Thomas Golebiewski dissertation

The Institute for Clinical Social Work

EXPLORING THE RELATIONAL EXPERIENCES OF DOMESTICALLY VIOLENT MEN

A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty o f the

Institute for Clinical Social Work in Partial Fulfillment For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

By THOMAS J. GOLEBIEWSKI

Chicago, Illinois March, 2007

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UMI Number: 3264619

Copyright 2007 by Golebiewski, Thomas J.

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ABSTRACT

This exploratory study uses the methodology of Interpretative Interactionism to address a major gap in the domestic violence field, which is the missing voice of the subject and their first hand accounts of their relational experiences. The Case Study method is employed to gather thick descriptions and to explore the past and present relationships, personal troubles, turning points and epiphanies of 13 domestically violent men and then to examine them through the psychological construct of mentalization in order to understand each individual and their collective experiences. Through the use of their narratives, the study illustrates mentalization and how the adverse effects of loss, cumulative trauma, thingification and the failures of mentalization are discemable and apparent in each of their experiences and that their troubles were compounded by how utterly alone these men have been and how they have been failed as children. While the findings confirm the interlocking problems of alcohol abuse and domestic violence, and patterns of the generational transmission of abuse, they defy the stereotypes typically associated with this population. The findings reveal the need for relationally based interventions and more integrated treatment models. Furthermore, they reveal the need

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for additional qualitative studies that focus upon differentiated needs within this population. Finally, recommendations are given for changes and adjustments in current batterer treatment protocols.

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This work is dedicated to my family: Gretchen, Jane, Tom and Will For their love and support and To the subjects who shared their stories

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Alas, how terrible is wisdom when It brings no profit to the man that’s wise!

This I knew well, but had forgotten it, Else I would not have come here.

Sophocles, Oedpius the King

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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ABSTRACT....................

TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Chapter I. Introduction General Purpose of the Study Scope of the Problem Significance for the Study of Clinical Social Work The Problem to Be Studied and Specific Objectives to Be Achieved

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II. Literature Review Clinical Literature Review Sigmund Freud Anna Freud Melanie Klein D W . Winnicott The Attachment Paradigm: Bowlby, et al.

Mentalization: Fonagy, et al.

Dutton, Hearns, Twemlow, Siegel

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Domestic Violence Research Profiling: Demographics and Psychological Characteristics Typologies: Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart Donald Dutton Trauma, Lifespan, Intergenerational Transmission of Violence Contemporary Social Service Research

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TABLE OF CONTENTS - Continued

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III. Methodology...................................................................................................47 Hypotheses and Questions Assumptions Research Strategy Data Collection and Instruments Limitations of the Study

IV. Everett: Little Boy Lost in Search of Himself............................................. 59 A History of Loss, Confusion and Conflict The Search for Telemachus and Family Life The Violent Episodes and Group Experience Dysfunctional Family Splits and Breaks in Generations Links to Penny and Her Background

V. Gollum: The Orphaned T o y .......................................................................... 93 Relationships Calamities Persist in Adulthood Turning Points and Epiphany Transgressions and Boundary Violations Group Thingification and Mentalization Group Learning Mentalization

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TABLE OF CONTENTS - Continued

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VI. Failures of Mentalization............................................................................131 Bill Smith: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Transgressions Affect Dysregulation, Alcoholism and Unbearable Pain Mentalization Hank Keller: Matters of the Heart, A Darker Shade of Black Transgressions Affect Dysregulation and Turning Point Moussad Kahn: Learning to Speak Someone Else’s Language Transgressions Affect Dysregulation and Language Barriers

VII. Discernment.............................................................................................179 Chuck Rowe: Positive Manipulation Troy Wilson: Whuppings That Are Deserved Donald Quixote: The Picture of a Duck Gus Patton: Caught in a Domestic War Zone Alfredo: Stuck in No Man’s Land Oliver Santini: The Lost Child Paul Maclean: The Prey in the Venus Fly Trap of Life Diesel Jr.: Man Up!

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TABLE OF CONTENTS - Continued

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Chapter VIII. Summary of the Results....................................................................

Overview and Presentation of Findings Findings: Each Story is a Result The Impact of Loss and Cumulative Trauma Loss Thingification: The Law of the Talon Failures of Mentalization Problems of the Victim’s Mindset Problems with Affect Regulation Problems of Alexithymia and Empathy Problems of Mindblindedness Problems with Capacity to Reflect Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Defying the Stereotype Turning Points and Epiphanies Intergenerational Transmission Implications: Clinical Practice and Theory, Policy and Research Training Integrating Multiple Theories Need for More Focused Research Bridging Policy Limitations Research Coda

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...236

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Appendixes

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A. INSTITUTE FOR CLINICAL SOCIAL WORK: INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD RESEARCH PROJECT APPROVAL FORM........................................................................................................300 B. THEORETICAL AND OPERATIONAL CONCEPTS - DEFINITION OF CONCEPTS/GLOSSARY.................................................................313 REFERENCES................................................................................................................... 326

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

AA

Alcoholics Anonymous

CDC

Centers for Disease Control

CTS

Conflict Tactics Scale

DBT

Dialectical Behavior Therapy

IPDAV

Intervention Program for Domestic Abuse and Violence

MBT

Mentalization-Based Therapy

MMPI

Minnesota Multiphasic Inventory

RAM

Relationships Attributes Measure

RSQ

Relationship Style Questionnaire

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

General Purpose of the Study This study explores how domestically violent men describe and experience their relationships, and then interprets their personal stories with findings from a psychodynamically informed orientation. Through their subjective accounts of their relationships, the moments defined by them as turning points in their lives and their realizations and epiphanies are described.

Because domestically violent men have difficulty maintaining successful relationships, their stories center on their troubled intimate relationships associated with episodes of social and emotional difficulty in the experience of violence and abuse. This study strives to humanize the subjects in their experiences, confront the oversimplified stereotypes, and bring their perspectives forward.

The aim of the study is to present the authentic voice of domestically violent men.

This voice has largely been ignored and silenced, as the behavior of these men is often the focus o f critical attention and results in stigmas, stereotypes, and myths. Their issues

are generalized and domestically violent men are often stigmatized. Within the domestic violence field and, to a somewhat lesser degree in the clinical psychology field, little attention has been given to these direct accounts or the exploration of the psychological

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2 dynamics that underlie their thinking and that affect their interpersonal relationships and behaviors.

Though the pain that domestically violent men have inflicted is obvious, their wounds and emotional scars are often overlooked or diminished.

An understanding of

their relational experience confronts the oversimplified stereotypes and myths that their relational struggles are simply about power and control, that these men are cold, sadistic, and callous or profiled as primarily antisocial or psychopathic, and that they are inhumane and unbeatable.

Scope of the Problem The costs associated with the treatment of domestic violence are difficult to determine. In the publication Costs o f Intimate Partner Violence against Women in the United States, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimated domestic violence affect 1.5 million women annually. (CDC, 2003) The American Bar Association estimated that “Nearly one in three adult women experience at least one physical assault by a partner by adulthood, and 28% of annual violence against women is perpetrated by intimates.”

They further profile the problem by stating that: •

Battery tends to be a pattern, rather than a one-time occurrence.

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47% of men violent to their wives do so three times a year.

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Short-term (6-12 week) psycho-educational batterer-intervention programs help batterers stop immediate physical violence, but were inadequate in stopping abuse long-term.

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3 •

Some batterers become more sophisticated in their psychological abuse and intimidation after attending such programs.

As popular culture and the media attest, domestic violence is now a more socially visible issue than it has ever been before. It is prevalent in all sectors of society, represents a large percentage of violence crime, and is considered to be an under-reported event. Some studies estimate that only one in six domestically violent men is ever involved in treatment programs and a Department of Justice report notes that only onethird of these crimes ever get reported. Much of the research comes from victim reports and case studies o f battered women and empirical data from the criminal justice system, the medical field, and social service systems, particularly women’s shelters and victims’ rights and advocacy organizations. The research is synthesized from surveys like the National Family Violence Survey, the National Crime Survey, the National Institute for Criminal Justice, the FBI, and the CDC. The CDC’s online publication “The Costs of Intimate Partner Violence against Women” (2003) presents the incidence, prevalence, and the staggering costs associated with domestic violence. It is an issue that is costly both economically and in terms of pain, suffering and long-term psychological and social effects. The CDC concludes: With an estimated cost of $5.8 billion, and the untold, intangible costs, intimate violence against women is a substantial public health problem that must be addressed.

Significant resources for research are needed to better understand the magnitude causes and risk factors of IPV [Intimate Partner Violence], and to develop and disseminate effective primary intervention strategies. Until we reduce the incidence of IPV in the United States, we will not reduce the economic and social burden of this problem, (www.cdc.gov, 2003) It is not only the incidence of domestic violence that is alarming, but also the patterns and prevalence. Donald Dutton has studied and treated domestically violent men for the

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past 25 years. He notes that approximately 35 violence episodes occur before abuse is reported. This means that a victim could be entrenched in an abusive pattern before any action is taken, and it does not account for the hidden victims like children and the rippling effect that abuse has in families. Even more alarmingly, the U.S. Department of Justice and the American Bar Association websites estimate that more than two million women are assaulted by their intimate partners every year.

These figures are just the tip of the iceberg, however. Our understanding of the depth and scope o f these problems appears to be shallow. One must also consider the impact it has upon victims and families over time. The emotional and psychological cost to the batterer, which is significant, has not been deeply considered.

Significance for the Study of Clinical Social Work Violence, in particular domestic violence, is a pervasive problem in American society. The consequences, regardless of how they are measured, are staggering. It is only within the past 20 years that this closeted issue has been actively addressed. The social work community has not found a way to effectively address these issues or treat the batterer. Batterer intervention and treatment programs tend to respond to them in a judgmental, confrontational, and reactionary manner. Recently, such programs are being challenged on their effectiveness. Prior to the 1980s, family violence occurred in isolation and under a shroud of secrecy. Reviewing the literature from the 1960s, we can see that it is not even cited as an issue in American society.

A practical way in which this study may contribute to the field is to consider how it may inform practice—particularly intervention programs that address the emotional and

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5 relational needs o f domestically violent men. In citing a recent National Institute of Justice study, the CDC notes the need for a deeper understanding of these men and what can help them. Today’s batterer-intervention programs confront domestically violent men in an attempt to get them to “behave and stop the violence” without understanding why they behave as they do. There is a need for more effective treatment intervention. In a claim made in their publication Practice, dated September 2003, the U.S. Department of Justice states the following: New approaches based on research into the causes of battering and batterer profiles may be more productive than a one-size-fits-all approach. Researchers may also draw lessons from other disciplines, such as substance abuse interventions— for example, that length of treatment may influence the outcome. Improvements in how programs are put into practice may also be necessary, since variations in how programs are carried out may reduce their effectiveness. . . . Since batterer intervention programs are a relatively new response to a critical social problem, it is too early to abandon the concept. More work needs to be done to determine the causes of battering and test new responses.” (United States Department of Justice, 2003, p. 4, 6) The reality of domestic violence is that the suffering is immeasurable, that real relational violence is dangerous and can be lethal. These men are marginalized, stigmatized, and reduced to dehumanized objects. They are seen and described for what they do rather than as people who deserve human dignity.

The Problem to Be Studied and Specific Objectives to Be Achieved By definition, domestically violent men have trouble participating in intimate relationships. This study explores how a pool of these men describe their issues and, through their stories, use psychological concepts to elaborate upon and more deeply and dynamically understand their experiences. The study is based upon authentic subject accounts—the meaning that their social experiences and relationships have to them. It is

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6 based upon the assumption that language and behavior have manifest, latent and multiple meanings. Manifest meaning can express what may be concrete, observable and on the surface, while the latent symbolically represents inner experience and deeper, hidden meanings. Their narratives are considered for content, symbolic meaning and structure; that is, how much of an integrated and coherent story is told. “Interpretive Interactionism [provides] the point of view that confers meaning on problematic symbolic interaction.�

(Denzin, 2001, p. 32) The process-oriented research methodology used focuses on the experiences of the subjects and provides for the in depth exploration of symbolic meaning.

The objectives of this study are: 1. To more deeply understand the subjective and authentic narratives of domestically violent men regarding their relationships; 2. To understand their experiences from their perspectives and the meaning and relevance their experiences have to them; 3. To provide psychodynamic explanations to more deeply and psychologically understand and interpret their experiences; 4. To determine how their relationships have been affected by others and their experiences of loss, crises, trauma, violence, and their personal realizations and epiphanies; and 5. To confront the myths surrounding the experience of domestically violent men by addressing the stereotypes and generalizations that profile them and better understanding the deeper nature of their relational troubles.

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CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

Clinical Literature Review You have your eyes, but see not where you are in sin, nor where you live, nor who you live with.

Do you know who your parents are? Unknowing you are an enemy to kith and kin.

—Sophocles, Oepidus the King In this study, concepts drawn from classical and contemporary psychodynamic psychology are used to critically view the stories of domestically violent men. They are then used to elaborate upon and extend the thinking in the domestic violence field by identifying areas in need of further research. The concepts used to frame the study questions provide a lens through which the subjects’ stories can be analyzed and understood from both a humane and a psychological standpoint.

Analytic concepts developed by Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud, Melanie Klein, D.W. Winnicott, Peter Fonagy, and several others are considered to enhance the understanding of the unique problems that domestically violent men present. Key psychological concepts like mourning and melancholia, the mechanics of defense, attachment, and mentalization help to elaborate upon the subjects’ narratives in order to more deeply understand their psychological and relational experiences. A master theory is not developed or used; instead, this study uses psychological concepts to better understand the experiences of domestically violent men. Several strands of depth-oriented and

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8 analytic theories help to illustrate how and what the subjects think about and experience in different relationships over time.

Sigmund Freud Many of Freud’s concepts, such as overdetermination, (Freud, 1901) and repetition compulsion, (Freud, 1920) are applicable in investigating the experiences of domestically violent men. His work on mourning and melancholia (Freud, 1917) is pivotal— particularly in considering the subjects’ experience of relationships, adaptation, and loss.

Freud’s concepts help to understand one aspect of why domestic violence occurs, and that it is necessary to comprehend the underlying dynamics and symbolic meaning—the aims and motives—that the behavior represents. Freud’s principle of overdetermination dictates that we consider multiple etiologies, a developmental approach considers that the experiences and behaviors of domestically violent men change over time.

Domestic violence is associated with identifiable patterns. What, how, and perhaps why these patterns developed are fundamental questions that, if left unanswered, will be seen in repetitive patterns (the cycle of violence). It may be these patterns are actually ways of coping and adjusting to unaddressed experiences from the past and may even be transgenerational. Patterns of abusive behavior and their underlying dynamics have been studied over the past 30 years, but they have been used to profile the abuser and patterns of their abusive behavior rather than to understand them and their experiences.

Possibly the least explored of Freud’s concepts to consider in this study is loss.

Loss may refer to the loss of real objects (for example, death or divorce), loss of safety in early or any secure attachment relationship, or the loss of control (for example, feelings of helplessness). In many cases here, the loss is figurative; in all cases, it is substantial.

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9 During childhood, many domestically violent men suffered a similar experience: through neglect, malignancy, or being overwhelmed themselves, their caregivers did not respond to their significant and changing needs. The absence—or loss—of a secure attachment figure can result in confusion and intense affects like rage, terror, and resentment, feelings that swam under the surface of awareness. In many instances, the violence these men manifest results in real loss as a consequence of their behavior.

In Mourning and Melancholia, Freud (1917) makes a distinction between depression, grieving states, and mourning. To Freud, mourning is a reaction to the loss of a loved one. He distinguishes between the healthy emotion of grief and the nature of melancholia.

In describing melancholia, he states: The distinguishing mental feature of melancholia are a profoundly painful dejection, abrogation of interest in the outside world, loss of the capacity to love, inhibition of all activity, and a lowering of the self-regarding feeling to a degree that finds utterance in self-reproaches and self-revilings, and culminate in a delusion expectation of punishment. (Freud, 1917, p. 154) He goes on to note that the “temper of grief ‘painful’. . . and sadism. . . makes melancholia so interesting and so dangerous” (pp. 154, 162).

Reliable dependency is the experience of taking in and being taken in securely by another. Loss and failures provide for the unbearable affect, the intolerable loss or, to use the metaphor, the “parasitic ghost”— an absence, a haunting of or for a relationship, a person, and for experiences never understood.

Anna Freud The work of Anna Freud shows us how defenses and developmental lines can be used to understand and explore the specific problems experienced in the life histories of

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10 domestically violent men. She describes the sequence of phases, levels of functioning, lines of development, and mechanisms of defense; and she details prototypes of developmental lines and “the principles of mental functioning and their bearing on socialization” (A. Freud, 1965, p. 170). She provides a framework to consider deficits and adaptation, functions, and defense as they relate to dependency, independence, egocentricity, and interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships—lines of development.

Her “Draft of Diagnostic Profiles” (pp. 140-147) is an excellent means for shaping questions to obtain the subjects’ biographies and histories. This is important for creating an; “internal picture of the child which contains information about the structure of his personality; the dynamic interplay within the structure, some economic factor concerning drive activity and the relative strength of id and ego forces, his adaptation to reality, and some genetic assumptions.” (p. 147) In other words, the subjects describe firsthand their early life relationships, experiences, and developmental adjustments based on interview questions that consider perceptions, symbolic meaning, and connections or dynamics between past and present.

Anna Freud makes distinctions about defense: “the ego’s struggle against painful or unendurable ideas or affect” and “the enumeration of the ego’s defensive methods.”

(1916, pp. 45-46) Both the painful affect either directly addressed or alluded to and the nature of the defensive structure and response are considered. In her work The Ego and the Mechanisms o f Defense, she details ego defenses and the processes in which specific anxieties, painful affect, and motives occur. Regarding the state of the “primitive ego,” dreaded object anxieties, and the processes of internalization, she elaborates upon the defense of identification, she states:

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11 When a child consistently repeats this process of internalization and introjects the qualities of those responsible for his upbringing, making their characteristics and opinions his own, he is all the time providing material from which the super-ego may take shape. . . . The particular combination of introjection and projection to which we have applied the term ‘identification with the aggressor,’ can be regarded as normal only so long as the ego employs it in his conflict with authority, for example, the efforts to deal with anxiety-objects. It is a defensive process which ceases to be innocuous and becomes pathological when it is carried over into love life. (1946, pp.

125, 129) In expanding upon Anna Freud’s work with defense mechanisms, particularly the concept of identification with the aggressor, Joseph Scalia, in Intimate Violence: Attacks Upon Psychic Interiority, posits the significant interface between theory and practice and applies it in his study of domestically violent men. He specifically addresses disturbances in ego functions, particularly affect regulation, primitive defenses such as splitting and projection, and object relationships.

As damaged bonds, chaotic relationships, and protective experiences are explored, Scalia’s work related to the role and quality of the caregiver relationships that violent men had as children is considered. Caregivers considered include parents, grandparents, and others as applicable— some of whom were malignant, none of whom were able to help provide adequate care to the subjects through their instances of confusions, helplessness, fear, and chaos. In building upon Anna Freud’s description, Scalia postulates that identification with the aggressor may be a universal defense of all domestically violent men. He discusses specific external conditions, actual or misperceived, as defensive maneuvers against intolerable affects that originate in “original battering-pathogenic experience.” The concepts deepen the understanding of the affective and defensive experiences of identification with the aggressor and of the subjects’ interpersonal experiences with their victims and of themselves as victims. It

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12 highlights the consequences of not having caregivers who are seen as available to help one understand the world and the sense of self.

Melanie Klein Object relations theory, proposed by Melanie Klein, describes a historical shift that takes place in the development of analytic, depth-oriented psychology. Whereas classical theory emphasizes instinct and drives, Klein’s theory addresses the role of mental objects, or mental representations, as an essential aspect in understanding psychological development. Further, the Klein analyst W.R. Bion proposes a schema of the origin of thinking. He differentiates thoughts and thinking and introduces the notion of containment. He expands upon Klein’s concept of projective identification and provides a framework in which to think about capacities—to manage, tolerate, and name feelings—linking the process to the capacity to think.

Examples of mental states include needs, feelings, beliefs, desires, reasons, goals, and purpose. A mental object refers to the way one experiences physical things and important figures in one’s world. The fantasy and the experience of what is happening in the mind may be quite different from the actual behavior of the person. In Klein’s theory, the primary need for objects becomes the central motivator for the formation and maturation of growth and development.

Klein’s theory and, in particular, her concept of projective identification expands upon Anna Freud’s use of it as a defense and form of identification. Bion expands our thinking even further by discussing how feelings and thoughts are recognized, “discovered,” and realized. Now, though, the understanding of psychological theory can be used to enhance

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13 how to consider the mind and provides a background for understanding how feelings, unconscious processes and relationships can be considered.

Klein’s dynamic formulation of concepts like projective identification provides a way of psychologically understanding how domestically violent men relate their internal experiences to a social world. Their behaviors, particularly when distressed, frequently are regressive and threatening and can be characterized according to the constellation of anxieties, defenses, and the form of object relationships. Klein postulates two distinct phases of development that are applicable to this study. Her theory uses “positions” rather than “stages.” Her concepts of the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions describe clusters o f anxieties, defenses, and object relations. (Klein, 1952) She differentiates between persecutory and depressive anxieties, guilt and reparation, primitive defenses, and splitting and projective identification.

Domestically violent men are treated for their anger and aggressive issues related to power and their need to control. This study suggests that these men may have deeper problems: a profound and debilitating confusion of the outside world, and perhaps a profound sense of confusion and emotional turmoil marked by rage and terror in the internal world. Their experience of psychic turbulence, painful realities, and real danger and relational failures may be the causative factor for the difficulties they have in relating to the social world and in making sense of their experiences in it.

Domestically violent men have distinctly impoverished relationships. They appear to have both in their minds (intrapsychic) and in real experiences (interpersonal and intrapersonal) inadequate, seemingly persecutory experience of relationships. They seem to be faced with an impossible dilemma in which they experience threats and danger as

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they struggle to feel safe, secure, and empathically understood. They seem to be in search of a good object and are— all too familiarly perhaps— stopped by the loneliness and dread found in a state of familiar longing for the benevolent good object and trapped by the bad without having a caregiver to help them make sense of the chaos, confusion, or turbulence of their experiences. As a result, domestically violent men seem to try to “pound” another person into the molds of themselves that represent something of their experiences. They are persistently trying to get what they want or need from others as they force the people in their lives into providing something that was lost or possibly never quite had.

Klein’s opening statement in Mourning and Its Relation to Manic Depressive States says, “An essential part of the work of mourning is, as Freud points out in ‘Mourning and Melancholia,’ the testing of reality.” (Klein, 1940, p. 344) In listening to the stories of abusive men, their defenses maneuvers are noteworthy, but often their relationships and depictions of reality of others appear to be skewed. Understanding what is “real” and meaningful to them as well as symbolic representations found in behavioral patterns and how successful reparative acts or interventions may help us understand what does on in the minds of domestically violent men.

Men who have had troubled relationships in the past may not have a relational context to explain what they are thinking or feeling, or to test out accuracies of their experiences.

Klein elaborates upon positions as “complex feelings, phantasies, and anxieties.” (p. 369) The psychological turmoil of the paranoid-schizoid position is one of danger, primitive anxieties, defenses, and fantasies. It describes an inner world of threat, chaos, and persecution. However, it is the depressive position that may be most telling of the

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15 experiences of domestically violent men. It is here that anxieties are related more to guilt and ambivalence, that threatened or damaged objects are considered, and that the impact of sorrow and relationships are most distinct (as opposed to controlling or demanding).

Klein provides a way of imagining what has and is going on in the mind and then through the narrator, making some psychological sense of it.

D. W. Winnicott Winnicott brings a relational matrix into focus. His work is used to consider the quality of relationships, the interactive experience of real people, and the holding environment into a psychological perspective. His two-person psychology provides a detailed framework to consider relationships and emotional development. Winnicott’s article “The Use of an Object” (1969) is a major contribution towards understanding the quality and capacity for whole or part object relationships and has implications for exploring how individuals “use” or “relate” to objects. He makes a distinction between object relating and object usage. In object relating, others are seen through projective, subjective experiences; they are under primitive omnipotent and illusory control. In object usage, the perception of and interaction with others is independent, and others are seen as real and outside such infantile omnipotent control. The recognition of others as subjects (as opposed to objects) allows for non-narcissistically entrenched relationships characterized by love, empathy, and concern. The subjects in this research study present an illusory quality both in their relationships and how they think about themselves and others. The subtlety and quality of their relationships seem to focus on need (for example,

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16 “What have you done for me, or, to me?”) Understanding their capacity to consider and recognize others as others is critical to this study.

For the purposes of this study, the concepts of object usage and object relating is considered to understand the subjects’ capacities for relating (separateness, ruth/ruthlessness, and interdependence) and thinking about themselves and their relationships (illusion, disillusionment, and realization). (Winnicott, 1965) Thingification is a way o f thinking about object relations theory and the failure these men experience in their relationships. Thingification is a concept thought to have been first used by Paul Tillich in the early part of the last century. The same concept was used

by Martin Luther King, Jr., who called it “nobodiness.” (1955) It is both a process of dehumanizing and treating human beings as inanimate objects. It is a concept easily linked to the ideas presented by Melanie Klein in the paranoid-schizoid position and Winnicott in his concept of object relating.

The Attachment Paradigm: Bowlby, et al.

John Bowlby’s expansive work Attachment and Loss, Vol. 1, 2 and 3, when considered alongside the aforementioned theorists, helps to deeply and dynamically consider the issues and meaning of loss for domestically violent men. Bowlby’s positioning of the secure base has led to an expanded understanding of relationship types and how the patterns of anxieties experienced in relationships can be observed over the course of a lifetime. His work also allows us to consider the relational experiences and anxiety patterns across an individual’s developmental lifespan.

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17 Bowlby, his colleague Mary Ainsworth, and her protege Mary Main are the pioneers of attachment theory. They empirically observed children and developed instruments that defined attachment patterns in relationships and the management of anxiety among them.

