction, or that sociopathic behavior is genetically (or environmentally) determined and is medically definable and treatable as a part of a series of "personality disorders" are a part of this general trend.

[_charity]

So I’m interested in your further clarification for Jersey Girl and an addition clarification for me as to how growing a spine and confronting the abuser factor into this cycle.

This is not supposed to be a place to display everything I know about domestic violence! Okay. Power. Many abusers isolate their spouses, move them away from family, prevent them from making friends, control the money in the household, control their schedules, etc. Its all about power.

You gave your history. I will give you pertinent bits of mine. I came from a long line of NON abusive men. Men did not hit women in my familiy. And they were not verbally abusive, either. One night when I was about 10, the next door neighbor came to our house in the middle of the night. She had my mother call the police and they came and arrested her husband for beating her up. The next day, she withdrew the charges, and refused to speak to my mother ever again for her part in having the husband arrested. When I was getting acquainted with the man I would later marry, I found out he came from an abusive home. I knew the numbers. 30% of boys raised in abusive homes grow up to become abusers themselves. I told my husband to be that he would never get a chance to hit me a second time. He was obviously one of the 70% who never would have been abusive.

In every developmental psych class I ever taught I told the students if they came from an abusive home, both male and female, that they should get counseling whether they thought they needed it or not.