Bowlby is often viewed as a controversial figure in the development of psychoanalytic theory. Within the past two decades, though, his work has become much more appreciated. He speculated that the difficulty in studying violence is related to a neglect in analytic research and training to address family violence as a causal factor due to “the concentration in analytic circles on fantasy and the reluctance to examine real-life events.” (Bowlby, 1984, p. 9) Among the many factors related to a domestically violent man’s relationship, his patterns of behavior (domination, submission, subjection, control, and power or lack of power) and his underlying anxiety (in manner and style and in the way it is managed, experienced, and expressed) are discemable. The attachment paradigm illustrates how domestically violent men organize and pattern their past and current relationships.

Bowlby links the feelings of anxiety and anger, and describes the aim of angry behavior: “to protect a relationship of very special value and indispensability and functionality of anger when expressed—in the right place at the right time and in the right degree.” (p. 11) At first glance, domestically violent men are identified as simply having problems with anger, power, and control. Upon looking more deeply and when considering Bowlby’s concept of a “secure base” (Bowlby, 1988), which is described as a base from which the child feels safe and from which their sense of security evolves, it is apparent that they’ve lacked a secure base and that their relationships are disorganized, confused, and disturbing. In understanding their attachment patterns, security becomes a critical

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18 issue and the emotional context and attachment systems are vital factors to consider.

Imagine a disorganized attachment system in which experiencing feelings of anger and anxiety are frequently activated. Imagine the confusion of not having a secure base. This linkage begins to describe how these men think and feel, and may offer some explanation about their internal working models and why they end up repeating patterns of abuse and intimidating others with abusive and controlling behaviors. Bowlby sets the stage to more deeply understand attachment patterns and the links between past and present.

Mentalization: Fonagy, et al.

The concept of mentalization “emerged in the psychoanalytic literature in the late 1960s but developed in the early 1990s” (Allen, Fonagy, 2006) and was elaborated upon

by Jon Allen, Peter Fonagy, and other associates through their work at the Menninger Clinic (Houston, Texas). They describe it as follows: The capacity to understand and interpret human behavior in terms of the primitive mental states underpinning it, arises through the experience of having been understood in the context of an attachment relationship, (p. 4) Fonagy used and applied the concept of mentalization to study attachment gone “awry.” The research provides a basis upon which a psychoanalytic consideration of trauma, abuse, and domestic violence can frame the further study of mentalization and relationships. In building on Bowlby’s attachment theory, Fonagy explains social development, relationships, early social experiences, and the capacity to conceive of mental states, and to think and be thought about by others. The term he uses is “reflective function.” He states: We assume that the capacity to mentalize is a key determinant of self-organization and that, along with the contributing capacities of affect regulation and attention

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19 control mechanisms, mentalizing capacity is acquired in the context of early attachment relationships. Disturbances of attachment relationships will therefore disrupt the normal emergence of the key social cognitive capacities and acute, profound vulnerabilities in the context of social relationships, (p. 53) The development of reflective capacities and the ability to tell a coherent story may impact relationships and how they are experienced, thought about, represented, and managed. The capacity for mentalization is a component of social functioning.

Language is the major vehicle for symbolic interaction and, when working adequately, it organizes the subject’s experience and their understanding, and then communicates the meaning of internal states/experiences of others. Jeremy Holmes, a colleague of Fonagy’s, describes the concept of alexithymia: That is, the inability to put feelings into words. Mentalization from this perspective is the antithesis . . . It encapsulates the capacity to transform drives into feelings, and to represent, symbolize, sublimate, abstract, reflect on and make meaning out of them.

Without mentalizing, repeating, acting out is inevitable, with reminiscence goes freedom, (p. 38) Most recently, attachment researchers have studied the effects of intergenerational and transgenerational transmission of violence. Peter Fonagy has been at the forefront of this research. He and his colleagues have focused upon childhood relationships with caregivers and subjects’ memories about childhood experiences related to loss, trauma, separation, and abuse. They considered narrative accounts and the links between development, attachment schemes, affect regulation, and the capacity to think about one’s own internal states and to see another’s perspective. Mentalization provides a way of understanding one’s own mental states and the feelings of others. It is a framework to consider the mind and how interpersonal behavior, emotional and social interaction, and representation of symbolic meaning are thought about. This concept may be helpful in understanding the capacity and deficit of the subjects to think, understand their

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20 experiences, consider them developmentally over time, and then how they link their past and present. In Male Perpetrators o f Violence against Women: An Attachment Theory Perspective, Peter Fonagy proposed the following: Relationship violence may be seen as an exaggerated response of a disorganized attachment system. It is related to a disorganized attachment pattern in infancy, coupled with a history of abuse and an absent male parental figure, (p. 7) This presents a valuable framework from which to explore childhood experiences that may be apparent in their adult patterns of expectations. Fonagy postulates that “it is the inadequacy of their capacity to think about aggression in relation to attachment that pushes them into violent acts in intimate relationships.” (p. 10) One aspect of Fonagy’s research attempts to explain how violent acts; a lack of safety; the failure to mentalize; and the failure to hold, feel felt, or to be held by another in the mind can result in confused, disorganized, and violent relationships. In writing about perpetrators, he claims, “they become the abusers, rather than the abused, tormenting others without corresponding self torment.” (p. 10) As normal development is disrupted and disturbed, how the experience of caregivers is perceived, either accurately or in the mind, may be a central idea to explore and understand. Fonagy, et al., note: Attachment to neglecting or abusive figures is the expectable response of the child whose experience of security arises out of the sense of being understood by a cruel and destructive caregiver, who in reality may show very little human understanding . . . development malfunctions for the abused child and unremittingly compel[s] him to seek closeness through violence or suffering. (Fonagy, 2000, p. 268) Fonagy describes the stark mental and relational world, vicious cycles, and the predicament that the abused child may encounter: The abused child evading the mental world never acquires adequate metacontrol over the representational world of internal working models. Unhelpful models of

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21 relationship patterns emerge frequently, and the internal world of the child and adult comes to be dominated by negative affect. As a direct consequence, the world of people can become stripped of meaning, and remain profoundly bewildering and forbidding for the developing child. The individual’s enhanced suspicion of human motives reinforces his or her strategy o f forgoing mentalizing, thus further distorting the normal development of a reflexive function. Caught in a vicious cycle of paranoid anxiety, and exaggerated defense maneuvers, the individual becomes inextricably entangled in an internal world dominated by dangerous evil, and above all, mindless objects. He or she has abnegated the very process that could extract him from his predicament: the capacity to reflect on mental states. (Fonagy, 2000, p. 270) Although this is a bleak description of the mental world of an abused child, it raises questions about what’s missing for adults who were abused as children. The concept of mentalization is closely linked to the adult attachment classifications. These psychological constructs provide a framework to consider thinking, feeling, patterns of relationships, and styles of managing anxiety and defenses.

Mentalization is a reflective capacity to understand oneself and others. Mentalizing is a process of thinking about affect and meaning. It considers ideas that shape interpersonal behavior and the understanding of oneself and others, and it is central to communication. It requires empathy for oneself and others. A good mentalizer is aware of himself and others existing interactively and emotionally. It is a process that requires remembering rather than repeating and reaction.

Breakdowns in mentalization occur through concrete understanding, distortions, excessive projections, and what Jon Allen describes as “mindblindness.” (Allen, Fonagy, 2006, p. 11) It can also be described as the “antithesis of mentalizing.” Failure can be identified in areas o f affect regulation, breakdowns of empathy, or identifying or managing distress, or whenever one dehumanizes, demonizes, dismisses, or diminishes others. Mentalization takes into account and regards self and others as separate and human and in an interactive matrix. Through mentalization an exploration of how

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22 misunderstanding and being misunderstood can generate confusion and intense affect, hostility, isolation, and other forms of acting-out behavior.

Fonagy underscores the need for a secure attachment. He claims that when considering the development of affect regulation, a child needs to “experience a mind that has his mind in mind.” (Fonagy, 2006) He highlights the confluence of vulnerability factors: fragile “affective regulatory” processes and a history of hostile and violent attachments embedded in what seems like perpetual and inescapable trauma. Fonagy discusses how a disorganized attachment and this theory of mind affects trustworthiness, affective experience of self and others, cognition and judgment. Inadequate or distorted mentalization results in more basic psychological processes— labeled as psychic equivalence, pretend modes, and teleological stance—that he links to development. The theory provides a framework to consider ways of understanding and characterizing selfharm and harm to others.

The focus on mentalization and secure attachment proposes that: A theory of mind . . . underpins reflective self functions. Even a single experience of a secure/understanding relationship may be sufficient for the development of reflective processes . . . Limited mentalizing capacity may be seen as the cause as well as the consequence of traumatic experience. Lack of mentalizing capacity makes the young child developmentally vulnerable to mentally precocious or cruel treatment, as he or she is unable to create the distance between physical and mental experience that full appreciation of the appearance/reality distinction provides. .. . Thoughts and feelings are experienced as real, not merely as representations. (Fonagy, 2000, pp. 269-270)

There are a number of profound consequences and implications that can be drawn when considering a disorganized attachment pattern, the lack of a secure relationship in which there is the opportunity to make sense of the world and have the authentic and genuine sense of a secure and understanding relationship, of being held and “feeling felt.”

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23 These concepts, the theory and application of mentalization, may begin to clarify how these subjects struggle in their relationships, and in their minds.

Dutton, Hearns, Twemlow, Siegel The application of psychoanalytic concepts to “real life” trouble is becoming more commonplace in social science research.

Donald Dutton is a prominent figure in the domestic violence research field, and his work will be further discussed in the next section of this literature review. His published works include The Batterer (1995, 1998) and The Abusive Personality (2003). In these books, he psychologically profiles domestically violent men and provides descriptions of their psychological and personality traits and their behavioral patterns. His research bridged a gap between the psychodynamic and domestic violence fields. It is empirically based, as he postulates a “fearful-angry” attachment style as an essential characteristic of an abusive personality. In Treating Assaultive Men from an Attachment Perspective (2003), co-authored with Daniel Sonkin, he explores connections between the past and current relationships of domestically violent men using the attachment paradigm. While focused on early caregiver relationships, representational models of self and others and the significance of unresolved loss and trauma, he states the following: In many cases, domestic violence perpetrators present with unresolved trauma, loss and other emotionally laden relationships that must be worked through cognitively, emotionally and physically. Victims of physical, sexual and psychological maltreatment will experience a range of emotional reactions to their explorative process from depression to rage. The therapist must be able to work in these painful minefields . . . to address unresolved trauma . . . violent acting-out behavior patterns . . . attachment related anxiety. (Dr. Sonkin’s website, pp. 16-17)

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24 Dutton and Sonkin make a strong case for understanding men who are domestically violent via their attachment schema. They highlight the need to use psychodynamic frameworks to understand the unique patterns, dilemmas, and characteristics of domestically violent men and their struggles with and within relationships.

In The Violences o f Men (1998) Jeff Hearn uses a critical analysis approach to explore a variety of angles to consider the character, context, and meaning of male violence towards females. He provides a comprehensive overview that contextualizes violence, key issues, and the need to understand and address the phenomenon. Hearn addresses attachment patterns, styles of relating, and underlying dynamics as he contextualizes and analyzes the issues related to men and domestic violence. In conclusion, the study states: Domestic violence is a complex area. Despite the relatively small numbers in this study, it does support the view that there are many factors connected to the aetiology of violence. As we come to understand more about what meanings men give to their violence towards women, it is clear that although domination and control are always inevitable outcomes of violence, the path to achieving these outcomes varies from relationship to relationship, and man to man. Our study points to the need to engage men around their perceived control and/or their perceived lack of control; to challenge denials of violence and deflections of responsibility within the context of the style of violence and the man’s positioning of himself in relation to his partner. The fact that so many of the men described their violence in the context of a pursuer/distancer pattern also supports interventions that assist men to address attachment issues in intimate relationships. It is interesting to note that in the companion quantitative study of 120 men (from where this sample for the qualitative study was drawn) anxiety about attachment was the main predicator o f violence. (James, Seddon and Brown, 2002, p. 19) Heam’s work significantly influenced the research project in the Australian Domestic Violence Clearinghouse, (2002) which furthered the study of the links between several issues, specifically family of origin experience and intergenerational patterns.

The findings o f this study resulted in the conclusion that “anxiety about attachment was

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25 the main predicator of violence.� (James, Seddon and Brown, 2002, p. 19) It highlights the necessity to understand the quality of relationships, the underlying patterns of attachment styles, and the significance of the need to better understand the dynamic experiences of this population.

A further example of the application of psychoanalytic concepts used to understand institutional violence is found in the work of Stuart Twemlow. He proposes an innovative approach to studying violence by integrating several analytic and dynamically created psychological models. In The Roots o f Violence: Converging Psychoanalytic Explanatory Models fo r Power Struggles in Schools (2002), Twemlow combines four conceptual models: object relations theory, particularly Klein and Bion, together with ideas from Adler, Stoller, and a psychoanalytic social systems approach to understand school violence.

Twemlow is a colleague of Peter Fonagy, and has used the construct of mentalization and the use of power dynamics to understand relational problems and solutions. (Allen, Fonagy, 2006) He makes a strong case about how mentalization coupled with an understanding of power dynamics can interrupt coercive patterns of violence and abuse.

He uses a social system orientation that can have dramatic implications for individuals, families, institutions, and communities. He provides a role-analysis framework that addresses the roles of bully, victim, and bystander. With the realization that, ultimately, the use of coercive power leads to deadly violence, Twemlow models and extends the concept of mentalization and adds another dimension. He underscores the need to more deeply understand the nature of power dynamics; together with psychodynamic theory, Twemlow enhances the understanding of the complex social problem of violence. He

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26 underscores the need for the integration of multi-theoretical and disciplinary perspectives towards violence and abuse.

To some degree, domestically violent men are bullies. The problems of abuse are generalized to a focus on power and control. Bullies usually have a victim mindset.

Their histories may demonstrate that they were also victims or targets, bullied in their early development, or witnesses of abuse and violence. There are likely to be many pathways towards becoming violent and some form of loss, trauma, or tragedy underlies each story told in this study. Twemlow underscores the need and value of using an analytic orientation to understand the complexity of violence of Columbine High School: This tragedy highlights the primitive defense mechanisms and self- and objectrelationships that can evolve and develop in a situation where all participants, including bystanders, are caught up in unconscious primitive regressive defenses, allowing serious victimization which in turn leads to lethal violence. An understanding of these primitive mechanisms is useful to explain the behavior not only of the killers, but also of the bullies— as well as that of the bystanding community and staff (including the school principal), most of whom seemed stunned at their own lack of foresight. (Twemlow, 2000, p. 22) This study has focus upon psychodynamic concepts but neuroscience and the study of the brain and attachment are expanding these concepts even further. The work of David Siegel postulates a theory that integrates neuroscience, attachment theory, and the use of narrative in this theory of “interpersonal neurobiology.” His work is somewhat complementary to Fonagy’s concept of mentalization. He also builds upon the attachment paradigm and the notion of a “coherent narrative.” He states: If adults could create a reflective, coherent, and emotionally-rich narrative about their own childhoods, they were likely to form a good, secure relationship with their children - no matter how “insecurely attached” they themselves had been as children or how inadequate or even abusive their own parents were. It wasn’t what happened to them as children, but how they came to make sense of what happened to them that predicted their emotional integration as adults and what kind of parents they’d be . ..

If you can make sense of your story, you can change it. (Wylie, 2004, p. 34)

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27

Siegel weaves neuroscience with interpersonal psychology to illustrate how trauma, loss, and relationships come together through the use of the narrative and through the brain’s circuitry.

Domestic Violence Research It has only been within the past 35 years that family violence has emerged as a significant social issue for research and study. The field of domestic violence research, which is generally positivistic and empirically based, provides a descriptive view of the men who abuse their partners and the complexities of the issue. Domestically violent men have been demographically and psychologically profiled. What we have learned about these men from the field is helpful and necessary, but it has not proved sufficient in allowing us to dynamically understand them or their experiences.

It was only in the 1960s that articles about family violence began to emerge in the social science literature in America. The conclusions that were drawn, such as “violence does appear to breed violence,” (Silver, et al., 1969) seemed rather obvious. Interestingly, these conclusions are still widely accepted today, even though “prior to the seventies, there were few articles that address[ed] family violence, and to survey the field, one would think that it did not exist as a social problem.” (Gelles, 1974) Two large-scale national surveys were conducted on “Physical Violence in American Families,” (Strauss, 1989) the first in 1975 and the second in 1985. Together, these surveyed 8,145 families for an empirically based research study, which had been one of the broadest, most widely cited, and comprehensive studies performed to date. Many of the studies that evolved from this one cited influential risk factors and family adaptation.

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28 These studies have been the basis for a plethora of data that highlights the complexities of the social causes of family violence. They broke new ground by expanding the field from the study of victims’ accounts to include data from aggressors. It is noteworthy that onehalf of the research subjects in these studies were men.

In an attempt to gain an understanding of who domestically violent men are and why they abuse, researchers in the social science field have extensively categorized them.

Shelters and victims’ advocacy organizations have developed lists of both facts and myths in an attempt to understand these men. Abusive men as a group have been studied from many angles. The findings indicate that domestic violence crosses all demographic characteristics and categories as related to age, race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, and socioeconomic status. Profiles of domestically violent men have been developed according to demographics, variables, characteristics, patterns of behavior, generalized attitudes, and underlying beliefs and values. Feminist theory, family systems theory, social learning theory, and many others have described and offered frameworks for understanding this riveting and unrelenting social problem.

Although categorizing domestically violent men has been helpful and necessary, it is not sufficient. An unfortunate result of this work is the development of stereotypes that criminalize, stigmatize, vilify, and pathologize these men. Additionally, categorization has resulted in treatment methods that take a cookie cutter, one-size-fits-all approach. No doubt, this research has provided useful information about abuse, but it needs to be integrated with other fields and further extended.

Initially it was the women’s movement in the United States that brought the issue of domestic violence into public awareness in the 1970s. Power, control, and male privilege

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29 became the underlying organizational concepts that influenced this field and are at the roots of its evolution. The most common rationale that addressed why men are domestically violent was often the over-simplified response of “because they can be.”

In the early stage of research in the domestic violence field the subjects who provided accounts were primarily women in shelters. Other sources came from criminal justice systems and social service and advocacy agencies. The research was empirically based and the accounts were characterized from experience-distanced perspectives.

Consequently, it provided profiles and an understanding of behavioral patterns.

The most frequently cited source from this time is Dr. Lenore Walker’s seminal and pioneering research in The Battered Woman. (1979) Walker built upon the issues of power and control and the battered woman syndrome. She identified behavioral patterns, relational dynamics, and the cyclical process of battering. Her work became a fundamental document that is still used to profile the relational patterns and dynamics of domestically violent men.

Profiling: Demographics and Psychological Characteristics In the 1980s, research regarding domestically violent men shifted to focus on psychological profiling and classification. Studies began to consider stress, alcohol abuse, and personality factors when categorizing these men according to psychological and social factors. Some of the research during this time cautioned against a mental health orientation towards defining these men and their psychological dilemmas, claiming that mental/emotional illness would be used to “excuse” their behavior. The results of these studies led to categorizing domestically violent men psychologically, profiling them

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30 according to clusters o f personality disorders. Nonetheless, Tolman and Bennett (1990) were unable to draw detailed conclusions, so they highlighted the issues and the questions that needed further study. Theirs had been one of the most comprehensive studies of the quantitative factors o f domestic violence. Their article “A Review of the Quantitative Research on Men Who Batter” highlighted the dilemmas in treating abusive men.

As research in the field evolved, it was far from definitive. However, it has clarified characteristics and established profiles that classified batterers according to demographics, factors, and psychological profiles. Such classifications proved that domestic violence is a prevalent problem affecting all sectors of society and that it represents a large percentage of violent crime. These classifications further verified that socioeconomic status factors influence how a perpetrator is dealt with, which consequently led to the development of a stereotypical image of domestically violent men.

Today, the field continues to search for and sort through the complexities of these issues as the psychological profiling of abusive men continues to evolve. As with Gelles before them, Murray and Strauss, in Violence behind Closed Doors, claim that domestic violence cuts across demographic variables and that patterns and characteristics like stress can be viewed as contributing factors. These researchers cast a broad net in an attempt to understand the influential and causal factors of domestic violence. Factors like violence experienced and witnessed in childhood (high contributing factors) and alcohol and substance abuse (estimates range from 25-80% as significant contributing factors), and stress (Tolman, 1989) were considered. Noteworthy insights drawn from these studies include the idea that all domestically violent men have common behavioral problems—violence, abuse, and aggressive behaviors in their intimate relationships— and

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31 that the motive of these behaviors leads to isolation and alienation in their intimate relationships. It is to be expected that domestic violence takes different shapes and forms, as it is idiomatic and based on an individual’s risk factors, personality, and life experiences. Holtzworth, et al. used the metaphor of a cancer: abuse is the common underlying pathology and those affected deal with tremendously different features (symptoms) of the disease. And, like cancer, when left untreated domestic violence can be deadly.

Abuser profiles, behavioral patterns, and the identification of contributing and influential factors dramatically underscore the need to understand the idiosyncratic nature of the singular individual’s experience, as well as the complexities of his history and relational experiences. Consistently, conclusions drawn about domestically violent men appear to be reduced to one-dimensional phenomena. The attitudes, values, and beliefs (for example, superiority to women, a right to dominate, male supremacy, rigid sex roles, power and male privilege, issues of entitlement, and the use of violence to justify control) are problematic in that they are too narrowly focused and became the basis upon which treatment and intervention programs were designed and developed. Furthermore, the aims of these programs were to make abusive men accountable for their actions, challenge their attitudes, and change their behavior. The persistent focus upon attitudes and beliefs was theoretically linked to social learning, socialization, and family systems theories.

The most frequently referenced and significantly recognized research in the treatment o f domestically violent men is that of Pence and Paymar, referred to as the Duluth Model.

(1986) The Duluth Model addresses and highlights poor communication skills, high

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32 stress levels, and issues of power and control. Programs modeled after the Duluth Model expanded the focus beyond an anger management approach, and became the underpinning o f many abuser treatment programs. Today, these intervention programs provide an opportunity to address both the surface behaviors and some of the dynamic elements of violent relationships, like power and control. However, they stop short of addressing the depth of the underlying developmental and psychological problems of abusive men.

The extensive research that grew out of the 1980s and into the 1990s resulted in the construction of typologies that differentiated abusers according to personality and psychological factors. One example is the work of Caesar. (1986) He identified three types through the use of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. This work yielded a characterization with associated psychological features that differentiated a profile of three types: the tyrant, the emotional rescuer, and the non-exposed altruist.

Another example is that of Gondolf. (1998) He used a cluster analysis to label and identify the typologies as the sociopathic batterer, the anti-social batterer, the general violent batterer, and the emotionally volatile batterer. These studies provided valuable and useful information that went beyond a sociological profile. They provided a foundation for fully considering the complexities as seen in the behaviors of domestically violent men. They provide for a psychological profile of them.

Typologies: Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart One of the more comprehensive descriptive studies that considered the severity, generality, and psychopathology of violence is that of Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart.

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33 (1994) They proposed a batterer typology consisting of three subtypes: a) family only, b) dysphoric/borderline, and, c) generally violent/antisocial. They presented a developmental model of marital violence and considered the previous literature to determine how each subtype differed. To date this is the most comprehensive study and it continues to be frequently cited. Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart identified three subgroups of batterers and considered the following variables: •

genetic influences

•

childhood experiences of witnessing parental violence

•

childhood experiences of being the victim of abuse or rejection from a parent

•

peer influence

•

attachment-dependency issues

•

impulsivity

•

marital social skills

•

non-marital social skills

•

hostile attitudes towards women

•

attitudes supporting violence.

They also provided an extensive table that summarized previous abuser typologies and cited each of these variables according to the severity, generality, and psychopathology of the violence. This empirically based, descriptive research contributed a refined understanding of the categories and subtypes of batterers.

Moreover, Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart detailed a developmental model in an effort to integrate previous theories and fill in the gaps where they found missing information, thereby addressing the aforementioned factors.

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One of the many significant contributions of their study is that it brought intrapsychic factors (for example, attachment, impulsivity, emotional reactivity) into focus. They hypothesized percentages of batterers who fall into each of these subtypes in an attempt to distinguish and give the unique set of causal factors. To do this, they considered and built upon prior research studies and prevailing theories. They addressed the individuals and their intrapsychic experiences and how physical aggression relates to social learning and family life experience, and examined the pathways through which children growing up in violent homes would be at risk for aggression. The role of attachment, affective experience, emotional experiences like jealousy and dependency, impulse control, and attitudes that focus upon women using an attitudinal or cognitive/behavioral model were also considered. Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart concluded that none of the existing theories of domestic violence provided an adequate hypothesis that addressed the etiology of domestic violence or the various subtypes of abusers. In essence, their study plotted the empirical research that had been completed in the past and framed the issues for future consideration.

As noted, Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart highlighted the need to understand more about the dynamic experiences of abusive men. Included in this is the need to understand how they relate to others, the quality of attachment that these men have, their dependency needs, impulsivity, capacity to manage affect, capacity for empathy, social skills, attitudes towards women, and their attitudes towards violence. In citing Bowlby (1988) on attachment patterns and attitudes towards adult relationships, they concluded, “men who are ambivalently attached to and preoccupied with their wives (experience

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35 pathological levels of dependency, jealousy and fear of rejection) are at risk to engage in marital violence when threatened with the loss of their relationships.” (1994, p. 488) Prior to the 1980s, researchers in the domestic violence field did not directly examine attachment, consider empathy, or apply a developmental model to understanding these men. Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart’s study provided a psychological profile of abusive men as they considered social skills, relationships, and attachment. In their final analysis, they concluded that all abusive men have social skills deficits, that their hostile or adversarial “attitudes towards women may be learned in the home or from peers and society . . . and that these attitudes towards remorse and blame are significant [for] . . . understanding the different subtypes.” (p. 490) Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart’s work became pivotal as further empirical research evolved. Hamberger, et al. (1996) studied their model of typologies and, significantly, confirmed that these typologies were empirically valid. Hamberger and Hastings’ earlier works (1985, 1986) analyzed personality factors and used personality inventories of such scales as the Milan Clinical Multi-Axial Inventory and Minnesota Multiphasic Inventory (MMPI) to study abusive men. Their work, and the work of others, began to tease out individual differences in personality and psychopathology. The field developed a sophisticated profile of domestically violent men as it conducted research on anger and hostility, low self-esteem, jealousy and emotional dependencies, depression, and abnormal personality traits.

Although the research reinforced the emphasis on power traits in abusers, it also explored depression as a strong abuser trait and more deeply considered the abusers’ underlying character and psychological issues. Hamberger and his associates studied

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36 “court ordered batterers” with an emphasis upon psychological factors that included personality disorders and psychopathology. Researchers identified Borderline Personality, Antisocial Personality, and Narcissistic Personality as disorders associated with domestically violent men. Abusers identified as having Antisocial Personality Disorder have a tendency to be withdrawn, asocial, and hypersensitive, and to have interpersonal interactions that can be volatile and impulsive with angry outbursts.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder is associated with grandiosity, entitlement, and the expectations of others to cater to their needs. Finally, Borderline Personality Disorder is marked by low self-esteem and intense relationship and dependency needs. The identification of their disorders provided a basis for differentiating a profile of disorders that can be applied to understanding abusive men and constructing personality profiles.

However, besides overgeneralization, the drawback in profiling them according to psychiatric issues and with prescribed diagnoses described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual has fueled stereotypes and the stigma of pathologizing these men.

In addition to personality disorders, alcohol use and abuse has been extensively studied as a significant and influential factor when considering domestically violent men.

As noted earlier, in a wide range of studies, there is a significant discrepancy reported in alcohol abuse as a contributing factor, ranging from 20% to more than 80%. (Barnett, 1980) However, it is important to note that “abusive individuals are abusive whether sober or drunk.” (Barnett, p. 13) Although the findings are inconclusive, the research indicates that alcohol and/or substance abuse are frequently involved in abusive events.

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37 Donald Dutton

Over the past 20 years, Donald Dutton has attempted to weave a connection between the fields of domestic violence research and mental health. Specifically, Dutton, et al.

(1993) studied the personality-disordered organization among abusive men. He emphasized that Borderline Personality Disorder organization and fear-anger attachments are significantly and highly correlated with physical and psychological abuse. He also studied the effects of trauma (Dutton, 1995) and speculated about the effect of witnessing family violence, the impact of early parental rejection, shaming, abuse, and relating experiences (memories) to the significant subsequent effects of residual Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Dutton identified the symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder as a “byproduct of the ‘abusive personality.’” (Dutton, 1998, p. 148) First, he studied the specific variables relevant when considering the presence of a personality disorder, psychopathology, and domestic violence. Next, he examined and concluded that the history of receiving or of witnessing abuse in childhood is a common characteristic of domestically violent men, thereby confirming much of the investigation of the variables in the Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart research.

In discussing the structure of the abusive personality, he frames a way of understanding affect and psychological dynamics that may trigger fear o f abandonment, rage, and violence. Dutton’s research is empirically based, relies on measures such as the Borderline Personality Organization Scale, and employs what he calls a “diffusion subscale” that measures identity, “a poorly integrated sense of se lf. . . reflected in a subject experience of chronic emptiness or in contradictory perceptions of the self,

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38 contradictory behavior that cannot be integrated in an emotionally meaningful way.”

(Dutton, 1998, p. 73) In summary, Dutton’s research provides a way to dynamically consider the intrapsychic experiences of abusers as he considers dynamic concepts like projective identification in the abuse cycle and addresses psychological factors like primitive defenses. With great effect, he examines the question of why these men become angry and abusive in intimate relationships, and answers this in part by speculating about what intimacy means to them. Without question, the issue of intimacy—emotional communication, closeness, connection, and empathy—are pivotal areas to explore in an attempt to understand abusive men. Dutton’s work is an attempt to bridge gaps between the domestic violence and mental health fields.

For the purposes of this study, Dutton’s work is used to help frame questions to explore the affective and relational experience of domestically violent men. How do they describe and express their feelings of shame, fear, and guilt? Dutton describes “the primitive origins of rage” and explores its etiology as it relates to splitting, development, loss, and attachment. He references the contributions of Klein and Mahler and underscores the influence of Bowlby’s and Ainsworth’s work on attachment. He employs a variety of scales—Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS), the Psychological Maltreatment of Women Inventory (PMVI), the Relationships Attributes Measure (RAM), and the Relationship Style Questionnaire (RSQ)—to empirically assess and profile domestically violent men. Revealingly, he profiles “fearfully attached men,” noting that “Their cognitive style . . . stems from attachment and the emotional consequences of attachment.” (Dutton, 1998, p. 138) Dutton also provides a more direct and purposeful

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39 application of psychodynamic concepts that deepen the understanding of these men and emphasize the need to even more clearly consider what happened to them psychologically and in their relationships.

Dutton continued his work on attachment and in Treating Abusive Men from an Attachment Theory Perspective, suggested that attachment theory is a useful paradigm for understanding intimate partner violence. Dutton claims that “maladaptive violence is the distorted and exaggerated version of potentially functional behavior” (Dutton, 2001, p.

121) and that underlying personality factors provide the emotional templates for relationships that are developed through original attachment experiences.

Dutton’s work links the psychological profiles of abusive men to a triad of early factors; for example, witnessing abuse, being shamed by a parent, and having an insecure attachment through unpredictable parental emotional availability. Dutton’s research links childhood experiences to adult sequels and provides a framework to consider the developmental factors found in the history of domestically violent men. His work is a step towards understanding the development of abuse from developmental and psychodynamic perspectives.

Dutton’s work was influential in that it underscored the need to consider and integrate psychological dynamics into treatment approaches and to build upon models, like the Duluth Model, that focus upon power and control when working with domestically violent men. Further signs of the continued progress in the field are seen in the application of works like that of Marsha Linehan and her Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) approach, as well as with the integration of techniques from cognitive behavioral and social and communication skills. These models of intervention techniques

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40 and strategies have proved useful in addressing the problems that abusive men present, and helping them to develop skills in areas like affect regulation and expression, communication and conflict management skills. These skills are valuable aspects of current abuser treatment group models, but do not seem to be enough.

Trauma, Lifespan, and Intergenerational Transmission o f Violence Family Violence Across the Lifespan (Barnett, et al., 1997) provides a comprehensive overview o f the complexities and the multifaceted nature of family violence. In this work, multiple risk factors are considered and multifaceted models are presented. In drawing the conclusion that “no individual factors or universal model can fully explain family violence� (p. 233), Barnett identifies the need to understand the individual risk factors and the interaction of complex behavioral patterns involving multiple developmental levels, the individual at various chronological ages, family and society, that interact with one another to contribute to violence, (p. 283) He highlights the need to explore and investigate developmental experience and raises questions about development, attachment, caregiver relationships, experiences of crisis, and family experiences.

James Garbarino studied trauma and considered psychological maltreatment to significantly impact the self-esteem, social relationships, intimacy, and the capacity to experience healthy and positive relationships. In Lost Boys (Garbarino, 1999), he provides a context to further the understanding of youth and violence. Early life experiences and the anguish of living in a family where abuse is a central factor and core consideration may be understood as having perpetuated into an intergenerational pattern.

(Stith, et al., 2000)

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41 Lenore Terr, in Too Scared to Cry, offers insight into the effects of trauma upon adjustment and cognition. She identifies four characteristics related to childhood trauma that appear to have long-lasting effects across the lifespan, regardless of the treatment diagnosis. These characteristics are visualized or otherwise repeatedly perceived memories of a traumatic event, repetitive behaviors, trauma, specific fears, and changes attitudes about people, life, and the future. Terr further analyzes how psychic shock interferes with bereavement and how, as time goes on, a process of psychological aftereffects of shock and grief interferes with the process of mourning— and seemingly development, too. Terr’s work is relevant to understanding the experience and subsequent problems o f domestically violent men and their issues with loss.

Understanding trauma and the impact of it is a significant area to explore. Recent studies estimate that more than 70% of batterers have either experienced or witnessed violent behavior during childhood in their families of origin. In “Intergenerational Transmission of Spouse Abuse: A Meta-Analysis,” Stith, et al. (2000) observed that “to understand the relationships between intergenerational violence and violence in adult relationships more clearly, we need to start looking at the age-dependent cognitive processes that mediate this experience.” (O’Brien and Chin, 1998, in Stith, et al., 2000, p.

650) Age-dependent cognitive processes support the work done to date on mentalization, the experience of trauma, and the implications for understanding attachment styles.

Ehrensaft, et al. (2003) suggested that, Childhood behavioral problems are among the most robust predictors of partner violence. . . the effects of child abuse, and the exposure to violence between parents and power assertive punishment during childhood significantly increase the risk for using violent conflict resolution within intimate relationships. (Ehrensaft, et al., 2003, p. 751)

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42

Contemporary Social Science Research A recent shift in the field introduces the need to understand the firsthand accounts of the subjects’ experiences. Such a shift that studies their understandings and firsthand explanations brings an experience-near account of personal troubles and real-life problems. One noteworthy example is found in the work of Lonnie Athens (1992, 1997) and his developmental theory of violentization. His research is a narrative-driven approach that deconstructs violence using an interpretive process. By speaking directly with dangerous, violent inmates, he detailed violence as a progressive, patterned, developmental, stage-oriented process. He further distinguished the process an individual must go through to become a dangerously violent criminal. He went into prisons to talk to men, and then used their direct words to illustrate their experiences. His study provides a groundbreaking framework that can expand upon the underlying differentiation and evaluation of violence.

Similar to Athens’ narrative-driven research is Jeff Hearns’ work in The Violences o f Men. He studied men’s perceptions and descriptions of violence and provided explanatory accounts of psychological, emotional, and societal violence. He made the point that “violence . . . is set within a web of personal, practical, working, and biographical features.” (1998, p. 7) He claimed that violence always involves dismissing the other. According to Hearn, in order to stop men’s violence, it is necessary to understand how men talk about it, that their talk is “not merely descriptive, it creates social reality.” (p. 212) Appropriately then, Hearn focused on violence and the use of a narrative in a critical analysis approach. He defined violence as both “interpersonal and

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43 structural� and explored the social connections among the references to theories about violence.

Interpretive Interactionism (Denzin, 1989) is the qualitative methodological approach anchoring this study. It is a method designed as a form of critical qualitative research that studies real-life experiences, feelings, and thoughts by considering their descriptive accounts. Interpretive Interactionism is used to capture the native experiences of the subjects from their firsthand accounts, through a process that yields thick descriptions. These descriptions provide a basis for thick interpretations through the use of a case study approach and questions informed by research in the domestic violence and psychology fields.

Interpretive Interactionism places the autobiography, the voice of the subject, as central to understanding the relevance and meaning of a life experience. It is a processoriented approach. The subject and researcher are collaborators in an interactive process of inquiry. A key to learning from the men in this study is to ask carefully crafted questions drawn from the field of domestic violence studies and the 25 years of experience I have in treating abusive men. The literature review has provided numerous theories that postulate who these men are and why they abuse. Much of the domestic violence research has positivistic origins, is empirically based, and identifies trends and character or personality problems. These theories, when considered in conjunction with psychodynamic theories, focus upon what is already known about these men and then allow for learning from them and their experience.

Autobiographical accounts can be used effectively to capture complex, deeply layered social problems as well as emotional nuances and the personal meaning of human

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44 experiences. Kenneth Plummer conducted narrative-driven qualitative research that demonstrates this approach in his details of sexuality, rape, recovery and coming out stories. (1995) His work is a major contribution to understanding how the feelings and experiences references in his subjects’ use of stories of deep pain, frustration, and anguish are linked to sexuality and intimacy.

Denzin studied the narrative, biographical stories of alcoholics (1987) and physically abused women. (1984) In doing so, he located his subjects; saw the world as they did.

He used open-ended questions that were continually refined and was able to uncover a deeper and more substantive understanding of troubled life experience. Interpretive Interactionism is a processional model. It provides an opportunity to engage the subject and to listen for meaning in a dual manner. This requires listening for the content, the concrete meaning of what is literally said on a surface level as the content is provided, while also listening on a deeper level for affective and symbolic relevance. According to Denzin, the purpose of the research, is to build tone, authentic understanding of the phenomena under investigation. This is why think interpretation is so critical to interpretative studies. It creates verisimilitude, thereby allowing the reader to enter into the emotional experience of the person being studied. (2001, p. 140) Denzin’s approach allows the researcher to see and participate in understanding the world as seen by the subject. To get as big and complete a picture as possible, and to build upon the rich meaning of the subjects’ experiences, the concept of triangulation is used as part of the methodology. Triangulation (Denzin, 1970) captures other aspects of the same phenomena from complementary perspectives. This concept is used in conjunction with the structure of a “hermeneutic circle, a hermeneutic situation”

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45 (Heidegger, Denzin), which brings the researcher into the process to create a collaborative “circle o f interpretation” with the subjects.

The qualitative methodology of Interpretive Interactionism is based upon the Chicago School of Sociology (Mead) and, in particular, that of symbolic interactionism.

(Blumer, 1969) Blumer describes a distinct approach to the study of human group life and behavior in which the meanings things have to an individual is central. This point of view is based on the idea that people act on the basis of personal meaning derived from social interactions and an interpretive process. This methodological design is an approach that considers language and gestures as forms of communication that are layered and meaningful and that symbolically mediate experience.

Lonnie Athens is a social scientist who applied symbolic interactionism as he interpreted current themes, patterns, and the process that makes someone a violent criminal. He determined that violent criminals go through a developmental process of “violentization” that is relationally based, as well as through a process of interpretation wherein current relationships are based upon past experiences. His theory of violentization describes how one individual may become a violent hardened criminal while another may not. His research changed the contemporary way of understanding violence. A parallel approach is used in this study to enhance and improve upon the understanding of domestically violent men.

A recent study by Jeff Hearn exemplifies the use of a critical analysis approach. He provides an explanatory account that addresses the complexity of factors that contribute to this social problem. His work provides a vast and comprehensive critical assessment of violence. He underscored how much theory has been developed without attending to

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46 the direct experience of the perpetrator and he raised questions about the place of violence in relationships, particularly in social relationships. With this approach, he laid the groundwork to further consider abusive men’s subjective voices about their violence.

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47

CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

This study presents direct accounts from domestically violent men about relationships throughout their lives. Their accounts are contextualized and used to understand their views of their interpersonal and intrapersonal experiences with a particular emphasis upon turning points, losses, crises, realizations, and epiphanies. The analysis focuses upon each particular subject’s story and his attachment and object relationships. No grand answers are sought; rather the aim is to present the subjects’ experiences and elaborate upon the complexities encountered in understanding and treating batterers.

Interpretive Interactionism is a process-oriented methodology that seeks to capture the symbolic representation of a subject’s inner world in the context of his worldview understanding. It is a methodology that is somewhat natural to clinical social workers in that it utilizes the case study by emphasizing the process and the relationship with the subject. It is an experience-near approach that puts the subjects at the center of the study and captures authentic meaning and allows for relevant understanding of their real-life, personal troubles. Interpretive Interactionism joins the subjects and the researcher as collaborators in the hermeneutic process of inquiry and investigation. The interview questions are based upon existing research and knowledge in the domestic violence and psychodynamic fields of study. Empirically based research in the domestic violence field

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48 has profiled the demographic and psychological characteristics of batterers.

Psychodynamic theories provide an explanatory framework: a theory of mind, development, personality, pathology, and cure. These substantive bodies of knowledge are used to frame the interview questions.

The design of the study is process oriented. It builds upon the notion of the hermeneutic circle (Denzin, 2001) and places the subjects and researcher at the center of the interactive process. Interviews start with open-ended questions and where they choose to begin. Questions are asked that draw from the research field and what is known about domestically violent men as well as from the data and their narratives. This study is further organized around the concept of triangulation (Denzin, 1970) as a methodological technique that positions the researcher as part of the process to both seek and understand the meaning that the stories have when contextualized and studied from multiple perspectives. Anchoring the core of the study are deep descriptions of the subjects’ experiences. Each subject’s story is explored and studied through a process that focuses upon how they describe and understand their relationships. Denzin, in his study on Interpretive Interactionism, contextualizes the methodology and its significance for understanding symbolic meaning both about the act as well as a process of interpretation.

A violent act has no meaning out of context. In order to interpret such a symbolic act, the reader must know what came before the violence. The reader must also know what followed that action. Once the context is established, the meaning of the act emerges. This is now description and interpretation work together. (2001, p. 138) Denzin’s model is rooted in the tradition of Symbolic Interactionism. It provides a structure to capture a subject’s real experience and symbolic meaning of them. The methodology of Interpretive Interactionism provides for a process of detailing the stories of ordinary people and their troubles, in order to contextualize their experiences and

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49 understand them more deeply through the exploration of the descriptions of their relationships, behavior and language. It is a search for personal meaning with a focus on how behavior and language are mediated through an interpretive frame—the basis within which act and communication occur.

By considering the relational problems from the point of view of domestically violent men and by systematically collecting their narratives, the question of how these men experience their relationships is captured and interpreted. It is, first and foremost, an account from and for the subjects themselves. It brings their voices forward in order to further understand them and the complexities they have encountered. This study attempts to address myths and stereotypes, to humanize domestically violent men, to understand the complexities of their experiences over and time, and to capture how their subjective experiences can be used to further refine intervention strategies and treatment options.

The primary source of data is the firsthand subject accounts gathered through the methodology of Interpretive Interactionism and the case study biographical approach.

Additional sources include field notes, memos and collateral contacts with clinicians and social service providers. This study is influenced by the exemplary work of Norman Denzin, Lonnie Athens, and Ken Plummer. These researchers used qualitative methodologies: Denzin has championed this methodology and Athens employed it to study the real-life problematic experiences of ordinary people.

Triangulation is used as a pivotal concept for organization. Specific psychodynamic concepts are used to interpret their stories. Object relations, the attachment paradigm, and mentalization take Interpretive Interactionism one step further and interiorize the experience, taking the interpersonal and interactive into the interior. Object relations

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50 theory extends the interpersonal/interactive story and considers it dynamically. The attachment paradigm considers the impact of styles and patterns of relationships.

Mentalization provides a matrix for considering the interactions of self and others over time.

This study concentrates upon and highlights the relational troubles, crises, turning points, and epiphanies that these men have. Their stories are biographically situated and their logic is studied in order to provide a greater depth in understanding their deeply layered epiphanies and how these events were mediated and may affect adult behaviors.

The significance is that their experiences can be situated and dynamically understood.

Their stories and language have a rationale, a familiar plot and story line organized around similar themes and understandable (albeit primitive) dynamics. The ways in which they view and describe their experience, think about their relationships, talk about and express their feelings, understand their relational trouble—these and their epiphanies dictate this study and its design.

Hypotheses and Questions Domestically violent men often display a ruthlessness that disregards others as separate, independent people. They often see themselves as victims due to the confusion and victimization they experienced in the past. Their reaction can be psychologically understood by examining their perceptions and defenses (for example, splitting, projective identification, and identification with the aggressor) and affective experiences, particularly how they manage anxiety, anger, and guilt.

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51 The core and critical question to be explored is: How do domestically violent men describe their relationships? Linked to this pivotal question are several others: How do they talk about, explain and understand their relationships? How do they describe and understand their crises? What do they view as turning points in their lives? What are their realizations and epiphanies? Understanding the meaning their relationships and their pasts have to them by considering the stories themselves as well as the language they use to tell their stories will provide a foundation upon which a psychodynamic explanation of their relational experience can be interpreted.

There are several layers to this study. How do the language and behavior of domestically violent men mediate their experiences? Since these men seem to struggle particularly with finding words to express their feelings, the words they choose are informative. There is a logic to their stories that can be patterned and has a common rationale. Domestic violence, as evidenced by the behavior of the aggressor, clearly indicates a relational problem. By locating the relational troubles domestically violent men experience, discerning how they understand and describe their experiences, puts both the men and their experiences in context. Through the application of their stories, this study will identify and illuminate complementary and contradictory themes, patterns in their crises and epiphanies, and will further situate their emotional, personal, and relational troubles. By bracketing, capturing, and contextualizing the stories, a framework from which they will be better understood and the meaning of their relationships and their violence will be described, allowing us to address the question of how and what has helped them to change. Highlighting their voices will situate their

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52 experiences and provide an opportunity to learn from them and contend with them as whole people.

This study further addresses how these men consider change and what has helped them in their therapeutic process. From this core question others may arise: What’s missing in their experiences? Is it a deficit, a conflict, a relational loss? How is their language and behavior a symbolically mediated experience that represents the problems with otherness, struggles with attachment/intimacy/closeness and distance/separateness?

Assumptions All human behavior is symbolically mediated. Denzin states, Humans have no direct access to reality. Reality, as it is known, is mediated by symbolic representations by narrative texts, by televised and cinematic structures that stand between the person and the so-called real world. We can never capture this world directly; we can only study representations of it. We study the ways people represent their experience to themselves and others.� (2001) Assumption #1. The behavior of domestically violent men is a symbolic representation of their inner experience, which, like language, is meaningful and serves a purpose. The stories o f their relationships will depict how they interpret the world and communicate with objects (others) and see themselves. Symbolic Interactionism is a methodology that supports this assumption. Thomas Schwandt states that, Symbolic Interactionism rests on three premises: (1) Humans act toward the objects and people in their environment on the basis of the meanings these objects and people have for them.

(2) These meanings derive from the social interaction (communication, broadly understood) between and among individuals. Communication is symbolic because we communicate through language and other symbols and in communicating create significant symbols.

(3) Meanings are established and modified through an interpretive process undertaken by the individual actor. The influence of pragmatism on symbolic interactionism is evident in the latter’s claim that humans are purposive agents who confront a

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53 world that must be interpreted rather than a world composed of a set of stimuli to which the individual must react. The meanings an actor forms in interpreting the world are instruments for guiding and forming action.” (Schwandt, 1997, pp.

148-49) Assumption #2. The nature of a relationship is shaped by experience and plays a significant role in how the world is interpreted. The process and interpretation of social experience constructs the meaning of how the subject sees, defines and makes judgments about experience and situations. In his research, Lonnie Athens uses an interpretive approach to studying how violent criminals become dangerous. He stipulates a few simple and straightforward assumptions: (1) People are what they are as a result of social experiences they have undergone in their lives . . . significant social experiences leave a permanent mark; (2) The significant experiences which make people dangerous violent criminals do not occur all at once in their lives, but gradually over time .. . later social experiences often build upon earlier experiences that must form some sort of developmental process with discemable stages; and (3) It is far better to study fifty people in depth than to study 5,000 people superficially . . . (and to understand) the relatively unique shared experiences of dangerous and incipient dangerous violent criminals—the significant life experiences which they shared, but which other people did not share with them.”

(Athens, 1992, pp. 18-21) Assumption #3. The models of Interpretive Interactionism and psychodynamically oriented theory are complementary frames. Together they describe a relational matrix.

Interpretive Interactionism frames an interpersonal transactional model that posits a mind that mediates. Object relations theory, the attachment paradigm, and the concept of mentalization tell how the mind mediates according to the relational experience of objects, self, and others. Interpretive Interactionism is biographical and historical: a narrative that accounts for a person’s history. These psychological theories complete/expand this model. It takes the interpersonal/interactive story and examines and animates the psychodynamic interior. Each domestically violent individual has a relational matrix that

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54 is shaped by their interpretation of their experience with others. The stories they tell and how they think about themselves and others and their relationships will have a more or less coherent and organized structure.

Research Strategy This is a qualitative, exploratory study based upon the firsthand accounts of domestically violent men and how they explain and understand their relational experiences. The strategy, based upon a process-oriented approach, is to have the men tell their stories in an interview process. For the most part, the men have been convicted by the courts of domestic assault. They are not under any current legal constraint.

Thirteen subjects were interviewed for this study. The participants were volunteers, recruited from domestic violence social service providers who either have worked directly with domestically violent men or who have had some professional experience in the field. For the most part, the men were court-ordered into and completed a treatment program. They were generally convicted of a misdemeanor and at least one year removed from the violent episode that led to their court involvement. hr taking into account safety and risk factors, domestically violent men who are currently at risk for violence or intimate partner abuse were not recruited to participate in this study for two reasons. First, they would likely still be under legal constraints.

Second, these men often believe that they are victims and do not acknowledge that they have the responsibility for their problems, or identify themselves as a perpetrator. The referral sources were providers who have treated domestically violent men and are familiar with their profiles. Extremely dangerous subjects were excluded.

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55 The interviews were designed not to confront the men or their denial/defense systems, but rather to explore their perceptions of relationships and the salient experiences in their lives while staying within an area that is relatively comfortable for them. This was accomplished by paying careful attention to signs of discomfort in the subject; for example, affect and behaviors such as uncomfortable hesitation, fidgeting, etc. Subjects were told that if at any time they feel uncomfortable with a particular line of questioning, they should inform the interviewer.

It is essential to attend to the emotionally charged nature of working with domestically violent men, the type of behavior presented and the feelings evoked. Working with domestically violent men in counseling can be unsettling for both parties. First and foremost is safety for all: for the men themselves, the family members, and the study conductor. Lethality is a primary concern in the field of domestic violence and in the clinical treatment and intervention of the batterer. During recruitment and screening, I clearly explained the nature and intent of this study and the types of subjects I was looking for. I also explained the parameters of my study to both the referral sources and the subjects, once recruited. The letter o f agreement and consent to participants clearly stated that: •

Interviewees are not currently under any legal restraints or obligations. Those who have been taken to court for violent behavior must have successfully completed and fulfilled their legal requirements. This means that most of the subjects in this study were at least one year beyond the violent episode that involved them in the legal justice system.

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56 •

Interviewees had to attest to currently being non-violent and ascribing to a violence-free lifestyle.

•

Interviewees currently in treatment had to attest that they discussed their participation in this study with their therapist by initialing the consent.

•

Interviewees were given the National Domestic Violence Crisis Hotline (1-800799-SAFE) and had to agree that if at any time during the study they felt suicidal or aggressive they would call the number. Interviewees currently in treatment had to obtain written permission for me to speak with their therapists if necessary.

I was attentive to safety issues, watching carefully for signs of discomfort in them.

This watchful and attentive eye is almost second nature to me, since I have spent 27 years of my clinical career working with men who have been domestically violent.

Data Collection Methods and Instruments In the context of using Interpretive Interactionism methodology, Denzin defines the following steps: 1. Framing the research question 2. Deconstructing and analyzing critically prior conceptions of the phenomenon 3. Capturing the phenomenon, including locating and situating it in the natural world and obtaining multiple instances of it 4. Bracketing the phenomenon, or reducing it to its essential elements and cutting it loose from the natural world so that its essential structures and features may be uncovered 5. Constructing the phenomenon, or putting the phenomenon back together in terms of its essential parts, pieces, and structures 6. Contextualizing the phenomenon, or relocating the phenomenon back in the

natural social world (Denzin, 2001, p. 70) This study follows Denzin’s methodology. The thickly described narratives of these men captures their native (lived) experience by obtaining multiple stories with an eye

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57 toward locating their views, affective relational experiences, violent history, crises, losses, and epiphanies. Their experiences are captured and then bracketed. Bracketing allows for the categorization of themes and the framing of the phenomena according to patterns and essential features. This leads to the step of construction, which is an ordered linking of ideas, and a process of association that details their relationships. The subjects’ stories are compared and contrasted in an effort to consider similarities, discrepancies, contradictions, and complementary experience finally leading to contextualizing and framing the conclusions. It is here that the objects relations, attachment theories, and mentalization will be utilized to further connect the interpersonal and biographical to the intrapsychic and dynamic frameworks.

Denzin defines “requirements for the researcher” thusly: 1. Utilize multiple case study, biographical methods 2. Find the crises and epiphanies in the subjects’ lives 3. Connect these experiences, as personal troubles, to public issues and institutional formations 4. Employ sophisticated rigor 5. Present the phenomenon to be evaluated in the language, feelings, emotions, and actions of those being studied 6. Follow the five steps of interpretation: deconstruction, capture, bracketing, construction and contextualization 7. Clearly state one’s value position to the phenomenon being evaluated (Denzin, 2001, pp. 47-48) Following these steps contextualizes the meaning and interpretation of the subjects’ narratives. It is the foundation upon which their language, patterns and themes are categorized with an eye toward key psychodynamic concepts like mourning, the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions, enactment, stage of concern, and others— concepts that are used to understand the relational, developmental, cognitive and

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58 affective experience of domestically violent men. Analysis of their stories illustrates the experience of domestically violent men and the complexity of their dilemmas.

Limitations of the Study The size of this study is small. Each individual and his story are ideographic and idiosyncratic. At the same time each story is also a representation of broader life experience and, as such, is considered a universal singular; that is, as unique to the individual and “studied as a single instance of more universal social experiences and social processes.� (Denzin, 2001, p. 39) The starting point of this study is each subject’s experience of his relationships as the representations of his reality. This approach creates a paradoxical limitation, as it considers the meaning that the experience has to the subject.

Exploring personal troubles and problematic behavior of domestically violent men is difficult and a quest not often undertaken.

This qualitative study focuses upon a particular situation (that is, violence in intimate relationships) and looks at it directly and deeply. This exploration provides an opportunity to consider the hidden experiences not in conscious awareness and an indirect means of understanding this elusive phenomenon and complex experience.

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59

CHAPTER IV

EVERETT: LITTLE BOY LOST IN SEARCH OF HIMSELF

Maybe the plot is a young man seeking salvation, seeking, looking for his place in life.

— Everett Though much is taken, much abides; and though We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are, One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

—Tennyson, “Ulysses”

Everett is a 31-year-old Caucasian male. He has been married for 12 years, has 4 children—3 boys and 1 girl— ages 14, 11, 8, and 2. The youngest three are children from his present relationship. Everett became a father at age 17 and his oldest son has not had contact with his mother since toddlerhood. Everett works as a general manager for a fire and safety company, and has the ambition of owning his own company. He lives in a far northern community in Lake County. He grew up in northwest suburban Cook County.

As I pulled up to Everett’s home and parked in his driveway, I could have been coming to one of any number of a thousand homes. I met with Everett in his home on two early Saturday mornings while his children and dogs ran about the house. He was inviting and welcoming. The house had a lived-in look and a bit of a whirlwind quality.

He kept going back and forth between the interview and the needs of his children and

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60 pets. Everett was appreciative of the opportunity to tell his story. He was referred by a counselor who he felt engaged and treated him with dignity. In my efforts to engage Everett, I was struck by his loss and hunger for relationships, as seen in his opening story and represented in his quest to find his son, which was in part a search for himself and the relationships he has never had.

Everett is a charming and accomplished storyteller. He tells his story without guile, a story that, at times, is slippery and filled with wild episodes. The impact and power of his story is presented thematically, organized around three major turning points in his life: his grandfather’s death, the search for his son, and the incident that led to his arrest. Everett’s epiphany is in recognizing that he has a problem and is beginning to deal with it. Everett’s early experiences of a social world were filled with tension, conflict, and blowups. Loss and a state of melancholia that were unaddressed characterize his adolescence.

A History of Loss, Confusion, and Conflict Everett’s rage is turned outward and he is lost. His story is one of confused roles and identifications (three-generational experiences that get collapsed); strong, intense attachments that can’t be regulated; and rage as an act of differentiation and as a way of negotiating intimacy and dealing with inferiority. He has strong attachments that he does not know how to manage. The roles are enmeshed and confusing. The patterns of his relationship are associated with cutoffs and mergers, breakups, and breakdowns. Everett strives for a normal life without the insanity. His thinking is that everyone grew up in a dysfunctional family. He was bom in the middle of conflict and loss. He has no idea of

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61 what the feud within the family is about. He experiences a life-changing loss, and the misfire in the process of mourning impacts his adjustment and is a derailment in his development.

The experience of loss most noticeably is magnified by the death of his grandfather.

His history of loss begins in infancy. His grandfather’s death marks a major turning point in Everett’s life, shattering the world that he knew. As Everett’s story unfolds, he immediately focuses upon the loss of and search for his son. The parallel relationships and structure between his experiences of abandonment and loss and his desperate search to recover and raise his son link his past and present, and begin to elaborate the underlying emotional angst and the deeper representational issues. On the surface, the story seems straightforward. Upon closer examination, the symbolic meaning and representations are interwoven in complex and emotionally intense dynamic storylines.

His opening narrative statement provides a family history, a context that situates the abuse and the generational experiences.

[I] was raised by my grandmother and my grandfather. And my mother has been in my picture, in and out, the beginning part of my life, up until I was eleven years old, ten years old actually. She came back and she was staying at home because my grandfather fell ill of cancer right before he passed away.

As far as my father goes, on that side, they lived down in Memphis, and I never knew him, up until I was 15 . . . He was never in the picture. My mom and my dad got a divorce. I think I was 20 months. That’s what she says. And he really never was in the picture at all, as far as I was concerned, up until, like I said, around 15. And after that, I went and moved down to Memphis for a couple of years with my girlfriend, which is my oldest son’s mother. Right about 17 years old. She’d gotten pregnant, and we couldn’t do anything up here. Nobody wanted to accept it here, family here on both sides. And [we] didn’t really have anywhere to go. I thought it was my responsibility to take care of her. We went, moved out, lived with my dad.

Telemachus was bom and from there things just seemed to have gotten worse with that relationship. She started seeing somebody else. It’s funny. My dad got home from work. I was working at a Speedway or a Chevron, over at midnight hours, came home the following morning to find my dad and my girlfriend/fiance throwing my clothes out on the front porch. And they kicked me out of the house. I don’t want

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62 to go into details on my opinion between those two, but it’s not a pretty thing. If you will, I guess it’s a southern thing. But she left, and that began an entirely new chapter in my life. That was a big turning point in my life, I feel. Telemachus was only eight months old when she took off, when she took off with him . . . The last time I seen my son for five months.

The reason why I’m telling this story is it ties into a little bit of anger, and it ties into some of the things I’ve done in the p as t . . . So, uh, I’ll try to keep this as simplistic as I possibly can. It’s a book. I could write a book out of all this, you know, my past, with my son, and the angst. . . So anyways, we pull up, knocking on the door, there’s no answer, and at this point, I was just stupid, I was just really stupid. We were smoking marijuana back then. I kicked the front door down, you know Tony’s with me, my buddy at that time, and we go inside, and there’s no sign of anybody being there. Really there was no sign of my son’s stuff. That made me even more angry because I’d already gone through this. I’d been trying to get him back. I’d had suicidal thoughts then. I’d tried to commit suicide a few times. I felt sorry for myself.

Right before I found out where he was, before I got these leads. So I ransacked the house. I started tearing stuff up, and Tony, being the good friend that he was [Laughs] helped me out. I mean, it was terrible. I took the TV, a little 13-inch TV, smashed the TV, radio, record player. There was a wall piece. It was like a giant picture, and under that picture was like a mantel, and it had a little drawer, and it was maybe four feet long or so and six inches high or thereabouts, and it was filled with quarters, so we took all the quarters, and then I broke down . .. Well, that wasn’t their house. That was a 93-year-old man’s house. I felt so terrible . . .

One house past the house we thought was it, walked up, saw a kid out in front. I asked it this was Tim’s grandparent’s house, he says yeah, so this is good. So, why don’t you go tell him I’m here. So I get out of the car, and Tony says, his exact words, you’re not going to do anything stupid again, are you? And I says, oh no, no, I’m fine.

Then I kicked the front door in. There was a bat up against the front door, so it just popped off the hinges, and it just laid there. I walked in, and immediately it hit me. I saw Telemachus’ crib, I saw his toad, his toys. I saw her clothes, where they had been staying, all of that, and I was walking around the comer into the kitchen area, and I saw the old man, his hand under the sink. I guess that’s where he kept his piece, his, uh, his gun. Down south, almost everybody has guns. I could have been killed then.

Talked to him, found out that they weren’t there. I put his door back on the hinges for him.

We started unloading the house with Telemachus’ stuff, because my intentions were to get my son back, that was it. That’s all I was worried about. We finally started taking the rest of his stuff out, and the old man says to me, well what about her stuff? Well, I don’t want her stuff. Well, aren’t you taking her too? We can’t stand her around here. Says, oh, no, I don’t want anything to do with her, I just want my son.

Well, what do you want us to do with her clothes? I says, you got a bum pit? Well, yeah. Well, bum ‘em. So he did. [Laughs] Well, the grandparents told us, told myself and Tony, where they were staying, they were staying at Tim’s mother and stepfather’s house. Where they were, and so we went there, and Tony gets out of the car. Tony was about 6' 2", maybe 6' 3", I mean he was a beanpole, he was just really skinny. And ugly looking motherfucker, but he got out of the car first, and this guy

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63 starts approaching him. You the son of a bitch that kicked in my grandpa’s door? I got out of the car and says no, I am. And at that time - I’m a big guy now - I was about 155 pounds soaking wet. I’m 6'1" and 275 now, so if that gives you any perspective of what I was, I was just a scrawny beanpole then, too.

I was in everybody’s face when I was younger. I had a really hot head, I saw my grandfather come home, and I’m jumping back to a different part of the story, but I saw my grandfather come home from what I remember, a piss poor drunk, and very, very, very angry all of the time, he was always yelling at my grandmother. We would sit around the dinner table, and I have fond memories, let me tell ya’, of potatoes, mashed potatoes being spit across the table from him screaming, he would scream at anybody, if I put too much salad dressing on my salad, because I wanted to do it myself, I wanted to be independent, I didn’t want to be dependent on anybody to do it for me, my grandmother would always take that and eat that salad because he would get so upset. And I’m not gonna go on record saying that if I did something she would get blamed for it or she would get abused for it, but I’m sure that’s what was going on.

“How could you let him do this?” Blam! [sound of slap] And uh, so that’s where, I think I get my anger from.

At age 11, Everett is traumatized by his grandfather’s death. It casts a void in his life immediately and he emerges a deeply troubled adolescent. The death magnifies the many losses he experienced even prior to this event. Everett is deeply affected by his grandfather’s death and the misfire in his capacity to mourn, to understand the experience, or to think about and express his feelings. He grew up in a confusing and contradictory world that may have made little sense to him. In many ways, the confusion became normal to him. He had family around him, but he wasn’t helped by them. Prior to his grandfather’s death, his family life and social world may have been confusing. He had a sense of the violence, but accepted it in a matter of fact way, and he felt somewhat safe.

He identified with and idealized his grandfather.

I was his shadow, really. I was his shadow. I wanted to be just like him. I remember when he would throw barbeques; I would always be right by him, watching him cook on the grill. I remember his shoes; they made a distinct crackling sound as he walked down the sidewalk. Well, there wasn’t a sidewalk, but in front of the garage, it was like a sidewalk, and it was gravel, and in the late seventies, we didn’t have the paving until ’83, ’84. But his shoes would make this really nice sound, a nice crackling sound. It’s hard to explain; like a crunch. Every step he took: crunch, crunch, crunch.

You know? I would always try to mimic that with my shoes, but I never could

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64 because he wore, like, dress shoes all the time. Black dress shoes. And they made that sound, on the flat bottoms. He would go to the bathroom, and I would have to go right there, you know, have to pee right alongside him.

I looked up to him, I really did, I looked up to him, and uh, I was like his shadow.. .The earliest memory, well, probably five years old, six years old. I’ve never witnessed him hit her, but my mom, my aunts, and my uncle have all told me, you know. I just found that out when I had problems with my wife, that they remember him grabbing her by the hair and dragging her down the hallway. And he would hit on her quite a bit. But she was a tough German lady. She just stuck it out and took it, and she was with him until the day he died. He was a good man with a problem. And not witnessing or remembering any physical violence between my grandfather and my grandmother, I can’t say that that’s why I am the way I am, or was, but genetics does play a part in this. I believe that it does. It’s in your family history, violence. If it’s in your history, it’s, that seed gets passed down. I see it in my sons, my three sons....

Despite the general sense of tension around him, Everett describes his early life as being happy and content. It was his grandfather’s illness and death that marks the major turning point in Everett’s life. When Everett was 11, his grandfather was diagnosed with colon cancer. Everett watched him die.

Between two and four months after he had the pump removed, he had passed away, and my grandmother and my mom and myself watched him pass away. I remember like it was yesterday. If you ever see anybody die, it’s not easy. He had two strands of saliva, and I just kept watching him shake with every breath and he had a gasp and then a sigh and that was it. And uh, we knew it was, for whatever reason, my grandmother had this sense that morning that we’d better go and see him in the hospital that day. She was contemplating not going and she decided, yeah, we should. And we did, and I’m glad for that, because that was the last time we ever saw him alive. But that was hard. That was very rough. Like I said before, I followed him around like a shadow. I looked up to him. He was my father. I had no father; he was my father.

After his grandfather’s death, Everett’s problems intensified. His loss never seemed to be quite mourned and he can hardly recall his experiences between the ages of 11 and 13. His experience of witnessing his grandfather’s death has a primal scene quality to it.

He was exposed to a level of experience that he cannot metabolize or work through.

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65 Further complicating his experience was the failure of the adults to either protect or help him understand his experience.

I was, I sat in on, after the colon cancer, after they performed the surgery on the colon cancer, I didn’t really know much about what was going on. I knew he was sick, I knew he had cancer, and I knew he was gonna be just fine. The surgery went well and there was no trace of cancer in the colon anymore, but, when it spread to his liver, that’s when I really was informed more, with my grandmother, the experimental pump talk. I was there when they told my grandfather that he had six months to live.

Fast forwarding to after the surgery and this and that. You know the scariest memory was when my grandfather came home from the hospital. He was very ill. Had a hospital bed in the living room. Our TV was up on top of like a bench so he could see it. God forbid, no TV for him. [Laughs] But my mom asked me to keep any eye on him. I didn’t know what to do. I hid underneath that bench. My mom couldn’t find me for hours, and I just stayed there because I didn’t know what to do. And he needed help. And I don’t remember what it was that he needed, but he needed help.

That is, that was, probably the scariest moment. I didn’t want to watch him. He wasn’t my grandfather anymore. He was just some lump of flesh and bones. That’s all he really was at that time. He was dead, he was, he was, he was gone. He died two, three months before he died, if that makes any sense. He wasn’t the same. So, I didn’t want to have anything to do with him. And I think that’s what it was.

The impact of this experience is deeply felt and marks the turning point and the overwhelming nature of this loss. His worldview was forever changed. He details a massive repression, and then elaborates upon a major regression.

Hmmm. [Silent] The scariest memory that I had. Or have had. I don’t think I really had a scariest memory, only because I was untouchable. I was impervious to pain; I was impervious to anything when I was younger. Before my grandfather died, when I was normal, if you will, [Laughs] I was never scared—only because I had my grandmother and my grandfather. I was protected by them. It was safe; I felt safe.

After my grandfather died, a two year span would go by a blank, it was blank. I don’t remember much until I turned about 13. But, I think I blocked a lot of stuff out, and once I turned 13, 1 was untouchable, nothing could break . . . So really I don’t have any scary memory, unless if you really want to consider the source of my grandfather dying, that was a scary time. I’d never seen anybody die. I was only 11 years old, but really don’t have a scary memory.

He was omnipotent and grandiose. He was resentful towards his grandmother. He impulsively and defiantly acted out. As he emerged, he found himself in a more troubled

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66 state. Everett remembers the dysfunction in his family and the crumbling of his world around him.

It’s a changing point. So, before my grandfather died, I had quite a few friends. After he died, I became quiet, and uh, different. I was different; I wasn’t like the rest of the kids. I was different. I was the shy boy; I became shy, became quiet. I had some friends. . . after my grandfather died, I started doing bad in school. I starting getting into a lot of trouble in school. . . I was falling, falling fast. By 13,1 was running away from home, getting into trouble with the police, getting into fights. I was always picked on in school because I was a chubby kid. One day I says that’s enough; no more. I was fed up, and that was in junior high that was my first fig h t. . . and shortly after that I was out o f the house, running around and doing my own thing, got involved with smoking pot and drinking a lot and being a stupid kid.

The marked contrast in his worldview is dramatic as he notes the contrast. Prior to his grandfather’s death, Everett’s description of the world and his life included fun, happiness, and ambition. After his death, it crumbled.

Um, fun. The world was not a scary place then. I wanted to be a lawyer, fireman, policeman, doctor, astronaut. Still want to be an astronaut. I had dreams, I had hopes, I had ambitions. I was going to be 35 before I had kids, be 35 before I got married, and uh, I think that life was generally happy, then, before he passed away.

Once he passed away, it triggered something inside of me, and I’m not using his death as an excuse for my actions, but that’s when the change took place. Anybody would tell you that’s when the change took place . . . I was punching holes in walls. I was very violent as a kid, well, as a teenager. I punched holes in the walls, and it was more of a scare tactic, now that I look back on it. I was trying to flex my muscle, say I’m the man of this house and you’re not going to mess with me. It’s my way, not yours. And I think that’s what it was that put her over the edge and didn’t know what to do with me. She just didn’t know anymore, I was getting worse, I was spiraling downhill, rapidly . . . after my grandfather died, I still loved my grandmother, and I still adored her, but I just didn’t respect anybody, I didn’t respect myself, and I didn’t like her rules. It wasn’t her, it was the rules . .. Whatever she had said, I would always want to bump it up some . . . Anything and everything that she did, I just, towards me, rule wise, I would rebel against it.

The loss of his grandfather resulted in a developmental derailment. Lost to him besides the relationship, was his adolescence and his sense of identity. He spiraled out of control with acting out, impulsive, and defiant behavior and aggressive sexuality.

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67 My grandmother would drop me off at the front doors and I would walk out the back, so I didn’t spend too much time in high school. I had a track record, or a file this thick, literally, this thick, by my junior year. I got into a lot of trouble in school, ditched class, smoking in the bathroom. I was the class clown; big trouble there. I made a teacher cry. He wasn’t even a teacher; he was my study hall teacher. I took a lighter, and, I don’t know if you know, you can take a lighter apart and crank the thing and you can get a big, tall flame and, well, I cranked it enough to where, fireballs, it would make fireballs, and kept on cranking past that point and it just went fwoom, and the flame, it just, like, rolled up to the ceiling, and Mr. Wilkins, he looked at me and says, what are you doing? Oh, nothing, nothing. So he takes me out into the hall and, says, [In falsetto voice] “Oh, I’ve tried to talk to you. I’ve tried to do this,” and he starts crying. And I says, are you crying? No, no, no, never mind me, blah, blah, blah.

I got sent to the principal’s office for that, and I got detentions that I didn’t serve.

And then I got Saturday schools and I wouldn’t serve, and my grandmother would have to go to school. And I didn’t want her to know that I was getting into trouble, but, uh . . . I didn’t, I just didn’t want to hinder her with that.

The dysfunction and collapse was a shared and generational family experience. As Everett’s rebellious behavior intensified, the adults were anesthetizing themselves to him and their own problems. His life was spiraling out of control. He was living in a confusing and chaotic family. He needed help, but the adults in his life were emotionally unavailable and seemed to be lost themselves. They were caught in an accelerating pattern of alcohol use. His mother had moved back into the home during his grandfather’s illness. After his death, she stayed and attempted to be a parent, but she was struggling with her own difficulties, as seen in the example Everett gave of sneaking into the house through her room when he was locked out.

So I would sneak in that window, try not to wake her up. I was very successful in doing so because my mother had a drinking problem. And you know what, that’s another thing. My mother and my grandfather, my mother and my grandmother had a drinking problem. My grandmother’s drinking went worse after my grandfather died.

She would drink vodka. As soon as she got home from work, she would drink vodka.

And that might be where some of my anger came from, too, was I didn’t want her to drink, but yet I’m going to go out and smoke pot and drink beer and be a teenager.

Don’t get any ideas in there. Yeah, now that I think about it, that upset me, too. I didn’t want her to drink. I used to take her vodka and pour it down the sink and put water in. Just, she bought the vodka by the half gallon.

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68 Themes of loss, not only through death and the unavailability of his caregivers, and of abandonment prevail throughout Everett’s childhood. The tensions and fragile nature of his relationships are depicted as he details his experience of abandonment, rejection, and confusion.

My mom? I remember begging her not to go to Norfolk, VA at the age of seven.

Only because she was going to, she married the babysitter’s son, my babysitter’s son, Mr. Henry Shaffer. He was in the Navy [Laughs] and he got transferred out to Norfolk, and my mom and I were doing a homework assignment. I was doing something on tigers. I remember we were looking through an encyclopedia, sitting on the living room floor, writing this little essay or whatever, and she told me that she was going to Virginia. I begged her not to go, and she still wanted to go, and I resented that. And she would call, you know, periodically, we’d talk to her, and eventually the phone calls started to get spread o u t . . . And then when my grandfather fell ill, and that’s when she came back home. But before then, I mean, I love my mom, I just don’t remember much of a childhood with her. She was in and out of the picture. She gave my grandmother legal guardianship of me after she got divorced.

And that’s really all there is with that, with my mom .. . She was 20 years old when she had me and when she got married. I presume that I was always with my grandmother and my grandfather. My mom just came and went, trying to get her life on track.

Everett describes his family as “dysfunctional.” He believes that every person who has an anger problem developed it in childhood. Themes of superiority/inferiority, domination/submission, and reenactment and repetition are all noticeable in Everett’s story. These themes appear to be generationally linked through chaotic and tumultuous relationships and experience of abandonment, betrayals, and episodes of rage, violence, and abuse. They are entrenched patterns of collapse dealt with through alcohol use.

Alcoholism and substance abuse permeate Everett’s experience and that of most of his family. Everett and his family were entrenched in an addiction that became their maladaptive way of numbing themselves to their feelings and problems.

The confusion and dysfunction in Everett’s early life experiences are seen in the roles and relationships within his family. The roles and boundaries are enmeshed, distracted,

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69 egregious, and abusive. The confusion starts right from the beginning with secrets kept from his grandfather. He gives a profile of his grandfather, and a sense not only of the confusion in this family and what it’s like to be part of it, but an underlying sense of the chaos, conflict, and emotional tone.

When she was pregnant with me, I think my grandmother, and this is speculation, this is not fact, but I think my grandmother was the first to know, and I think she tried to hide it for a little bit from my grandfather. ‘Cause I think he would have been extremely upset. He didn’t like my dad. He was a southern hillbilly. He was nothing but a hick, and he didn’t like anybody, really, come to think of it; he didn’t like anybody. . . Except for my Aunt Janet. She’s like my sister. My mom and my aunt all rolled up in one, we’re only 12 years apart. She helped raise me. My uncle was out of the picture. He kind of did his own thing, and he hated my grandfather. And here’s a perfect example, this, I do remember this one. There’s the spontaneous memory. My uncle brought a black man home for dinner. My grandfather, if you can picture Archie Bunker, that’s my grandfather, to the Nth degree. Um, my grandfather went off on my uncle, what are you doing bringing a nigger into this house? And this guy just became white, pale. He didn’t know what to do. He got up, he left. My uncle and my grandfather started getting into it, and I remember those two going into the front yard and fighting and my grandfather kicked him out and shortly after that he moved out. He was going to college, and he was gone. My grandfather was a pretty big racist. He didn’t like black people in the least.

The loss issues referenced earlier are further illustrated and are seen in his mother’s abandonment of Everett during latency.

She was in and out; she was in and out. She would stay, she would go, she would stay, she would get a boyfriend, she would go live with them for a little while, she would come back. She was in and out. Then, from seven until ten, that three year span, she was gone. She lived in Virginia, South Carolina. She had been married four times, three of the times in that three year span, from seven to ten. I think she picked one up once a year. [Laughs] Yeah, yeah.

In his history of loss, a storyline provides a sense of logic and coherence that threads his experience with failure, confusion, contradictions, and chaos. These experiences are illustrated time and again. Roles, boundaries, and relationships are blurred as Everett spirals out of control.

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70 So now my mom’s gonna try to cover for me. And she would do that a lot. She’d try and cover for me. She was trying to be the cool mom. She’s trying to make up for the times that she lost, I think; that’s what I think she was doing. I was arrested as a runaway, because my mom, I mean my grandmother. I call her Ma—that’s my grandmother—Ma called the police and reported me a runaway because they saw me running, you know, right down the front, right out the front yard. [Laughs] Don’t mess with him; stay away from my son—that kind of thing. Well, of course, that’s just going to encourage a teenager even more, to tell me no, I’m gonna go ahead and do it now. Well, we hooked up again after that, and we stayed at Motel 6 for a week.

The confusion permeates all the relationships in his immediate family, as seen in his discussion of his aunt and uncle.

We all got along very well, my aunt, my uncle, again, my uncle, I tried to look up to him, but he really wasn’t interested, I guess. He was like my grandfather, slightly bitter, in his own way, but uh, he went to college. I thought, my toy chest was in his room, and I went in there one morning and woke him up getting some toys, and he got mad at me and yelled at me and kicked me out of his room. I can see that now, that I would have done the same, five, six o ’clock in the morning, got woken up— and he was probably out partying the night before. I would have done the same. But shortly after that was when he moved out, for a while. I didn’t know he went to college; I wasn’t aware of it. I thought I made him move out, I thought it was because of that episode, that, I’d disturbed him, so he moved out. It just happened to be right in line, a couple o f days later, he was gone, I didn’t know he was going to college, and I never asked.

My aunt on the other hand, like I said, we have a really strange relationship, my aunt is my mom, which she is my sister, and she’s also my aunt. And that’s only because she helped raise me. I looked up to her like a sister, like a big sister, and because I grew up in, my grandmother was like my mother, and it was just like she was my older sister. You know, normally your aunt doesn’t live with you. So, she was the one to really take me to Great America, to the beach, to movies. We used to sneak into drive-in movies. I would be under covers in the back seat, into the rated R movies. Um, we did a lot of stuff like that. So, my aunt was like my best friend also.

It was a really neat relationship we have, or had. Now it’s not like that anymore, but uh . .. So there was peace between the siblings. There was peace in the house, but with my grandfather, that was the, he was the key. He was the key to the temper and the angers.

It is within the relationship with his father that an illustration of the chaos and most egregious of boundary violations occurs.

We were pot buddies. He was a drinker, and he’s a smoker. He’s a bum, he’s, you know, I’m, I’ve got a lot of animosity toward him. I hate him. I don’t care for him right now. If he died today, it wouldn’t, it’d be like water off a duck’s back. I

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71 wouldn’t care. And, uh, the only reason why I say that is things that I’ve gone through with him while being down there. He was a big time drinker. He went out and he came home one day and he was all nuts. He just went off, he woke me up and he was pissed off because the house was not clean. And said, what are you, smoking crack? And there was just silence, so I think he was smoking crack. And we got into a huge fight, he got me into a headlock and I buried, you know, pushed him into the couch. That was a stupid move on my part because now I’m stuck in the couch. And I reached in my pocket, and I pulled out my pocket knife, and I opened it and I put it on his fingers. I says you let me go now or I’ll cut your fuckin’ fingers off. You want to let me go. And that kind of, the icing on the cake between us, at that time.

Laura and I had some troubles. She was screwing around on me. She was screwin’ my dad. She left me for this other guy. I slapped her one night. Before she was messin’ with my dad. But I knew she was doing something because she wasn’t friendly anymore to me, meaning she wasn’t close to me anymore. Telemachus was screaming (he was only a few months old); he was screaming and screaming and screaming. I’m the only one working here; she’s not working. I’m tired; I wanted to sleep. It was early in the morning. She said, you gonna get him? So I got up, I got him. Said, you’re gonna have to get up too, I can’t do this by myself, you’re gonna have to help.

I’m just a kid; just a teenager. I was only 17 when he was bom. And she’s sitting in the rocking chair, and I said why don’t you rock him, and she’s like, no. She just said, go fuck yourself. So I looked at her, square in the eyes, clenched my fists, and I punched her right here, just like that. I didn’t swing; it was just a really quick pop. I wish I’d never did that. That was the, that’s the beginning point of my abusive nature.

Shortly after that, she slept with my dad, jumping to that point where she and my dad were throwing my stuff out when I came home from work. She didn’t stay very long after that. She had left, and my dad let me come back home. I resented him for what had happened.

We came home and I met Penny, through her boyfriend, which was a friend of mine. And maybe nine months went by. I stayed at home and I got tired of my grandmother’s rules so I wanted to leave again. I wanted to go back down to Memphis. So I went to my buddy Roman, who was Penny’s boyfriend at the time, ‘cause he had a car and says, hey, man, you wanna go and move down to Memphis?

He says, sure. Said, I’ll pay for the trip, ‘cause I was the only one really working. I paid for the trip down there, but he had the car. And my other buddy, Kevin, he went with me. Kevin grabbed my other friend, Don, his girlfriend, left Don to go with Kevin. Kevin, myself, Deb, Roman. And Roman also asked, can I bring my girlfriend? If he’s bringing his, I want to bring mine, which wound up being Penny, and Telemachus, seven of us. We all went down, and Penny and I kind of hooked up with each other, while we were down there. And I gave Roman, well, Roman caught us kissing, and I gave Roman 40 bucks and said, just leave, go. See you. Go home.

She’s staying with me. He left, and Penny and I got hooked up and three or four months later, we got married. My dad basically said, well, you’re all not gonna live under my roof and do that hanky panky unless you’re married. So we got married.

And then two months after we got married, she got pregnant with Michael, which is

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72 the one on the top left over there in that picture. Telemachus the one in the middle, Christopher’s the one on the right, and well, the only girl, obviously, is her, Emily.

Everett’s primary relationships have a disturbing and confusing mixture of benevolent care and violence, an oscillation between genuine care and rage. The nature of his relationship with his grandparents, particularly his grandmother, was one that was organized around excitement, danger, fondness, volatility, helplessness, love, and hate.

His close attachment with his grandmother is remembered fondly.

My grandmother and I are, you know, like that. You know, I’m her little baby. She raised me, so I’m her fourth child and I’m the baby. And uh, I just hate seeing her the way she is. She has emphysema. She’s not doing good . . . The fondest memory as a kid. Here we go with that spontaneous memory. This is a memory that, for whatever reason, it’s the fondest, but it doesn’t have much significance to anything. My grandmother was shucking com, and there was a farm stand off of Grand Road in Palatine that was called Ethel’s where she went all of the time. And it was about this time of year, August, maybe September, and we went to Ethel’s and now we’re at home, and she’s shuckin’ com. We have a deep freezer in the shed out back, so she would prepare for the winter. And I remember, I was wearing a tank top, number 10.

I just watched her, and I was always fascinated with the weather, and I was looking at the clouds, it was a cloudy day, there was a front movin’ in, and I remember telling her, Ma, look! There’s gonna be a tornado. Look, the clouds, they’re rotating, we’re gonna have a tornado. I was fascinated with them; I’d always wanted to see a tornado, still to this day want to see a tornado. I chase ‘em, if there’s bad weather out.

I should go down to Oklahoma, become a storm chaser. But I was maybe seven or eight years old, and, uh, that, for whatever reason, that’s the fondest memory I have, my grandmother and I, just hangin’ out in the backyard. She’s shuckin’ com, I’m playin’ and she’s playin’ with me, and doin’ her thing, and I think that is the fondest memory I have . . . The bottle. The bottle. They didn’t really try too much after that.

I drove my grandmother insane. I drove her nuts. I don’t think I was able to be stopped. I really think that, um, there was a lot of nights . . . that she went to bed crying. She didn’t know what to do with me. There was a lot of nights that I made her cry. There was a lot of nights that, I never touched her, never physically harmed my grandmother, but I would stand up to her, and you know, she’s 5'1", 5'2", and I towered her at 13 years old, 14 years old. I towered her and overpowered her. She got to the point where she actually, I don’t want to say physically abused me. I’ll say self defense. She popped me in the head with a vodka bottle, and she popped me in the arm with a broom. Separate incidents, but, uh, if she hadn’t have done that, I may have gone after her. I may have. I can’t say that I would have, and I’m not saying that I was going to, but being the way I was, anything was possible. I became verbally abusive. I would give her dirty looks, I would tell her I was the devil, I would tell her not to fuck with me— my exact words to my grandmother.

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73

The confusion was entrenched in alcohol use and modeled for Everett a way of communicating and dealing with mental states. This was the family he was socialized in: a social context in which dysfunction came with alcohol use, the inability to deal with conflict, and a way of living in the world.

I don’t think they dealt with conflict in front of any of us. The aftermath, I should say, I don’t think they dealt with the aftermath in front of us. I think they would turn to their drinking. He drank, she drank, and I think that’s how they dealt with it. I honestly can’t answer t hat . . . I don’t remember. I wasn’t interested really. I didn’t get into that. I was only a kid, and when he died I was eleven, so, um, I was more interested in matchbox cars and riding my bike and playing outside to notice negotiations or hear of their conflict, or how to deal with it, ‘cause I honestly couldn’t tell you.

Everett’s story goes beyond his family of origin experience. It’s a story of transgressions that has generational roots. The gaps and confusion run deep.

Well, my grandparents are first generation. Their parents came over. My grandfather’s parents came from Poland, and my grandmother’s parents came from Germany and Hungary, and I don’t think they had . . . Oh, my grandmother, she, I don’t know much about my grandfather’s history, but my grandmother, well, my great grandmother used to throw things and peg my grandmother if she was doing something wrong, like pick up an eraser and pshew. That’s where my grandmother’s phrase or term came from. She had eyes in the back of her head—literally. ‘Cause she would see and she would see everything that my grandmother was doing. But real physical violence or anything like that, I don’t think so, except for the throwing things at her. I think that’s more of a warning. I don’t think that she was intentionally trying to harm my grandmother. I throw things at these guys to get their attention, you know like a pillow and, or, whatever’s close by; like, for example that cup. Will toss it in their vicinity. That’s enough. But yeah, I don’t think she was ever physically harmed or emotionally harmed by her parents. My grandfather I don’t really know. I would have to assume that he probably was physically or emotionally or mentally abused.

Emotional, mental, same thing.

One of the most salient and significant aspects of Everett’s story is his experience of being left alone to make sense of a confusing, contradictory, and disturbing world. It highlights the cost of being alone. He acted out and found his own way through his experience to prove and protect himself on his own.

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74 I was into it. I was into it then. I was into the whole evil way of life, the satanic thing. I wasn’t worshipping the devil, anything like that, but it was just the cool thing . . . . I think that’s where I got some peace. I think that’s where I got some acceptance. I should say not peace, but acceptance. Was becoming a rebel, becoming a hoodlum, walked in the streets, you know. I met some friends that were into pretty much hangin’ to themselves, but partying. What I mean by partying: drinking or smoking, smoking pot. That was the extent of the drugs or anything like that. Just pot. Yeah, uh, I, I scared her. And that was my objective was to scare people. Not necessarily to hurt ‘em, just to scare ‘em, you know, let ‘em know, you can’t mess with me. I’m bigger and badder and meaner . . . Hey, if I get into a fight, prove my point and protect myself and make a stand, maybe that’s the way it is.

Maybe you have to be mean, violent, angry, and I think that’s, you know . . . Yeah. I was, you know, I was a little chubby kid. I was always the last one to be picked in dodge ball or kickball or whatever. I was embarrassed; I was ashamed that I was the victim of being picked on. I didn’t like that, and I didn’t want people to know. I didn’t want my grandmother or my mom or anybody to know that I was the one being picked on because I didn’t want, I think I didn’t want to, to show any signs of being a failure or being unaccepted. I wasn’t sure how they’d react, so I just kept it to myself.

The Search for Telemachus and Family Life Everett’s search for Telemachus is, in many ways, a search for himself and for relationships that he has been missing all along. Everett’s grandfather was in his life, yet bitter, angry, and abusive. He was Everett’s identified father, but he could not protect Everett or act as a model for a benevolent, strong, and caring man. His natural father—a man who abandoned Everett and egregiously violated boundaries by having a sexual relationship with Everett’s girlfriend—kicked him out and gave him reasons to fight. The birth o f Everett’s son and his search to find him mark the beginning of a significant time of transition and transformation. This major event is a shift in his social world and the patterns of his behavior can be seen. These shifts are seen in a cumulative series of events, beginning with the conception of Telemachus, and then dropping out of school and leaving the area to live with his father. Everett grew up fast and moved to unprepared and unplanned parenthood. A lost child himself, Everett became a father; a

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75 boy himself who has the expectation of adulthood and parenthood. He has not had positive role models or the support of anyone who could help him make sense of the world or the difficulties he has experienced.

Everett tells the story of Telemachus, and this story serves multiple purposes. It illustrates the overdetermined themes of loss, abandonment, search and discovery. These themes connect Everett’s past and present by generational experiences; degrees of closeness and distance in his relationships, particularly with Telemachus; of identifications and boundary regulations; of affect and his experiences of caring and concern; and of anger, fears, and anxiety. It is a story of being lost and found. Its magnitude, as he puts it, is in not only what he went through, but in the meaning and significance it has and represents for him. In many ways his story is a search for relationships, about the loss of a childhood and adolescence, and about growing up quickly while socialized by poorly developed role models and going it alone.

I’ve told him everything. Everything. From how I got him, from how I lost him to how I got him. And I don’t think he understands the magnitude of it, and how much I went through. What I went through to get him back. I’ve tried to get that through to him, says Telemachus, please understand. This is usually when he has done something really severely wrong and really upset us. It’s kind of like in my back pocket as spare ammunition to try to put an end to this madness. Hey, man, you have no idea what I went through to get you. You don’t think I love you? You don’t think I care about you? This is what I did. Yeah, dad, I know, I know, ah, blah, blah, blah.

You know, at least it sinks in, but I think that then he starts to rationalize the whole thing. But I don’t think he’ll ever understand the magnitude until he has his own kids, of what I went through.

And keep in mind, I was 17, 18 years old at this time. I wasn’t an adult, by far. I was still a kid. You know, on that borderline of childhood and manhood. Matchbox cars and girls, you know. I was teetering that line at that point in time. But I couldn’t, I couldn’t be a kid; I had to be an adult. He made me grow up awfully quick, awfully quick. And, uh, that experience is something that I can pass down. I can give that information and teach people, teach parents, not that I’m the world’s greatest dad, ‘cause by far I am, I’m not the world’s greatest dad. I’d like to be in their eyes, but I’m a horrible parent. Only, I’m my own worst critic. I do a decent job with them, but I could do better, we all can . . . Grumpy old man.

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76 I think he, I know the kid loves me, I know he does, and I know he respects me.

But I also believe that he wishes that I wouldn’t be so strict, ‘cause I’m very strict on him. ‘Cause I don’t want him to make the same mistakes that I made .. . I’m terrified, because, in, almost exactly a year from now I got Laura pregnant. And you know, for him, his age. He’s almost a year away from being a parent and reliving me, and it just scares the daylights out of me. I tell him to keep it in your pants man, you take it out, I’m gonna cut it off, man. Don’t do that. That’s why he is, I’m harder on him than I am on the others, and for that reason, he’s me, almost to a T. He’s a good kid, got a good head on his shoulders when he wants to, but I don’t know if he’s going to fall down that same path or not, and I pray that he doesn’t, ‘cause it was a rough life.

I grew up way too fast. I don’t want him to, I want him to stay. . . He’s sneaky. I was very sneaky. He lies. I lied. He cheats, he steals; I cheat and I steal. . . Um, on the positive side, he’s caring, he’s helpful, and he’s very respectful when he wants to be. And I see that, and that’s how I am, and I will give anybody and everybody a hundred and ten percent, and I’ll give you all respect, but the minute that you disrespect me, I’m done. And maybe that’s my grandpa in me. I don’t know. I don’t know where that came from. But respect is a key thing with me; you’ll hear that a lot out of me is respect. Uh, he, Telemachus and I are, he acts like I did.

Over the period of 12 years, he struggled with his familial relationships. Although he was not physically violent with Penny, he was possessive and controlling. His alcohol use, although he minimized its importance, intensified. The relationship was tense and conflicted and overwrought with power dynamics, emotional abuse, and controlling behavior. It set the stage for the breakdown that led to his arrest.

I didn’t want her to have any friends because I didn’t want her to be independent. I wanted her to solely depend on me. I didn’t want to let her have an out; I had to be in control. I was a very controlling person. And I don’t know why. It’s just that, I can honestly say that now, after going through group with Amy, and learning about myself, that’s what, how I was. I really had no idea that I was like that. I made conscious decisions to control her life really. Well, you’re my wife, you’re gonna stay here, no you’re not going out tonight doing this and doing that. And she tried to leave one day, and she was walking—we lived in a trailer park—and she started walking down the road and I got in the car and drove up next to her, says where the hell do you think you’re going? Well, I’m calling my mom, I’m going home. I says, no you’re not, get in the car. Let’s go. Come on; you don’t want to leave. I told her what she wanted. I didn’t ask her what she wanted; I told her what she wanted. I talked her out of it. She got in the car and she went home. That happened a couple of times.

It was never physical with her; it was only emotional, mental. I verbally abused her. Uh, I’d call her names and I’d give her a low self-esteem, and I was pretty rough.

We lived down in Memphis for about two years. We came back home. Stayed with my grandmother for a little bit until we got our own place. We got our place, ended

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77 up losing that place, stayed with my grandmother again. We got an apartment, stayed there in the apartment, rented a house, rented another house, rented a townhouse, rented a house, house, and here. But, uh, I would comer her, I would not let her leave when she wanted to leave, I wouldn’t let her leave. If she picked up the phone to call somebody, I’d hang the phone up on her, or hank it out of the wall. I was pretty mean, I’d throw things, I was making macaroni and cheese one day, she pissed me off, so I threw ‘em at her, just threw ‘em at her... Penny and I got into an argument. Um, to paint the picture, before the argument, I was going out drinking almost every night. I was getting bad. An acquaintance of mine who used to work with me, we would stop off at the bar on our way home, and then we would go our separate ways. Well, one led to two, which led to five, which led to 10, which led to closing, and we would now start closing the bar. In the beginning part of it, we’d just have a couple of drinks and then I’d go home, so I’d be coming home later and later. It got to the point where I was coming home at 2:30 in the morning, 3:00 in the morning, and Penny had asked me not to do it anymore. You know, you need to stay home, you need to come home.

The Violent Episodes and Group Experience The third positive turning point in Everett’s story is the incident that led to his arrest, and then his experience in treatment. He talks about how safety is what he is “all about,” but in this episode, he poses an unintentional, yet egregious threat.

So, I worked late one day and .. . Penny wanted me to come home, come right home, while I wound up having to work late. Didn’t call her, though. When I got home, it was about seven o ’clock when I got home. She wasn’t here. She was out looking for me, I guess. And the kids were watching TV. At that time, it was just Telemachus, Michael and Chris. And they were just watching TV and I got pretty upset about that, because you don’t leave the kids unattended, I’m a firm believer in that. You don’t leave them at home alone. Telemachus was 12 and very immature, not responsible. If there was something that happened, he wouldn’t know what to do. Like, now, we can leave, let him baby sit, but then, I, you know, there was no way.

One thing leads to another. I’m blaming her for this, she’s blaming me for that, Glen and Louise sit down in the living room; our argument goes into the kitchen.

There was a knife on the stove, pointed end out, and I looked at that and I says, what the hell’s wrong with you, one of these kids could come up, cut themselves, grab it, and it’d fall, goes in their eye or something. Being in the life of safety business, that’s my whole thing. I was all about the safety, and that knife on that stove really upset me and I started yelling at her about that. And I picked up the knife and I pointed it at her.

She was in the comer of the counter, sink is here, stove was here, and I pointed it at her and says, get out of the way so I can put this knife in the sink. If you don’t get out of the way, I’ll put it right through you. And I meant every word I said. Not that I was gonna kill her. I wasn’t threatening her life; indirectly I was, but not purposely

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78 wanting to hurt or harm her. I just was really pissed off that she left that knife out on the stove. Well, uh, Glen and Louise, who were the witnesses, they heard me say that, get out of the way, or I’m gonna put this knife right through you, so that kind of stuck with them. So that was their, when it was all said and done with, that was the testimony. That’s what really harmed me.

Everett calmed down a bit by the time the police arrived. At that time he did not think the arrest was warranted. He pled to a lesser charge, a misdemeanor, and entered the abuser treatment group. It was there that his story took a turn. As his resistance and defensiveness lessened, something began to “click.” Over the course of the first few sessions, he began to feel heard. He found himself in the stories of others and he opened his mind. The process of engagement, the feeling of respect, and the value of the relationship provided a holding environment in which he began to think more clearly and to see himself.

Well, I don’t remember exactly what date I started in there. It’s not one of those dates you want to remember, but uh, I started out, when I went in, I started out with the attitude of, this is BS. I don’t need to be here, you know, it’s ridiculous. How could they think that I’m this animal, if you will. And, after a couple of weeks, it really started to sink in. I started to change my way of thinking, and I started to understand that what I have done is why I am here, and there’s no excuse for that.

Amy and Thayer were a couple of good people. Thayer himself, [Laughs] my first day there, I don’t remember exactly what it was that I was talking about or we were discussing, but I said something and Thayer started in on, and I says, excuse me, who the hell are you? And he says, well, I’m the co-facilitator, my name’s Thayer.

And I says, oh, nice to meet you. And at that moment I thought, this is, that’s a crock.

This guy, I don’t like this guy. There’s no point to me even dealing with this guy.

But as time went on, Thayer mellowed out and the group itself—we covered a lot of different things.

I came in right around the child section of the group, you know, how the kids are hurt over all of this, you know, just because they’re in their room doesn’t mean that they can’t hear. And, uh, I think that’s a common thing in any argument. If there’s kids, they’re in their room and the parents are arguing, or the boyfriend and girlfriend arguing, whatever the situation may be, not thinking clearly enough about the kids.

And the group opened that up, the group opened up a lot of things. It helped me deal with my anger, it helped me deal with my inner self. Actually, it helped me identify m yself. . . The first day was, I was like, this is ridiculous, and the second session, I was still, like, this is ridiculous. But something started to click, something just started to click with me.

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79 By the third session, or group, I actually started to open up and realize that what they’re talking about makes sense. Why am I here? Because I have committed a crime. I have committed battery. Aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, which was a felony, which I would have done time, but my lawyer got it down to simple battery. And instead of thinking that it was Penny’s fault that I was there, it made perfect sense that if I would not have backed her into a comer, yelling and screaming at her, threatened her life, kicked down a door, I wouldn’t be in this group. My life started to go, run through my mind with all these different episodes with my anger, and something had to be done about it. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and in the most ironic way, this was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. Only because it helped me identify who I am, and who I was . . .

Other people, listening to them talk, hearing them say the same things that I’m saying. For example, there was a guy in there who stuck a fork in his wife. She was bitching at the dinner table, and he picked up his fork and stabbed her, and says, you done bitchin’? You know, stick a fork in it, and you’re done? And uh, he started with Amy and he was a smartass, and I’m thinking, wow, that must be how I sound, almost identical to how I sound. And when I started listening, I opened my mind up to listen to the things that were being said, to listen to their advice, and their studies, and all the literature that they would pass out, and I would actually read it this time. And that really was what clicked, I was listening to everybody else’s problems, and realized, wow, you know, you don’t have it so bad, you’re not the worst one here. There’s some people here who have it worse than I do. This guy stabbed his wife. This guy kicked his wife down a flight of stairs. This guy punched his wife. And here all I did was yell at her and tell her if she doesn’t move, I’m gonna put a knife through her.

But I never physically hit my wife. I just yelled at her, and I would comer her.

Treated with respect and engaged in the difficult work of making sense of his experience provided Everett with an opportunity to think—to rationally reflect on and examine his behavior for what it was. In doing so, he made deeper connections and reflectively considered his mental state, his anger, and his past. The benefits of the experience helped him to identify feelings, particularly his anger, and to communicate his feelings to others rather than to act upon them and act them out. He saw himself in the behavior and in the eyes of others and began to mentalize his experience.

Well, uh, it’s a rock hard gut feeling that I feel when I’m getting extremely, extremely mad. I can feel it building up inside, and I know my top is about to blow. To step back and ask yourself, is this where you want to be? The answer, obviously is no . . .

I’m not gonna say that I don’t blow my top, I’m not gonna say that. I do blow my top still. But it’s not like it’s been. It’s not like before the group, uh, you know, I’ve had pulsating veins, and had a ffiggin’ heart attack with how angry I would get. But uh,

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80 so, it’s, you feel it building up inside like a volcano. If you can picture a volcano, in your stomach is the magma bank, you can just feel it rising up, and before that pops, you take a Turns. [Laughs] I’m sorry. Again, there’s the comedy part. But really, that’s the, the Turns, I’m just gonna speak in analogies, then. You know, you’ve got this heartburn coming up and you take the Turns to suppress it. Well, you identify the problem, you know it’s there, the anger’s coming out, and you have to step back, and the old saying, count to ten, well, that works. I don’t necessarily count to ten, but I just, you know what, enough is enough, forget it. I don’t want to go there. I’m heading to a place I don’t want to be, I don’t want to go there. That’s how I do it. By not wanting to go there. And you know, if I have to get up, walk away, get in my car, drive, go downstairs, plug my guitar in and just turn the volume up as high as it can go and just shake the walls, that’s what I’ll do.

But again, I’m not saying that there’s not been times where I have popped. Cause I have blown my top. I guess if you want a, to look at it in this light, the group did its job. It helped me identify, deal and cope, and repair. It helped me do these things.

But the [Pause] not 100 percent, I guess, because I still blow my top sometimes. I don’t know, I [Pause].. .Urn, well, repaired me, it helped me repair my mis-wire, my wrong wiring, the miswiring. The brain pattern. I don’t know. I got i t . . . it’s there, I just can’t put it all together and spit it out yet. Reprogramming, that’s what it is. I was able to reprogram my mind. And that’s one of the things that we did discuss in the group was trying to rewire our minds. And I was able to do that to a degree, to where you identify and that’s the repairing, was being able to identify this, you feel it.

You know it’s coming, you’re getting pissed off, you’re gonna blow your top, and you’re gonna go through the wall. You know this is, you know it’s coming, but you take a step back and you detour that, you go in a different direction; you find something to get your aggression out on. Some things, like, would be a punching bag, we discussed that in group. And Thayer came out and he said, well, that’s not any good. Thayer, how could you say that’s not any good? I’m, not me, but somebody else had the punching bag idea, but I came out and I said, Thayer, why would you say that’s not good? Well, because, you’re reverting the anger, and it’s something else, but you’re still taking it out in a violent manner. Thayer, it’s a friggin’ punching bag, you know and if I want to put a picture of her face on the punching bag because this is what I would like to do, then I’m gonna do that. And the only reason why I feel that’s ok is because I’m doing it to an inanimate object. I’m not doing it to the person I’m supposed to be married to or my girlfriend, or the neighbor’s wife, or whoever, it’s a punching bag. And if that gets my aggression out, and I can turn around and walk back and give that person a hug and a kiss because I’m no longer upset at them, because I just kicked their ass in an indirect kind of way, it’s a sick way of looking at it, but it works. So you can’t tell me that I can’t punch a punching bag because you’re just doing the same thing, you’re repeating the pattern, and I think I was helping him, too. Because that’s what it was, these are ideas, these are different ways, if you can just channel that anger a different way, you gotta get it out, cause it’s not healthy for you, it’s not healthy to just bottle it up and keep it inside because then you are going to create the super volcano, if you will, the Yellowstone Park. I don’t know if you’ve seen this.. .but that what this Yellowstone is supposed to be like. But it’s just bottled

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81 up. And if it stays bottled up, these vent holes, they’ve got a vent, and that’s where the geyser comes into play, it plays a key role, it’s venting.

It’s releasing some of its pressure. And that’s what we need to do, we need to channel that and vent it somewhere else. Not blowing out of your mouth here, not yelling and screaming or taking physical aggression out on another human being.

Vent it. Get in your car, drive away, go play a video game, go punch the punching bag, play your guitar, take a walk, grab your dogs, go for a walk, whatever it is, you need to channel it in a different direction, and that’s one of these things that’s what this group did for me. I’m not saying that I looked at people as objects. I’m not saying that, because again, I never took out physical aggression on my wife, it was a verbal thing, it was verbal and it was a control, it was cornering. But, yeah, you tend to look at ‘em, you’re not arguing with your wife anymore, you’re just arguing with a piece of dirt if you will. You don’t have respect for that individual. And that’s one of the key things, too. I told you respect, you’re gonna hear it a l o t . . . If you can’t respect yourself, you can’t respect anybody else. And I’ve always been this whole big respect thing, but I didn’t respect myself, so I didn’t respect my family. I thought I respected them, but I did not.

Everett’s development and use of the group is marked by subtle, yet significant shifts.

He thinks about his affect rather than reacting and acting on it. He develops and uses technique and strategies to calm himself. He uses metaphor to illustrate the intensity of his anger and the value of taking a timeout indicates an improved capacity to self-regulate and attend to his feelings. He’s developed better strategies and techniques he can use when he’s upset. Although he still justifies and somewhat minimizes his behavior, Everett is now better able to mentalize. He is less reactive and more reflective about his mental state. He is thinking about what’s occurring internally and how he is relating to and treating others, and then making better and more responsible choices. The group provided him with the opportunity to see himself through respectful, helpful, and caring relationships. He had a social context in which he learned to identify, regulate, and manage feelings, particularly relating to others in a respectful and considerate manner— especially with his wife and children. He developed the realization that the problem was in him and that he needed to learn to respect himself.

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82 The group helped me to identify my anger. It helped me know the feeling inside. It helped me identify my anger and my feelings and so when I would get upset, instead of going all out and yelling and screaming at Penny, the warning signs would come on, and I would be able to cope with that a little better . . . I’ve learned how to control it and how to identify it. I still get upset, I still yell, but it’s not like I get into somebody’s face anymore. I don’t scream. I don’t push my weight around. I’m a little more mellow, I guess I should say. I’m a little more mellow now than I was before . . . Well, you know, I learned that it’s okay to have other feelings than just anger. ‘Cause anger is a feeling. It’s an emotion, and I was a very angry person, and I still am angry with some things, but I can control that and I know how to deal with that. But I’ve learned how to express myself more, how to tell somebody how I feel.

How to communicate. I think that’s really the key thing right there, is how to communicate .. . What the group taught me was how to relate to my wife, how to talk with her, and actually, how to get along with her in a civil manner . . . Before the group, same thing with the kids, you know, it’s my way or the highway. After the group, it’s still my way or the highway, but with respect, if that makes any sense. I was very disrespectful to the whole family, including my children. After the group, I have more respect for myself, which in turn have respect for them. I just had an “I don’t care” attitude before the group. The group is the best thing that ever happened to me. Amy and Thayer actually helped me learn how to help myself. . . This group opened up my mind and opened my eyes to seeing that these guys are going through hell with me. I’m a prick in so many terms. I was really a jerk. And the group opened me up to being more caring with my family, more loving with my family.

As Everett developed more adaptive coping strategies, the maladaptive ones shifted.

He was a “little more mellow” and a little less controlling and explosive. He could use words rather than threats or demands to communicate and express himself. He took small steps forward, stating that it’s still “my way or the highway, but with respect.” In a most noteworthy way, Everett got in touch with his care, concern, and sense of agency.

He talks about “reprogramming and rewiring” in his mind, a symbolic representation and realization that he has much work to do to “repair.” At least now he is thinking about danger, the damage he has done, and the damage that has been done to and within him.

He is moving in a different direction. The group opened his “eyes and mind.” He saw himself and his effects upon others (particularly his children). He learned to see others differently and relate to them in a more engaging and reflective manner. Everett made

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83 more direct and empathic connections. At times it was triggered by what others stirred up in him, but what became clearer to him was his vulnerability and responses.

Oh, he was intense, and he was the type of guy he said, if you look at him wrong, he’d sock you one. That’s the type of guy, and immediately I jumped on him, and says, well if you look at me wrong, it’s not going to happen, but I look at you wrong and you sock me one, you’re not going to get up. And you know, he kind of gave me that look of I can’t believe you just said that to me. Jim, I’m not afraid of anybody.

You remind me of me. And you’re weak; you’re very weak. And that just got under his skin even more.

He started to stay things under his breath, and then he started to be vocal, you know, you better shut up, you’re starting to really piss me off, and I just kept on egging him on. I wanted him to get up and hit me. I wanted him to see who he really is. And he didn’t have the balls to get up in that group and do what he said he’s going to do. So, right there, he was scared, he’s a scared young man. He’s afraid of the world; he’s afraid of everything that goes on in the world, and oh, my daddy used to beat me, and my daddy used to do this. Says, well, I never use my dad, but that doesn’t matter. It’s not our dad who’s going to make us who we are: it’s us.

We grow up in certain situations, and it’s possible that may mold us internally, but we still have that final decision on who we are. And again, that’s one of the things. When I said the group broadened my horizons and made me focus more on my life, that’s one of those things that it pulled out. To be in control of yourself and your own actions. And even though he says what he’s gonna do, he wasn’t meaning a damn thing of it. He was a project and I wanted to work on him, but this guy, he was not willing to accept anything. I was getting in there, and I start to call people out, and in doing all of that calling out, A, B, and C, I was really calling myself out. I was calling each one of the people that I triggered with, you know, high voltage here. I was a hothead myself and I wasn’t going to let anybody stand in my way. And I was gonna kick your ass if you got in my way, you know this was my attitude.

So there’s junior Everett here, and then there’s another guy, Jon, where he was more of the, he was vocal, but he was more of the, phht, screw this attitude. And I have that in me too. Call him out on the carpet. And so these people that I was calling out on the carpet and I was really calling out myself, different parts of myself.

I think I was maybe, I was self-medicating, I don’t know. Maybe I was really wanting to call myself out, I’m not sure if that’s why I was doing it or not, but I do know this: I wanted to help . . . by being able to open myself up and get inside and know who I am, that’s what this group has done for me, helped me know who I am, and helped me learn the hidden messages in life if you look at life in a whole new perspective. You know, I’m not gonna say . . . that this group turned around and oh, man, I’m a whole new person, I’m a bom again Christian now. It’s not that good.

[Laughs] You know, the group does its job, but me, I just took more out of it, I think I took more out of this group than the normal.

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84 Everett began to recognize the projective aspects of his relationship. He realized that the actions of others may trigger something in him, and that it needs to pay attention to these things. Jim, a man he referred to as “high voltage,” reminded him of his anger, terror, and a projective identification that he was becoming aware of. He grappled with control and the need to control the self rather than others, to get in touch with what he referred to as the “hidden message in life,” and to get inside himself (“a whole new perspective”). The benefit of the group had a direct impact upon Everett’s wife and children; he learned to communicate more appropriately and effectively with them. He became more educated on what it means to be a parent. He became more aware of the tone he sets in relating to his family and learned to manage his controlling attitudes and behavior. In seeing the patterns he had developed, Everett began to change, another small but significant step forward.

That, Tom, is the key right there. This group has helped me more with my kids than it did with my wife. The only reason I say that, don’t get me wrong, it helped with Penny and I, obviously, we’re still together and, but, uh, to a point, everything has gotten, we still have our ups and downs, we still have our arguments, it’s, we live a normal life now. Just without the insanity if you will. These guys in there, my daughter was not bom yet, Penny was pregnant. Towards the end of the group she was bom. October 26th. But before her, and she plays a key part in this, too. But before Emily was bom, my boys and I, we had a good relationship, but my 14-yearold in there, who I have some problems with, he’s ADHD and on Ritalin and Amy helped me out a lot with this.

I became more of a father than a friend. I was trying to be their friend. You can’t do that with kids. In my opinion, you have to be their parent. You can, you can, you can get as close to being their friend, but the minute you become their friend, you can be overrun . . . as soon as you become their friend, a part of your authority, if you will, at being a parent is gone and only because, on the other side of the fence here, with the kid, they’re looking at you as a friend, not a parent. They’re looking at you as

their buddy across the street, and there’s a whole respect issue and I am very big on respect. I want to make sure that everybody in my house is respectful of each other.

Obviously it doesn’t show. [Laughs] But, um, really helped out with them.

I was able to get some really good insight out of it. I was able to pick up a lot on i t . . . as the group went on and I learned more about myself and learned more about how to deal with these things and identify the warning signs . . . the warning signs,

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85 identifying the warning signs as time went on . . . I wasn’t blowing my top. I wasn’t just going off the handle. I was a little more calm. I would reevaluate the situation and instead of yelling at the kids, yelling at her, I would let you know instead of just going off on you, I would let you know, hey, this bothers me. And here’s some things that we can do to make things better. This is what I would like to see. If you have any ideas, give me some ideas, and we can come to a common medium. And that’s a big change. That’s a big change from I don’t care what you want to say, what you think; don’t say anything, don’t open your mouth, this is the way it’s gonna be. I was a controller. And I still am a controller, but to a different degree now. I can control the situation without going off the handle. I’m not saying I’m looking out to get my own way, but I can control the situation and, more so, it’s controlling myself from being out of control, if that makes any sense.

Finding himself, seeing another perspective, helped him to link his past and present and to expand upon his range of feelings. Everett got in touch with some aspects of guilt, the mistakes he’s made, and the harm he’s done. He was able to do so in the context of relationship with the counselor and then the group. The group helped him to think, engage, and begin to change. He was able to see abuse more distinctly and clearly. He not only got in touch with his feelings, but made empathic and caring connections to others. The concerns and quality of connections are seen as he both relate and reaches out. He’s thinking and empathizing more purposefully.

It helped me know who I really am. It opened up a whole new world for me. It took my life and I was able to reevaluate my life and see the things that I have done, and the things that I’ve done wrong. And it gave me a broader sense, if that makes any sense. I was able to look at everything and not just tunnel vision. I was more focused on the things that I was doing.

Like I said, Amy, she’s a very special person. She knows what she’s doing, and she does it well. She’s a good-hearted person. She cares about the people who walk through that door. And you pick up on that, there’s a good sense of that. And for this type of group to be successful, I think that’s what you need. You need a good-hearted person in there to get to know the people you’re with. We knew each other.

I’m the type of person that wants to impress, put on a good face. Not that I have a bad face underneath. [Laughs] But I want people to be impressed with me, because I want to be impressed with them. My standards are set a little bit higher, and I just wanted to make sure that I was becoming a . . . I wanted them to notice me. I like attention. It’s something that I didn’t get a lot of growing up, so that’s probably what it is. I like the attention, I like to know people and I like them to know me.

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86 Saw a guy who came in here all pissed off, and sees a guy who’s gonna walk out of here with a level head and a clean slate, a good playing field, and I couldn’t have done that if I wouldn’t have allowed myself to do th a t. .. Here’s this guy walking in here, doesn’t want to be here just like the rest of us. He’s a sucker. Here’s a guy who’s been in here and wow, he’s actually talking and making an impact and making valid points or remarks to something somebody else may have said, contributing to the group. Wow, this guy is learning. And I think at the end the group thought I was, you know, a decent guy.

I got along with everybody except for one. Jim, this guy was a kid, he was a hothead . . . he was a genuinely great guy, just a really great guy, but he stumbled across a lot of problems. If there’s anybody who shouldn’t have been there, I think it might have been him. ‘Cause there was no reason for him to be there, in my eyes. He had an argument, if my memory serves me correctly. There was no abuse or domestic battery; it was an argument. But he went through and he lost his job right around Christmastime. I felt so bad for the guy. He didn’t even have a tree, and he was getting down on himself. When you see a grown man start to well up and tear up, and a guy who was as big as this guy, I mean he was built like a brick shithouse. He was huge. He was very, very, what’s the word I’m looking for? Genuine, I guess.

He was a key part in this, wow, there’s really good people out there still. . . but by me changing, by me mellowing out, in turn helped her and she started to change as well. And we changed together.

You know, when you’re married, you’re one person, you’re not two separate people, you’re one person, and that’s a bond that can’t be broken, shouldn’t be broken.

I broke that bond. And now we’re like this again. We’d spread apart. And while going to this group, learning the different techniques to how to deal with certain situations, how to deal with your anger, how to know when you’re starting to get upset, if you can feel it in here. I think over time, Penny saw the changes that I was making and we started to come back together. Twelve years and going strong.

The benefits of the group were apparent in Everett’s relationships. He shifted in the way he thought about himself and others as well as in his capacity to relate. The benefit in his relationship with Penny is that they both found change to be possible, and with hope, found a new set of skills and insights. The experience of being engaged, both in the work of the group, and in their relationship, provided him with a mentalizing opportunity to reflect rather than react. He now better understands himself and others.

He is beginning to recognize and make important connections that consider his history, his family of origin experience, the impact of generational experiences, and that link the effects of alcohol, abuse, and anger to the challenges and needs that he and his family

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87 face. He was able to not only see this in himself but others. He is striving to understand Penny and her background, that how they meet each other’s needs has something to do with the past. He could elaborate upon the confusion and enmeshed roles and boundaries in his family of origin and think about the impact, pain, and cost. The effects of family dysfunction are still evident, but they are somewhat in focus now as Everett is able to think and talk about his identity, connection to others, what he’s feeling and what, at least for a “nanosecond,” is going on in the minds and experiences of others.

Dysfunctional Family It’s either all for one, or one for all. That’s how it is: all for one, or one for all. [Sigh] My uncle Butch, there’s my mom, my aunt, and my uncle, the three children of my grandmother. And then there’s me, I’m her fourth child. My uncle does his own thing; my aunt and my mom can’t stand him. He doesn’t talk to anybody. He’s now living with my mom and my grandmother. He just moved in a couple years ago. His roofing business wasn’t doing so good, so on and so forth. But he doesn’t think of anybody. He really doesn’t. I grew up in a very dysfunctional family, a crazy, crazy family, but I think we all have . . . Oh, I’ve known that for a long time. For a long time. You know, like I told you, my uncle going to college. I thought he was leaving because I went into the toy chest that was in his closet, woke him up and upset him.

Shortly after that, maybe that weekend, or the following week. I guess when I became an adult is when I really noticed everything, to answer your question. Probably, well, got married at 19,1 knew about it then. I became an adult very young . . . .

Splits and Breaks in Generations No. The only contact I’ll have with that side of the family is if something happens and they call me. I won’t call them, I don’t care. I don’t know ‘em, don’t want to know ‘em. I mean, you know, I know ‘em, I love my aunts down there and my cousins and stuff, but they’re all messed up. It’s hard to explain . . . He’s heavy into drugs now, and alcohol. It’s too hard to explain, too many bases to cover. Look, it’s all f-ed up down there. That’s the best way to put it. It’s all f-—ed up . . . .

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88 Links to Penny and Her Background She just found her dad after five, six years. He’s been in and out of alcoholism, and been homeless. He lived under a bridge. But I guess the last couple of years he’s been clean and sober and he’s been staying in a halfway house. She’s trying to find her real parents. Yeah, she’s got some issues. She’s got a lot of issues. She wants to know who she really is. I don’t know. I can’t relate to it. I’m not adopted. The closest I could come to it is my dad once told me that I have a sister in Oklahoma. I don’t know if that’s true or not. I’d like to find out. And if I do have a sister, I’d love to meet her. Hell, that means that I could be an uncle. [Laughs] You know, if I had a sister that would just be awesome. ‘Cause I’m the only child. But, I can relate that much, just a nanosecond of what she’s going through with this whole Oklahoma sister thing. But, I’d love for her to find out, so it puts her mind at ease . . . .

The benefits of the group are seen in Everett’s reflective capacity to think about himself, others, and his intentions. The vicious cycle and patterns of his abusive behavior have been interrupted as he’s developed more adaptive regulating and communication skills and a more virtuous rather than vicious pattern of relating. It is a start, and he is now purposely questioning and exploring, rather than assuming and reacting. He’s taken a monumental step to uncover and repair the impact of his past, particularly the losses that were profound.

This group opened me up in more directions, more than just home. It helped me find me and know what I really want. Not to say that I wouldn’t be still striving to be successful in business, but I think that if the police were not called and I didn’t go through all of this, I’d probably still be doing the same thing. May have been worse, may have hit her by now. May not even be married, could have had a divorce . . . I don’t know if my childhood was necessary for the studies. Not saying, I’m not putting a slam on you, Tom. I’m putting a slam on me, cause I blah, blah, blah, rambled on. And when I get started, I get going. But I think that my personal history ties into, intertwines its way into the group and how things are today . . . It’s got a good, a large connection to everything.

If you do a study on anger in general, or genetics, I think that you’ll find every person today who’s got some anger problems or issues have seen it or heard it in their childhood. Could be a gene that’s passed down. My dad’s a hothead, my grandfather’s a hothead, my grandmother was very passive, but a hothead, a German lady, she’s got it. I got it, I’m a hothead. It’s how you deal with it, how you control.

But uh, yeah, I think the childhood plays a big, significant part in the way we are today. But I also contradict that statement by saying we control our own destiny. We make the choices. It’s just how you deal with them. You know, maybe w e’re

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89 uneducated in how to deal with these problems. That would be my problem, was, I didn’t know how to deal with my inner self, my own anger, and I didn’t know who I was, couldn’t identify that. But remembering my grandfather spitting mashed potatoes across the table, fond childhood memory. You know, that, yelling at my grandmother because I put too much salad dressing on my salad, it was all her fault, it may have triggered the wires. May have rewired me somehow in the brain, to where that gets passed down.

The symbolic representation in Everett’s story at times is uncanny. The associations are subtle and it is not surprising that the drama that took place in the kitchen is another example of the links and parallels between his past and present.

Everett’s story highlights the universal experience and impact of loss. It starts right at the beginning of his life experience and is a thread that ties it together. He was abusive for a reason. The overt and manifest issues are obvious, violent and controlling behavior, the all too familiar power and control dynamics that are rampant and became evident in vicious cycles and patterns. Beyond the surface behaviors of abuse, there are powerful psychological and multi-determined dynamics that need to be addressed and understood. His losses are pervasive, accumulative, and not mourned.

The dark side of domestic violence is seen in misuse of power, abuse, victimization, and violence. Hidden and disguised are the underlying dynamics of oppression, painful experiences, and suffering. Everett was caught in a social context that accentuated a victim’s role, identification with the aggressor, and a desperate search to find himself and rescue his son. Until the incident, he was embedded in an escalating pattern of defeat and relational abuse. He had experiences of loss that may be grieved, but haven’t been mourned or integrated, and he did not know why or how he could move on. The hidden side is that it has affected his relationships. This is evident in his attachment problems. His story illustrates the need to consider a history, a relational

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90 matrix of the past and present, and underlying dynamic possibilities. Everett acts out in subtle ways and acts to reproduce the drama. He gets angry and acts upon this anger at the expense of those he loves. It is difficult to pinpoint the hidden wish and what he has missed, but it has been developed and missed in a relational and attachment matrix and in his social context.

Everett’s story is both unique and representational. It is unique to the subject, but applies to a more collective understanding of the impact of loss and melancholia. In his story (and in every one o f the subjects’ stories) there lies a hidden wish and need that lie in a relationship. The need is for understanding and care— somebody who will know and care for them, who will help them with their hurt and confusion about their experience, and who will provide help when it is needed most. Everett grew up thinking that his experiences were normal. Everett has not been able to metabolize his experience because he has not had this connection in a previous relationship. The essential components of his experience are only recently being brought into focus, both in his mind and in the minds of others. As his loss and other aspects of his psychological and relational experience are considered and addressed, he is able to engage in relationships and have more humanizing experiences.

There is both logic and resistance to understanding Everett and his experience.

His violence and abuse is not random; they are determined by more than situational events. Beyond the labels, there are true and deep dynamics that have a historical significance and complex problems that have a historical discourse.

It is not surprising that alcohol was involved in the abusive incident. It is involved in his search and it is a generational transmission evident by experiences that

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link his past and present, like the incident when his grandmother hit him over the head with a vodka bottle. It is not random that he works in the field of safety and worries about it with his children— and that it appears as a misplaced vigilance. The interlocking themes of loss, abandonment, adaptations, searching and being lost, being found, and forming patterned relationships fraught with symbolic meanings are woven throughout his story. Family fractures and chaos, dysfunction and generational confusion, schizoid adaptations, isolation and the hunger for relationships are all there, grounded in experience that has logic. Everett has plenty of object relatedness. It is the quality of the relatedness—he hungers for an object that he has not had and has not quite known how to mediate without being controlling. To look closely at Everett means to look at ourselves and our humanity. This will put us in touch with that which we may prefer not to know or think about: pain, suffering and experiences of oppression and victimization.

Everett’s story is a drama in which events happen repeatedly. In his search, he rescued and took care of his son, accepted his paternity in a way his mother could not.

This is the paradox in his experience. His identification with Telemachus provides a way to search for himself. The identification and connection within the group is a relational shift that helped him to metabolize his experience, to remember rather than repeat, and to find himself in another and in a better way than he has. The group has provided an opening. He found himself in other people. He had not quite understood that his violence has something to do with his history, but he is now faced with the choice and the challenge to think, to feel, to understand, to relate, to mourn, to strive, to seek, and to find.

The vicious cycles and entrenched patterns have been interrupted, and he may be able to make and use the insights he has developed and the potential and capabilities he has.

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92 Everett now has the opportunity to mentalize, metabolize, and reconfigure the quality of his relationship and the attachments that make up his relational matrix, his social context.

Everett’s story represents the interlacing of loss and melancholia and the human experience of being lost to disruptions, transgressions, transgenerational experiences, alcohol addictions, and the consequences of abuse.

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93

CHAPTER V

GOLLUM: THE ORPHANED TOY

My mother kept telling me that the orphanage is coming, packing up my clothes in a plastic bag and locking me outside the house . . . it went on for years . . . my mother choking my father with a nylon . . . I don’t remember how old I was. I don’t know if that was the first thing I recall or n o t . . . I remember getting locked out of the house, my mom and dad went somewhere, my sister and brother must have went, too, and they couldn’t find me, I was roaming the neighborhood, so they left, and there was a hammer outside, and I sat out there and beat on the door with a hammer. I left 100 marks on the door. I tried to get in, thought they were just not letting me into the house.

— Gollum A complete dehumanization, a Verdinglischung, a thingification, an objectification of the masses of people. They were transformed from being persons into being objects of working power which could be bought. They had to sell themselves in order to survive. The quarters in which they lived were not slums in the modem sense, but they were bare of anything human. I remember my horror when I went into the living quarters . . . and saw the kind of dehumanized existence these people endured.

—Tillich, 1972

Paul Tillich is the first person credited with introducing the concept of thingification.

Martin Luther King, Jr. frames the concept as “nobodiness” as he applies it to slavery and the Civil Rights movement. Gollum’s story is one that individualizes, personalizes, and humanizes this concept of dehumanization. His story is one of thingification, the experience of being treated like a thing and then relating that experience to the self and others. His story illustrates the complementary concepts of Tillich and King and demonstrates a painful presentation of dehumanization and reification. It is a pervasive

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94 and predominant dynamic that stands out in his childhood experiences and his adult relationships and expectations.

Thingification is both a process and an experience of being dehumanized. It detaches us from our humanity and allows us to treat others as inanimate objects in cruel, malicious, and negligent ways. It is a singular set of happenings that can have a cumulative effect. Thingification can vary greatly in degree and come to dominate the way people treat each other. It is based upon experiences that become patterns of expectation. For Gollum, it shaped his identity and the quality of his relationships.

Gollum, like Everett, has a history of loss. Gollum’s loss his deeply affected his psychic worth and security. He was socialized in a family where all members were treated in inhumane ways and as inanimate objects. His story highlights how experiences shape and become patterns of expectations, and how repetitive patterns develop and can recur over time. His original condition, the treat of abandonment and the need to protect and defend himself, continues to frame and define how he thinks and tends to relate to others and himself. Without realizing, he mediates his social world through thingification. It frames his expectations in how he sees the world and protects himself from danger.

Gollum met with me on two occasions in my office after his group counseling session. He was eager and open and hungry to talk, but his story was more about being engaged, listened to, and heard. The group provided him with painful realizations and unpleasant feelings such as disgust. He was now more in touch with himself. He was being “weaned� from the group and did not want to leave his therapist. He thought that participating in this study would be another step forward. He agreed to participate because he believed that he had greatly benefited from the group counseling program and

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95 he valued the experience and relationship with his therapist. He felt that his participation in this study could help him understand himself and others to understand themselves.

This sense of giving seemed to be a newly found behavior, and a new insight. He talked about not caring and being disinterested in other people, preferring to be alone. Despite the defensive and gruff exterior, he came across as longing, yearning, and deeply wanting a human connection and an understanding relationship. Gollum’s loneliness and the pain of not having others who paid attention or noticed his distress was compelling. As we ended the interview, he told me that any time I wanted him to come back or if I needed more information, to let him know. He was inviting me to invite him back in.

Gollum is a 40-year-old Caucasian male. He has been married for 14 years and has two stepsons who are in their mid-20s (he is not quite sure of their ages) and two daughters, ages 12 and 11. He grew up in an intact family in a western suburb of Chicago with three siblings: an older brother, who he thinks was three years older, and who died tragically when Gollum was 18, and one older and one younger sister. He has a degree in mechanical engineering and works in management for a chemical company.

He is quintessentially an engineer and fits the stereotype: he takes up a mechanical way of living his life and relating to others. Gollum occasionally drinks socially. No alcohol or substance use was involved in any of the domestic violence incidents that led to his involvement with this study. Alcohol and drug abuse are deeply embedded in his family history, but he either minimizes and dismisses the impact or just does not see it. He is currently on Lexapro for depression and continues in the abuser treatment program. He is involved in marriage counseling and a parenting skills program.

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96 Gollum volunteered to attend the abuser treatment group after being referred by a counselor who became alarmed at the domestic violence that occurred towards his wife in the winter of 2004 and incidents in which he got frustrated and physically assaulted his daughter. Gollum notes that he was at the end of his rope and needed help. Voluntarily seeking help was a preventative move on his part that kept DCFS from opening a case.

DCFS was called and took the report. Gollum describes the incident: My youngest daughter, Allison, was forging signatures, her mother’s signatures on school documents instead of bringing them home. This was found out at parentteacher conferences. She was told that it was unacceptable, and she did it a couple more times, and then one day, normally I’m off to work first and my wife’s up dealing with the kids before she goes to work . . . one day . . . she left before me. I was up before the kids left for school, and my daughter asked me to sign a document indicating that she had not done her homework or something like that. When she gave it to me, I could see my wife’s signature, forged signature on it, and then scratched out, and I got angry and was asking her why she would do it. She wouldn’t give me an answer and I finally got frustrated and I slapped her upside the head and took my belt off and gave her two whacks with the belt and kicked her in the rear end and went off to work a few minutes later. And when she went to school, she talked to a counselor.

Counselor saw the welts from the belt buckle, ‘cause I tried to hit her on the rear end, but she moved and I got her on the back, and reported me to DCFS. At the time that this happened, my wife and I were seeking counseling because I have had some domestic violence issues with my wife, and we informed our counselor at the time what was going on, and she wasn’t comfortable handling us anymore because it wasn’t her area of expertise, and suggested that I see a psychiatrist by the name of Bemie. She had known about Dennis’s program and suggested I go to Dennis, so, I followed her recommendation.

This was a very bad incident, although it probably didn’t scare me as much as it scared my daughter, it scared me a lot. I was at the end of my rope, basically and needed help with, and I got into the program and wanted to be in the program, and since I was in it, when DCFS did their investigation, they found no reason to open a case file, although they did find an incident of child abuse, there was a finding against me, but they didn’t have to open a case because I was voluntarily seeking treatment.

Why I agreed to it? Um, I don’t know, honestly, tell you, Dennis asked me to do it. I’ve benefited greatly from his group, he asked me as a favor as somebody who’s participated in his group to assist you. I’ve come to terms with my behavior and have continually worked to correct it and change it. If I can help anybody in understanding any of this, then we’re all for the better, I guess.

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97 Gollum makes human contact and connections in this experience, and this becomes a strategic turning point. He has seen his behavior and that of other men in the group, and this has the effect of making abuse real to him. He is now able to look more closely at himself, understand abuse and his physical signs of losing control, and to think about other people. His movement from where he began to what he has come to realize is dramatic. Gollum significantly benefited from his group experience. His most noticeable benefit was to engage with others and recognize that he has a problem. He improved his capacity to think more reflectively.

Number one, you get to see your behavior and that’s things that you haven’t done, done by other people and it has the effect of making it real, whereas you do it and you can justify it for one reason and another, but when you hear somebody else say that they hit their wife or they hit their kid and this is what they did, and when somebody else said it, it sounds asinine. It sounds crazy, and then you realize that you do the same thing. So, you were able to see it more than just by looking at yourself. But there’s many different things that Dennis and the other people in the group render, you know, daily life experiences and how they handle things and stressful situations, Dennis brings in a lot of handouts by Gottman and other people to help us explain behavior, look for physical signs of when we’re going to lose control, thinking about other people, how to deal with people, how to eliminate self-talk, numerous, numerous things. And in addition to Dennis’s program, I also am under the direction of Bemie . . . I do take Lexapro, so I started a medical treatment at this time, too, about a year ago. I’m not 100% cured, but I’m a lot better off than I used to be, so.

Gollum felt something in the group that helped him to deal with his sense of aloneness.

He developed skills to self-monitor, and even more significantly, the insight that he was “selfish, controlling, and an abuser.” He learned how to better communicate, to calm himself when upset, and to clarify things before acting. The benefit of the group was that it allowed him to understand more about what was going on in his mind by first seeing

himself in others. It occurred with a social context. He reports feeling “appalled, disgusted with my own behavior . . . [the group] gives me an opportunity to think .. . . ” It was as if a mirror were held up in front of him. It was his disgust that got his attention.

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98 “I was just appalled, and then I realized that I did the exact same thing. It was kind of, it was one of those memorable points there, and then about two or three sessions in, I remember feeling just so disgusted with my own behavior .. .

The most significant and

painful realization was that he saw himself as “an abuser.”

I was an abuser, both physically and verbally. I was controlling, I never saw myself as being controlling. I had many feelings such as inadequacy and others that I wouldn’t talk about and it would end up manifesting itself as violent. Throwing, yelling and pushing and many different, many different things showed up.

Gollum’s story details a history of multiple forms of victimization, abuse, and violence. It the basis of his victim mindset. He grew up in a violent and dysfunctional family atmosphere. He was repeatedly threatened with rejection and abandonment, abused by his parents, and dominated and assaulted by his brother. Gollum came to think that his experiences and expectations were normal. The injurious past—the mean, cruel, and dehumanizing experiences that underlie the patterns of his expectation—are repeated in his treatment of others. Though the process of thingification, violence, and abuse has had a persistent presence in his life history. Gollum is detached from it. The price of being alone has been costly. Gollum seems to have accepted his victimization and abuse as acts of self-preservation. His agency, sense of identity, and relationships with others have been shaped by abuse and violence. The derivatives are seen in his behavior. He can detail events and yet he does not connect the effects, or meaning upon himself or others. He has accepted his victimization and perpetration with little sense of how his past experiences are reenacted and his present relationships impacted. Gollum’s is a

story of thingification, an account of a persistent and chronic state of emotional violence that strikes at the core of his identity. Gollum’s difficulty in relating to others is rooted in his relationship with his parents.

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99 My father, in my opinion, is very submissive, and my mother is very dominant. My mother can be very mean and nasty and say the nastiest things, and then be very nice.

My father was left to be the disciplinarian, but I think that later in life I learned that I think he did it just ‘cause it was easier to deal with us than to deal with her. But my ma and dad fought, we’ve seen some fights when we were kids, and there was one time when my mother took us all in the car and said we were leaving, and all of us wanted to stay with my father, and none of us wanted to go with her, ‘cause we were all young kids at the time. Maybe I was less than 10 years old at the time, so. But that’s just the way she is. She’s very controlling and dominating, selfish, which is probably where I get my traits from.

The scarring effects of the physical abuse Gollum encountered are the dynamically embedded injuries that define his psychic reality. He describes the horror and traumatic events of frightening memories as a child.

I remember getting my mouth washed out ‘cause I said ‘shit’ one time. That’s it.

When I was bad, my mother used to pack my clothes up in a plastic, in a paper bag and throw them out on the front porch and lock me out on the front porch and I’d sit there and cry and scream and bang on the door for an hour until she let me back in, so, that was probably considered abuse . . . being locked outside the house, telling me the orphanage was coming for me . . . It went on for years, I’m sure.

Gollum has internalized the bad. The repeated and real experience of being discarded and orphaned is psychic annihilation. In his experience, he came to feel the bad is both in him and around him. He believes that he deserved the abuse he endured.

Oh, I’m sure I was a handful. I mean, yeah, I, couldn’t remember what I’d done. I’ve thought about doing it to my kids at times, but I never have. I’m sure it happened for a reason, not just ‘cause she had a bad day. It was something that I’d done, I’m sure . . . We had a cat-o’-nine tails when we were kids, a strap that was split into nine pieces. We’d get hit with that or a belt. We said something bad we’d get our mouth washed out with soap. Getting spanked was not an uncommon occurrence when we misbehaved. I don’t ever remember getting spanked for no reason. I’m sure every time that we got it, we probably deserved it.

The danger Gollum experienced is not just in his mind, but evident in real external

realities. The danger, violence, and loneliness in his social world, his family, was routine.

Other memorable events that give shape to the patterns of his expectations and worldview

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100 are meaningful, familiar repetitions and symbolic representations that later become the basis for reenactments.

Fights between them? Yeah, I remember seeing my mother choking my father. I remember being pissed off that he’d let her do it. He didn’t fight back. He’d just let her go off and do her own thing.

When came home drunk, she’d throw frying pans. I remember the stove being dented from her throwing frying pans. I don’t ever remember him being violent or aggressive towards her. It could have happened; I just don’t ever remember seeing it.

I remember my mother choking my father with a nylon when I was a kid. I don’t know how old I was. I don’t know if that was the first thing I can recall or not. I remember getting locked out of the house. My mom and dad went somewhere, my brothers and sisters must have went, too, and they couldn’t find me. I was roaming the neighborhood, so they left and they locked the house. I came home, nobody was home, and there was a hammer outside, and I sat out there and beat on the door with the hammer. I left about 100 hammer marks on the door. I tried to get in, thought that they were just not letting me in the house.

The meaning of these experiences are frozen and encapsulated in his subjective experience. He has internalized them and defines himself accordingly. Gollum repeats rather than remembers. The mean and nasty things he has experienced in his family and now in his life are doled out to others. Throughout his development, he has come to relate to others in familiar patterns that he became accustomed to.

I was always into mischief, always off on my own, doing whatever I wanted to do, hunting snakes and catching crayfish, building things and I didn’t get into a lot of trouble, but I managed to get into some trouble. I was never a mean kid. I didn’t like to fight at all, got my butt kicked a couple of times, learned quickly that I wasn’t a fighter. I’m just sure I was a handful. I remember throwing a tizzy fit because my mom and dad wouldn’t let me get shrimp at a restaurant, so I went and sat in the car, didn’t have dinner, ‘cause I couldn’t have shrimp. It was my way or the highway.

Oh, I’d say nasty things. People’d make me mad, I’d give them a tongue lashing that maybe deep down inside I meant, but maybe shouldn’t be said, or just said to hurt people. I don’t ever think I hit my mother, but she pulled my hair once when I was a teenager, and I grabbed her hand and told her that if she ever did it again, she’d be sorry. You know, I was a handful. My father and I have been in some knock-down, drag-out fights before, when I was younger. I’m guessing eighth grade, junior high, high school, that time frame, a young adolescent.

I was a selfish person. When I didn’t get my way, I let people know about it. I’ve always been that way, when I was a kid, I was always in trouble. I was always into mischief or doing fighting with the family, not outside.

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101

Gollum describes himself as selfish, but does not know how to change. He hurts others as he has been hurt, giving tongue-lashings and getting into knock-down, drag-out fights. This is his way of surviving in his family. He has come to believe that he was trouble and had done something to deserve the abuse. The meaning of the events, not just the events themselves, have thingified him and affected his capacity to relate to others and to mentalize. He does not see the impact others have had upon him, or how he affects them. He has been socialized in a family where abuse was the norm. His identity and world view were shaped by his relationships and experiences. They are distorted by his perceptions and identification. He has internalized, taken in the bad, and come to thingify both himself and others.

The sense of confusion weighs heavily in his mind, yet he does not connect how the impact of his early life experiences within his family of origin affects his life today.

Given that he also has not had anyone to help him to sort out his experiences and feelings or think differently. Defensively, he protects himself from thinking about and linking his past and present experiences to current patterns and expectations. These are aspects and characterizations of poor mentalization. Gollum simplifies this as a matter of poor selfcontrol and temper tantrums, as he is blinded and missing the impact of exposure to violence. He was left alone to make sense of a dangerous and confusing world. In many ways, he is still confused.

I don’t know the context of much root causes, but to me, root cause is the underlying cause for whatever it is that caused the problem. And 10 times out of 10 what caused the problem is my controlling, my wanting to be a certain way, my selfishness. I wasn’t getting my way and I’d argue and argue until the point where I was like a child who threw a temper tantrum and got what I wanted, and then after that everything was fine. Fine with me, not fine with other people, so in talking with Dennis, I guess there’s root causes to my behavior, that might be my mother being dominant and my

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102 father being submissive and you know, if there was some, although I don’t think there was a lot, or excessive violence. We as children were spanked, mouths washed out with soap, threatened. Things I guess were different 30 years ago than they are today.

So, you know, I don’t necessarily blame my parents, but yet, you learn from that so, you know, the root cause to my behavior probably stems somewhere in there, but I don’t want to push that off on everybody else. The burden and responsibility of my behavior falls on me. I can’t blame it on my parents. I can’t blame it on other people.

It’s mine to deal with.

Gollum cannot see the effects of the abuse and how it may have shaped his thinking and personality. Despite a history of horrific assaults, he denies, minimizes, and distorts his experience. He is blinded to and defended against considering the pain of his past.

He continues to discount and dismiss his experience; left to his own “freakin’ devices,” he treats himself and others as things.

As an adult thinking back, I can’t see what that would be. That’s one of the hardest things I had with treatment to date, is that everybody wants to put that back on the family. That’s your nurturing, or whatever, that you’re brought up with, and I understand that, and I can see a lot of that, but I don’t see it, maybe I’m just, maybe I’m just completely off base, but I don’t see that as being the case for me, or being so prevalent that it would have formed my personality. You know, I didn’t get beat every day, I didn’t get beat every week, I didn’t get beat every month, I don’t even think I got beat. I mean, I got slapped with a belt or my mouth washed out with soap or something like that, and personally I think I’m the better for it because when I got it, I did something that deserved it. I didn’t get it for coming home late or anything like that, you know. So I have a hard time accepting that, although I do accept it by default, but if I try and reason it out, look back at my childhood, as a rational adult, saying, I was never sexually abused. The closest thing to emotional abuse that I could come to, which today would probably be a big flag, is my mother telling me that the orphanage is coming, packing my clothes up in a plastic bag, and locking me outside the house, so.

Without a doubt, I mean, obviously it was, because here I am 39, and I recall it vividly happening on multiple occurrences. But do I think that that was such a point that it could have formed my behavior as it is now? I don’t see it, but I’m not a mental health professional, but, but looking back at what you’re saying, is there anything that, could there have been something that inherent in the upbringing that affected my sister and myself to, my brother with drugs and, frankly I don’t see it, I really don’t. Maybe it was that we didn’t have enough parenting because my mother and father, worked all the time and, and we were left to our own freakin’ devices.

Maybe that’s the abuse right there, I don’t know. I mean today that certainly wouldn’t be tolerated, or looked highly upon. At a very young age, I mean, third, fourth grade, I’d go four blocks down, I’d go catch snakes and crayfish and play on

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103 the railroad tracks, and do shit. I would never let my kids do that stuff, but we were allowed to do that because my parents worked.

In examining Gollum’s early family relationship, the confusion abounds within these relationships and within his mind. His view of himself and others; his capacity to tolerate, manage, express, and reflect upon affect; and his ability to care and see himself and others as fully human all underlie the difficulties he has today. The thingification of himself and others is a problem of relationships and a failure of mentalization. He has some sense of the identification and the residual effects of loss, abuse, and disappointments, but he cannot link or make deep or dynamic connections about his social world and mental state.

In, in terms of my anger problems? Honestly, I don’t know, I really don’t. I mean, I’ve seen some violence and I’ve experienced some violence, but to this day I have a hard time rationalizing that that’s the reason for the way that I am, instead of just not having the coping skills to deal with things, you know. Certainly my mother was very aggressive and if she didn’t get what she wanted, she got loud. Well, somebody could say that’s why I’m like that. My father was submissive. I feel he’s submissive in the relationship and I don’t like that. I love my father a lot, and I admire him, and I, I strive to be with him, like him, ‘cause I think he’s great, but in a way I don’t respect him, that part of him. He lets somebody else push him around sometimes, but that probably comes from my mother’s influence on me, is not having that done.

He is blinded to his experience, is confused, and copes poorly with the residual effects of his experience of thingification. Lost to Gollum was the sight and sense of his humanity. Psychological abuse and violence strike at the core of Gollum’s sense of safety, identity and self. It’s a defining characteristic of how he mediates his life today.

By the time he got through adolescence, Gollum spent a lifetime living in a state of confusion and misery. He only recently became aware of the chronic state of melancholia that he has experienced and the pervasive state of depression that came to label and characterize his life.

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104 I think I’ve always known that I’ve been depressed. Ever since probably sixth grade, I can remember feeling down in the dumps and feeling that way for long periods of time . . . and I never thought of myself as being depressed, but looking back on it, yeah, I was always miserable. I was miserable about girls liking me, or disliking me, people disliking me, being fat, being unpopular, being stupid. I was always depressed.

Gollum is only now able to begin to recognize his misery. Unaddressed painful dehumanizing experiences, loss, tragedy, trauma, environmental impingements, assaults, deprivations, parental abuse, neglect, and failure have all had an impact upon him and contributed to his confusion. Mentalizing Gollum as human means understanding the orphaned toy who was routinely locked out of the house with a bag of clothes and told that the orphanage was coming for him. By humanizing him and the problems that underlie his difficulties and shape his social experience today, Gollum is no longer thingified.

Relationships Gollum’s family relationships are hostile, conflicted, abusive, belligerent, and controlling. Missing are warm and caring relationships in which he would have felt safe, known, wanted, and loved. Consequently, the pattern of his experience has become expectation. His current relationships lack the attributes and qualities of warmth, concern, and care. Gollum’s relationships to himself and others are rigid, wooden, and brittle. He considers himself to be controlling, self-centered, selfish, and self absorbed. People are bothersome, annoying, and inconsequential. The identifications and residual effects of these relationships are distinct, but not thoughtfully considered. His identification with his mother as dominant, controlling, and aggressive is seen in statements made by him.

“I’m selfish, I’m dominating, I’m controlling . . . I can be violent. .. like my mother.”

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105 In reference to his father, the inadequacy and disappointment gleams through.

I love my dad . . . I don’t know, I would love to be like my dad, let’s put it that way.

Probably the only thing I don’t like about my dad is I think he’s too submissive.

There were times he’d just succumb to what my mother wanted.

His experience of having a tyrannical mother who could be nice at times and a submissive father who punished his children because it was an easier than standing up to his wife or protecting them are deeply embedded identifications and dynamically significant. Gollum is entrenched in denial. He refuses to accept his father’s alcoholism.

The destruction goes beyond the emotional abuse and assault and leads to a psychologically deadening state. The quality of the relationships and the emotional tone and atmosphere within this family underscores the depth of confusion that Gollum grew up with. He does not quite know how to love and care, communicate, or cope with conflict or needs without a tantrum. He does not have a clear sense of boundaries and when they are violated.

Like I said, my mother, very controlling, loves gossip, needs to know all the gossip.

She exaggerates everything, but she cares for all of us, and we’ve always found that she loved us, and she might not have shown things in the right way, or the best way, but we always knew it. Um, she’s strong, very strong, she’s owned her own businesses and wasn’t afraid to take risks and do things and be independent. I can classify her as a good, pretty good businesswoman. My father’s a hard worker, relatively soft spoken, and generally does not like conflict. I remember him specifically telling me at times that it was just easier to spank us or to deal with us, yell at us, and punish us than deal with my mother, so, he can be submissive. He’d get mad, I mean, we’d go to the mall, and my mother’d say she’ll be out in 10 minutes and an hour and a half later she’d come walking out, my dad could be furious over stuff. My dad can drink, although I wouldn’t classify him as an alcoholic. But he’s been known to get drunk here and there, but not on a regular basis.

I guess the only one I would see is with my mother. Um, losing her temper, getting nasty when she didn’t get what she wanted, that stands out the most, but I think I’m much more severe than my mother was, just, that’s my perception.

I think my response to not getting my way, not having whatever my selfish needs might be at the time where I would blow up and break things or hit somebody and get my way was, I think it’s just more severe. It’s just the magnitude of it is greater than what I recall the extent my mother went to, but it’s a recollection that’s, 30 years ago,

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106 time heals all wounds. I don’t know if I’m recalling things accurately or not. It’s just what I can recall.

Gollum is confused by both his mother and his father. The entrenched state of denial most glaringly comes through as another aspect that underlies the abusive atmosphere and the concomitant problems of alcohol and substance abuse. They are devastating experiences and emotional aspects of Gollum’s experience that he cannot fathom. There is a problematic generational component and even when his father claims he is an alcoholic, Gollum dismisses and discounts it. Embedded in his family history are drug and alcohol abuse and physical violence.

My father claims that he’s an alcoholic, that he cannot handle his alcohol, is what he says. I recall my father coming home drunk, never abusive or anything like that. I’ve heard stories about him coming home drunk when I was, you know, when I was younger, but I don’t remember seeing a lot of it. So I don’t ever remember. My ma drinks wine now, she probably drank back then, but I don’t remember her drinking.

My grandfather drank beer, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him drunk. My m a’s brothers drink, and I’ve seen them drunk before. I was up in my bedroom asleep and I could hear them drinking, loud, laughing, you could totally tell that they were all drunk. But alcoholism and stuff like that, I don’t think so. I don’t even think my father’s an alcoholic; he just gets drunk.

The collateral problem of alcohol and drug abuse is entrenched in his family. With his brother, alcohol and drug use are interwoven with the violence and abuse that is directed towards him, and yet Gollum thinks this is “normal sibling stuff.” The confusion, volatility, and the premature loss in his brother’s death are traumatic. His brother’s use and abuse is another critical aspect to understanding Gollum’s experience. When Gollum was 18, his brother was intoxicated, involved in a hit-and-run accident, and killed.

He came home from eighth grade one time totally blasted, he told my mom and dad that he found a six pack of beer on the railroad tracks. He sat down and drank it down.

He couldn’t open the frigging door. He just fell right into it. My mom and dad tried to deal with it. He started smoking pot, my mom and dad never smoked pot that I ever knew about, but my dad would let him grow little plants in the house. I don’t think that he was happy with it, but he figured, well, if he’s going to do something, that’s

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107 probably the least of them that I need to worry about. I remember him coming in the house and babbling something about getting shot up with heroin and I was at a friend’s house. My brother was there with my friend’s brother, and I think they were doing coke. He just had that weakness in his personality that he fell for it, I guess. I never, I mean I tried pot, was interested, but never stuck with it, never quite required the taste for alcohol. I’ll have a beer or a drink a couple times a year, but not much more than that. I can’t sit at home and drink a beer. I got to be out at a restaurant or a social engagement to enjoy that.

[Sighs] Well, he was very dominating and he was more muscular than me and he was older than me, so I got picked on quite a bit. He had problems with drugs and alcohol. When he was older and he wasn’t drinking, he was very pleasant to be around. I enjoyed him. My father and my brother and I would all go out hunting and stuff, and it was pretty good memories, but when he drank and got into drugs it was not good. There were fights with my brother and my father and police being called to the house. It was never real good, real friendly relationship, you know. He and I shared the same bedroom for the entire time we were growing up, so, I certainly didn’t hate him and stuff like that. To me it was a typical brother-brother relationship. Just my perception.

I don’t know what his problems were. He had issues, alcohol abuse and drug abuse, and stuff. I don’t know what drove him to that point. He was a tough guy, he was muscular and hung. He hung around with some rough crowds at times, that I think kind of formed some o f his personality, and he could be mean, he could be nice, but he could be mean. He’d beat you up. He shot me six times with a pellet gun in the stomach. But other times he was great to be around, you know, it was just, I can’t explain it, he didn’t, he didn’t live long enough for me to be mature enough, or him to be mature enough to, to talk about anything, find out what, what was there, to me it was just normal sibling stuff.

I would not want to get into a physical confrontation, he would kick my ass, absolutely, absolutely. That’s the last thing I would do. I remember one time he, he came home drunk, and it was just about time to go to work, he was a pipe-fitter, and he told my father he wasn’t going to get up and go to work, and my dad got really mad at him, that he was so. He was going to get up and go to work, if he wanted to live in his house that he needed to get up and go to work. My brother got up and started fighting with him, and I had to get out of bed and help my father hold him down until the Cook County police showed up. I wouldn’t have done something like that on my own. It took two of us to handle him.

He was hit by a truck. He was drunk and driving and ran his car off the road and appears to have gotten up on the road to hitchhike or something, and got hit by a truck.

We assume it was a hit and run.

It was very hard on my mother and father. I remember my sister waking me up, I don’t know what time it was, maybe two, three, four in the morning, and my younger sister woke me up and told me that my brother had been in an accident and that my mom and dad were going to the hospital, and I remember getting up out of bed and looking out the window and seeing two state troopers in the driveway. And I actually said out loud, that son o f a bitch got killed, and I went back to bed. My older sister was in a car wreck when I was in eighth grade, a bad one, she broke both her legs and

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108 her arm and she missed two, three years of high school, I don’t remember how much, and I remember I answered the phone when that call came, and it was the hospital calling, saying that there was an accident, and stuff like that, I knew that, so when the state troopers came in the driveway, I kind of figured it was not good. So that went over hard . . . It was just a very surreal. It was a bad day. But, it’s a long time ago.

Gollum’s experiences and family relationships have been deeply scarring and confusing to him. He was violently abused by his brother, yet sees the relationship as a “typical brother-brother relationship.” One traumatic experience after another chronicle Gollum’s early life experiences. Absent is a sense of subtlety or warmth and soothing, protective relationships. He is missing a secure attachment to others, to anyone who could help him to understand and talk about himself or his experiences. He lacked a secure figure in his life to address the hurt, pain, or confusion and provide him with help when he needed it. The violence and abuse is chronic and patterned and has both deep structure and dynamics. When asked about positive experiences and relationships in his childhood, he identifies a benevolent and positive relationship and fond memories of his childhood. But even here, the sense of impoverishment and tragedy bleeds through.

A man by the name of John, he was my first employer. He also committed suicide. I worked for an ice cream parlor in Palos Park by the name of the Plush Horse, started there in eighth grade, scooping ice cream, weeding, anything I could. I wanted a snowmobile, and, ‘cause my father couldn’t afford to buy one, I got a job and I worked as hard as I could until I got a snowmobile, and I never stopped. And John, he hired kids, local kids, great man. As great as my father, really, if I can have anybody else as a father, I would take that guy. But there was a young kid there just graduated, just about to graduate dental school, and he hung himself. And then John, years later, was diagnosed with some type of cancer, is what I heard, or something, and he went home on Sunday morning, I was the last person to see him, and he went and jumped in front of a cement truck about a mile from where my .. . That was tough, but when I think about him, I don’t think about that, I think of all the things he taught m e....

My ma and dad bought a house in Palos Park. When we lived around Midway Airport, in Westlawn area, we had a dirt cheap, it was abandoned for seven years, and kids went in there and had parties, busted out all the walls, had bonfires in the bathtub, just trashed the place, and my ma and dad bought it, spent a year fixing it up, and every weekend we’d spend there, fixing the house up, and it was usually me and my

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109 dad, maybe my brother was there, but it was always me and my dad. I enjoyed that.

That was a good time.

Even in his fondest memory, the symbolism of abandonment and the longing and hungering for relationships and warmth stand out. The glaring illustration of how he was regularly threatened with abandonment is elaborated upon as he defines the pleasure of fixing up an abandoned life/house. His emotional wounds are more deeply scarring than the cat-o’-nine tails were. He has made little sense of traumas, losses, and crises; consequently, isolation is his defense. It keeps him detached from others.

He has not conceptualized grief, loss, or mourning and is inoculated to his feelings. “I remember people dying and stuff like that, but I wasn’t affected by them as . . . I don’t know if I conceptualized . . . could relate to it. I don’t remember crying or grieving...” Even in the midst of a horrific trauma, the death of his brother, Gollum is detached from his affect and cut off from others. He has “never been to the grave other than the day we buried him.” He has a victim’s mindset and has come to accept the abuse. In having done so, he treats himself and others just like things. He does not value his own mental state or experiences, see much worth in himself, or understand that he is abusive and that he has been abused.

Calamities Persist in Adulthood Injuries that have occurred over his lifetime have been dehumanizing and are now being enacted and repeated with him self and others. Gollum still struggles alone with his

sense of inadequacy and self worth. Whenever he gets into a relationship, the repetitive quality emerges. He is confused by love and intimacy and is overwhelmed by stress and his capacity to cope.

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110 I think there was a little bit of it on both sides. I remember what I think was the first time that we were coming back from a wedding and she was mad at me so she started punching me in the arm or something like that. I’d just about had enough of it and punched her back in the arm. Unfortunately, my punch is a lot stronger than her punches. I left a big bruise on her arm. We’d get into some, some pretty heated arguments and stuff like that. She threw her keys at me one time and hit me in the face. I chased her down and I didn’t hit her, but I threatened her pretty good. I don’t know what it was all about. It was my inability to tolerate what she was dishing out.

Probably a lot of it was how dare she hit me, hauling off on me, and I’d just had enough o f it. It wasn’t a frequent occurrence, but it did happen. I can only think of two times that it happened, those two times, but it, it was the only times.”

I was in college, debating if I was going to stay there. Didn’t know if I had what it took to be an engineer. My girlfriend and I were having a little bit of a tough time.

There was a little bit of violence even with her at that age, and she got mad at me one time and threw keys at me and hit me in the head with them and I went after her and I didn’t hit her, but I came close. I grabbed her and told her if she ever did it again that she’d be sorry. But in any event, I went to go visit her brother, just as a break from school, on spring break, or whenever it was, I don’t remember, um, just to get away.

Her brother lived in South Carolina. He was married and had three kids. I went down there to help him, told him I’d help him paint his house or do whatever he needed done around the house. He lived on limited means and things were tough for them, so he was working a lot, but I went down there and within days his wife started hitting on me. He was violent towards her, beat her up and forced her into having a lot of sex, and wanted more kids, and she was having problems with childbirth. And dummy me as a teenager kind of falling for it, we were kissing and stuff like that, nothing else, but at the end of it I just didn’t know what to do, you know, didn’t know how to deal with it, didn’t know how I was going to deal with it coming back home. This woman was talking about getting a divorce and being with me, here I am a 20-year-old kid in college. I couldn’t deal with that shit. I swallowed a bottle of allergy pills. They arrested me and took me to the hospital.

Sure, I didn’t know how to handle what was happening to me. It was strange. I mean, at one point, here I am, I’m a thousand miles from home, going through a lot of stress at college, trying to determine if I can hack it or I can’t hack it, do I need to be here, do I need to find something else to do for a living, going there and having this woman tell me that her husband beats her and forces her to have sex every night and stuff like that. She starts hitting on me ‘cause I’m, I guess empathetic to what she may be going through, and, and there, there was obviously the thrill of having an older woman hitting on me. Then she started talking about leaving her husband and going with me, and you know, I’m in fucking college. What am I going to do with you and two kids, and how am I going to explain this whole situation to anybody, and it was

information overload. I short circuited. I’ve never handled stress and anxiety well, never, even today, prior to getting on Lexapro less than a year ago, I’d take the path around stress if I could. Other than what my family, now I’d fight with my wife and kids and stuff like that, my father, you go outside the family, you know, I didn’t, I was not confrontational, really didn’t pose arguments with people. I’d debate people, intellectually and stuff, but I wouldn’t argue, I wouldn’t threaten, I wouldn’t scream, I

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Ill

wouldn’t do any of that stuff, I hate to, don’t like stress, don’t cope well with stress.

My coping mechanisms affect me physically and mentally, and I can’t deal with it.

As he moves into young adulthood, Gollum’s difficulties prevail. His emotional and relational impoverishment and confusion continue with different actors and a familiar storyline. The volatility, sense of danger, and threatening and abusive behaviors recur.

Gollum, in his inadequacy and confusion, is overwhelmed. The effects of his impoverished emotional life, the experiences of rejection, abandonment, threats, and psychic terrorism, have dampened and deadened his capacity to cope. The process and his experience of the thingification of a human being continue.

Punching his girlfriend after being punched, grabbing her and warning her that if she did it again she would be “sorry” are familiar statements that he voiced with his mother and repeated with her. Repetitive and recurring themes continue to both strain and confuse him. He is stuck and stopped by his past. Overwhelmed in his desolation and confusion, Gollum made a suicide attempt.

Thingification is a complementary concept to his failure in mentalization. He is driven to relate as if people are things. Hidden is that his attachment problems are driven by relationships that he has missed and the fact that he has been alone. The confusion and struggle to connect in a relationship persists as he gives the history o f his dating relationship before his marriage.

I went out with that girl for six years. After her I didn’t date for a couple of years, then I dated a girl I work with for a little while. I dated another girl I was working with for a while. I left her cause she was an alcoholic; then I dated another girl from

work for a while. I left her cause she was an alcoholic. Then I got married. So, nothing long term. It was always fairly short.

Gollum and his wife, who was an instructor, met through a scuba class. Although they had known each other for about a year, they dated for two weeks and decided on a

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112 Friday night that they wanted to get married. They did so on Saturday. He went home to pack up his belongings, hoping that his parents were not there. When they arrived home and asked what he was doing, they tried to talk him out of it, but to no avail. They did not attend the wedding. Gollum and his wife have been married for 14 years. She had two children from a previous marriage. Gollum was ill equipped. Although he discounts the physical violence, the tantrum behavior and emotional abuse were glaring. He had strained relationships with his stepsons. Although he did not see himself as abusive, he recreated a family atmosphere to which he had been accustomed.

Ah, they were never very good. I was just too controlling, too demanding. I thought it was a competition for their mother’s affection. We never got close. To this day, I mean, I’ll talk to them and stuff, I just don’t talk to them for very long. I’ve often said I wish I could, my intention is to do it, but I’ve got to wait until I’m ready to do it, to write them a letter stating where I was, and why I did this and apologizing for my behaviors. I was never abusive towards them, never struck them or anything like that, but I threw things and broke things in their presence. Their mother and I fought when they were there. They’re good kids, never got into trouble, never, looking back on myself and being in the state that I’m in now and looking back on how I was behaving, I was just completely unrealistic.

Of course, looking back at it, 90% of ‘em were my issues, being controlling and stuff like that. I always said it was the kids, pushing me in a typical step-parent relationship, but it wasn’t. It was my feeling of inadequacy and not being able to control them, I think that’s the problem.

Certainly the parenting role was new for me, absolutely. I would never have admitted it at the time, but maturing and stuff, I’m sure it was many times worse for them than it was for me.

The patterns of domestic violence were emerging as a cycle of abuse in his marriage.

It was an accelerating pattern embedded in emotional abuse and controlling and demanding behavior. Besides the strained relationship with his stepsons, he was physically abusive towards his wife, assaulting her and treating her like a thing. The volatility and abuse were evident right from the start of the marriage. The patterns of enactments resembled those witnessed in his childhood and repeated in adulthood:

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113 throwing and destroying things, choking his wife. These were familiar scenes in his childhood.

It began, probably, shortly after we got married. Usually it was a result of a difference of opinion on discipline with her two sons. It was things as throwing a lamp on the floor or throwing a glass, or punching a wall. It wasn’t anything physical with her until the last couple of years. I’ve pushed her pretty hard, both hands on the arm and left a pretty big bruise on the arm, her arm, and the last time, probably the worst time, I actually had my hand around her neck. I didn’t choke her, but I had her up against the wall with my hand around her neck, realized what I was doing, and backed o f f . . .

I think that most of the time that we got into big fights where things got broke or stuff, it was me wanting a certain discipline for my two stepsons and she interjecting herself into something that was between me and them, and it wasn’t between me and them. It was a family issue, but in my perception it was between me and the stepsons and my wife got involved and started to get between me and the kids to protect the kids. I didn’t like that. It was feelings of inadequacy, I’m not a good father or she’s choosing them over me, all types of feelings that took place there.

Our relationship over the years has probably grown more distant. I was very controlling, wanted things my way, a very selfish person, so it’s, it’s diminished. My wife is a very calm and patient person and has been very tolerant with me over the years, but I think I was pushing her to the point of getting a divorce or, or at least a separation, but it would go in spurts. I don’t drink, I don’t do drugs, so it wasn’t something where I’d go get drunk and do it. It was once or twice a year, maybe, that I would have an episode where I would become violent, but I was very strict with my kids, where if I told them to do something, they’d do it immediately, where if my wife told them to do something or asked them to do it, they’d sit there and bicker with her and stuff like that. So, I didn’t hit my kids a lot, but I wasn’t opposed to smacking them upside the head or hitting them on the rear end if they needed it. It wasn’t a common occurrence, but it did happen, but I learned after all this that my kids’ fear, if my wife and I started an argument, the kids ran upstairs. They, they were afraid of the whole situation. At the time I thought things were fine, but they were far from fine.

At the time, Gollum thought things were fine, he was recreating the family atmosphere in which he grew up. He was unaware that his experience of growing up in a violent household cultivated his terror, fear, confusion, and loneliness.

The violence, apparent

early on in their relationship— punches, bruises, and destruction— were enactments o f

real events. “I actually had my hands around her neck.” He conveys little sense of the connection or enactment between this event and how his mother choked his father with nylons.

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114 Gollum longs for relationships, but he does not quite know how to engage. The quality of his thinking and in his relationships comes through in his description of his daughters.

My eldest, Sarah, is smart, she’s very needy. It wasn’t an observation of mine, but my wife. She always needed people to play with her, still needs people to play with, to entertain her, to, she wants to be the center of attention. It could be very emotional, but not, not like a girl emotion, more like a guy’s emotion. She can get angry very fast and she can throw things and is always antagonizing her sister, and basically displaying, probably, behavior traits that she saw in me. She and I get along, we did, we do get along really well; we did get along really well. I go hunting a lot. She hunts with me and stuff like that, but right now she’s in puberty. She just started her period not long ago, so she’s going through some huge hormone swings, those are very difficult to deal with, for, more so for my wife, but somewhat for me also. She’s very stubborn, very opinionated, um, she’s, she’s gruff. Very sharp edges in her.

My younger daughter, Allison, is very quiet. They’re almost opposites, she’s very quiet. I liken her to being soft. She plays by herself, she’ll play with other people, too, but she doesn’t need other people to have a good time. She’s not a straight A student. She’s not dumb either. She’s making As, Bs, and Cs, made the honor roll.

She will instigate her sister quite a bit, there’s a lot of that. They’re 14 months apart, I think, so there’s a lot of competition between them, and a lot of antagonism. Last month started her period, so I’m sure there’s some emotional stuff that might come with that, too, but she’s more stable than the other one, I think, but she’s more fragile than the other one, in my opinion, she’ll break easier and is more sensitive.

Gollum can see and somewhat understand others, but with a sense of detachment. He does not quite know how others think and feel about him or how deeply he affects them.

When asked how others would describe him, he says about his wife, “I don’t know, honestly, don’t know,” and about his daughters he says, “I think they love me . . . know I have a mean side . . . don’t mean bad . . . I don’t know and I don’t pretend to be in their heads, it’s a work in progress for me.” When asked about what holds them together he states, “Our love for each other. W e’re a family.” He is in touch with some aspects o f

care, but the impact of being alone is costly in not having had any “special love” or great relationships over time. These patterns of expectations towards others parallel those in his early life experiences. He was treated as a throw-away thing and the object of abuse,

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115 and he is now prone to do so with others. He was bankrupt in the area of social and emotional relatedness.

Do I have any special love of people that I have great relationships with and that have lasted through a substantial part of my childhood or whatever? No. None of my uncles or aunts or anything. That’s one of the terms that Dennis . . . used in this group, an emotional bank account. Mine was bankrupt, so I’m building it back. It’s not perfect.

My kids have recollections and memories and they haven’t forgotten everything, nor has my wife, but things are much better. I’ll say this, since the year that I’ve been in treatment, there’s been two incidents of further violence, one was my eldest daughter was arguing with my wife. My wife asked me to go down and deal with her in the basement, and she was absolutely out of control, and I got angry and put my fist through a wall, a drywall wall, and then about a month or so ago, the same daughter has her own behavioral problems and is in counseling now. So, she was not behaving very well I had a yardstick and gave her a little smack on the rear end, and she reported me to her counselor the next day, which opened up a second DCFS case, which is currently ongoing.

Lost to him through rejection and threats of abandonment and abuse is a sense of safety, value, and worth. Missing is a sense of genuine warmth, love, care, and attention.

This absence is the basis of his relational matrix and sense of self. He has good reason to have been “miserable” for as long as he can remember. Despite attempts to get help, the sentiment lingers. He may not have been in the right place to accept treatment, but also missing was the capacity to see what he has experienced, to deeply and dynamically know himself and his story, and to mentalize rather than thingify himself. Gollum did have some experiences in treatment, but for a variety of reasons none seemed to help.

After the DCFS referral and disclosure about the domestic violence, he was referred out and eventually had a relationship that he came to believe might help.

When I was in college I attempted suicide, and after that I spent a couple weeks at the 2 North floor of Community [Hospital], and after that I went and saw um, I think it was a sociologist, I don’t think it was a psychiatrist. And that didn’t work out very well. It was very hard to get appointments with him, and I didn’t feel like my treatment was important to that person. I enjoyed talking to him, I did when I was in therapy, but it was so hard to get a trickin’ appointment that was unbearable and I stopped going.

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116 And then a couple years ago or so, my wife urged me to go. I was at a point, I had been at this point many times in my life, just depression, things were not going well, and I went, she suggested I go see a doctor and get a physical, and I did, and that doctor suggested I see a psychiatrist, and she hooked me up with this psychiatric group that specializes in women. God knows why she suggested I go there, but it took a long time for them to find somebody who would treat me because, obviously, I wasn’t a woman. And the guy I was seeing down at Northwestern suggested that this wasn’t a specialty and he would have the staff find somebody in Oak Park that I could go to, and recommended another psychiatrist who I talked to and who said, well, your problem’s not my specialty, but I’ll see you if you’d like to, by the way, it’s like $275 an hour, I don’t take insurance. It just left a very bad taste in my mouth ‘cause it’s just like I was passed around like an unwanted toy or something like that, and then it was about money.

It didn’t go anywhere. I was very disgruntled about the mental health profession after those two experiences, and then my wife and I started going to counseling at my wife’s insistence. It was that or I get out of the house, so I went, and we went three or four sessions and it was just unbearable. I thought that the therapist was very aggressive towards me and demeaning and whatever. She wasn’t. I just couldn’t see it; I was so blinded by anger and disgusted by whatever it was that was going on in my head that I couldn’t take in what she had to offer. I could not be helped at that time. She’s the one who recommended Dennis. I wouldn’t mind going back to her now, cause I could see the things that she had said and she was right. I just wasn’t at the place where I needed to be to accept that type of counseling or treatment. . .

DCFS involvement, the legal involvement issues, and how to deal with DCFS, and as soon as she found out about there was some domestic violence, there, there was a change in her attitude, I don’t think she liked it at all. She approached me differently.

I took very much offense to it at the time, and I didn’t like her. I was not open to anything she had said at the time. Even before that I was not really open to what she had to say, I was not open to being there, I was being forced to be there by my wife.

At the time I didn’t believe her at all. I thought she just didn’t like me, didn’t want to deal with me, but in hindsight, irregardless of what I think, I think I probably misread her completely, I was just blind by anger and she was probably right in doing that. I’m glad that she did what she did, I’m glad that I ended up meeting up with Dennis’s . . . group, and the psychologist, psychiatrist that she recommended, Bemie . . . I, I liked him very much also, so.

Turning Points and Epiphany Thingification mediates Gollum’s experience and the familiar dehumanizing experiences that are embedded in his history and in his mind. He excuses the past transgressions he has experienced, noting that everybody wants to “put that back on the

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117 family, [but] that’s your nurturing that you’re brought up with.” He does not see how his past experiences have shaped his personality. It is his violation, the abuse that he inflicts upon his daughter, that becomes public and gets his attention, frames his experience of transgressions and boundary violations, and helps to understand his epiphany and the significance of his turning points.

Gollum describes the most recent turning point in his life as the DCFS incident. It is the start of what he describes as his most significant epiphany: the realization that he is abusive. “Fourth grade, when I decided I was going to be an engineer, seventh grade when I succumbed to the pressure to join a basketball team, and began, began a two-year sports career, um, my first girlfriend, probably.”

Gollum identifies turning points in his life. The abuse he inflicts upon his daughter becomes the basis for his major epiphany, that he is an abuser and that he has responsibility for his actions. Asked about his epiphanies, he says, “Day I beat the shit out of my younger daughter.” He goes on: It wasn’t until the DCFS stuff happened where I was basically put into, I was at the end of my rope, had to do something or I was going to lose my wife, I was going to lose my kids, my wife couldn’t lose her kids, irregardless of what happens to me, I was basically looking down the barrel of a gun for lack of a better word. I had to change, I had to change or, it wasn’t good for any of us. The realization that I could lose control and physically hurt her to the point where my wife, the school, and the government deems me as a child abuser. The stigma of that.

That I was an abuser, both physically and verbally. That I was controlling. I never saw myself as being controlling. I had, many feelings such as inadequacy and others that I wouldn’t talk about and it would end up manifesting itself as violent, yelling and pushing and many different things showing up.

I don’t think there’s anything that’s been misrepresented or misunderstood. I did what I did. I hit my wife. I hit my children. I’ve hit them out of anger. I’m not trying to paint that in any other picture than other it was wrong. It was violence, it was abusive, yes. I’m not trying to put responsibility on anything else other than I didn’t have the skills to deal with the stress that I had at the time. I am responsible for what I did. I’ll never push that off on anybody else.

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118 Gollum’s epiphany is a painful realization, and in some ways, it is his most dramatic and potentially life-changing discovery. He has had a number of significant life events that have had long-term consequences, but none that have gotten his attention as powerfully. The turning points that he has had in the past have not linked in his mind with particular changes. This turning point has his attention; he is faced with changes he has to make if he is not to lose his family. He has made a small but significant step towards change and is connecting an examination of the roots of his behavior to his relationships and is positioned to face the history of his problems. The violent episode subsequently led to his involvement in the domestic violence group and some deeper realizations and emotional connections that may be life altering.

Transgressions and Boundary Violations Gollum’s physical assault of his daughter is the presenting problem and an explicit act of violence that gets him into trouble out of “frustration and anger.” It is the emotional abuse—the slaps, whacks, kicks, and tantrums—that have spiraled to this point and are the emotional injuries that he is only now beginning to notice. The emotional abuse that he has incurred and inflicted towards his children and his wife is now coming into focus as a result of the DCFS referral and subsequent treatment. He is focused on curbing the aggression and is beginning to realize the emotional assaults as more deeply painful and longer lasting than the bruises. He has begun to recognize that his temper outbursts— putting his fist through a wall, yelling and screaming, throwing and breaking things—and his controlling behavior have significant and lasting effects and implications.

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119 In his mind, he is split off his past experience, a history full of transgressions, force, brutality, rejections, and threats. He thinks about his needs and wants and not those of others, their separateness, or of the consequences of his actions upon others. He knows of dangers, disasters, and assaults. He is less familiar with safety, protection, care, and compassion. Experience of love, mourning his victim mindset, and seeing the possibility for change are now opportunities for growth.

Group Gollum joined the group and came to some painstaking realizations. He saw his behavior as if for the first time. He saw himself in the behavior of others. He learned the skills to manage his behavior. As part of the interventions, he was also been placed on medication, which frees his mind to think and concentrate. As such, he became more open to his experience. He saw himself in the eyes and minds of others. The group addressed the painful experiences of domestic violence and made it real to him. He began to see the behaviors that others described in him. He labeled these behaviors “asinine and crazy,” and recognized them in himself. He was appalled and disgusted, but found an emerging desire to change.

I think about the third, second, or third time I was there. The first time I was there was a turning point. There was somebody in the class who said something that I was just appalled by and then I realized that I did the exact same thing. It was one of the memorable points there, and then about two or three sessions in, I remember feeling just so disgusted with my own behavior that when I got home from group, I apologized to my wife for being an asshole for 13 years. ‘Cause I realized i t . . . helps you cope with things in a method that’s different than what I used to do . . . the Lexapro helps because I don’t react as fast. It slows me down and gives me an opportunity to think and I, and I’ve, I’ve been honest with myself in the course of this thing, and I’ve tried. I love my wife and I love my kids and I wanted to be better.

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120 Mentalization, the reflective capacity to think, was enhanced by medication.

Engaging in a relationship and the reflective process in the group facilitated his change.

One of the benefits of his treatment was that he slowed his racing and obsessive thoughts.

He was less reactive and more reflective. He could not and would not have changed or invested in the process without an external intervention. As he became more open to and engaged in the treatment, he became motivated and receptive, though still cautious. He is more able to recognize abuse and controlling behaviors. He is making better choices, beginning to take responsibility, and amending his behavior. He is communicating, regulating himself, and thinking. Recognizing his behavior and seeing both himself and how he treats others became a most painful realization. He got in touch with his guilt and a sense of responsibility for his actions. He is still partially motivated by external forces, but at least now he knows it, The feelings of others are becoming important to him.

I think there’s a fair amount of it in me, but it only came to realization after being forced upon me through these external sources. The best way I can describe that is I’d never realized how much of an asshole I was until I went to Dennis’s group and saw other people talking about the way they behaved, and thinking to myself, this guy’s an asshole. And then realizing that I do the exact same thing that he did, but after that, that, that environment and the openness of the group and people being able to talk without fear of being chastised or consequences, they can be honest, and if they’re not being honest with themselves, they’re wasting their frickin’ time, but that allowed me to see my own actions from, from outside myself, for lack of a better way to explain it, you know, it’s like I was standing beside myself looking at, at asinine things that I did.

Um, do I want to do those? No. Am I still selfish? Absolutely. You know, if I can get away with something that pleases me over pleases my wife, I’ll probably try and do it. Will I argue and scream and shout, break something about it? No, that’s not, it ain’t worth it anymore, it’s just not worth it. Now if, if you take me off of Lexapro and I stopped going to Dennis’s, could I revert back to that? Yeah, I could see myself. I got to a point where I didn’t care anymore. What makes this worth doing is caring. If you don’t care, why change?

You gotta have something to change for.

I don’t know if I could ever repair the damage, I can just change the way I behave now, and hope that that leads both my wife and my daughters to feel comfortable around me again, to see me not as what I used to be, but what I am now. It’s kind of unusual in that the catalyst, what keeps you going there is unfortunately, you know, I

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121 can’t revert back to way I was before, because if I do, I’m going to, we’re going to lose our kids, and there’s a legal issue there that, that forces me to be responsible.

There’s consequence other than people being mad at me for a time, there’s a stigma that you got DCFS coming to your house, that you’re on the child abuse list for five years and there’s there’s all types of stuff, there’s the way that I see my kids reacting, being afraid of me, where I never noticed it before, you know, now I notice it. I don’t want my kids to be afraid of me. You know, there’s a lot of things to benefit, and I don’t have anything to benefit. I’m at the point where if I make one mistake I’m going to lose it all, so I’m looking down the barrel of a gun. I have to change.

Thingification and Mentalization Mentalization humanizes oneself and others. This reflective capacity counteracts thingification. Gollum is questioning whether he can ever repair the damage that he has inflicted and if others will be more comfortable around him. Although the internal threat of loss looms over his head, he is thinking. He is considering consequences, and even more significantly, the feelings of others and his own. Thingification requires a detachment from humanity; mentalization embraces the authentic and genuine connection.

Gollum has come to see and understand himself on a simplified, stereotypical way that lacked humanity. His interpersonal relationships lacked substance and with his collapsed mentalization, he would have tantrums and be abusive. In this thingified state, he was reactive rather than reflective, unable to think through what he was about to do. Closed minded and with one-sided possibilities, he would react rather than reflect, misperceiving others and situations and responding with aggression.

His mental state was complicated and his sense of identity shaped by violence. He only now realizes the chronic misery and state of melancholia that he has had over the course of his life or how others might be feeling or thinking and why. In his state of selfishness and self absorption, boundary definitions seemed brittle and rigid. He had

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122 little comfort with people or closeness to them. His experience in treatment opened his eyes to these problems and he was able to mentalize. He recognizes more about himself and others and realizes the possibility of change.

That I’m selfish, that I’m controlling, that I, that I’m an abuser. It’s just like an alcoholic or a drug addict, I mean you’re an abuser. Or, I was an abuser. I should put it that way. I used to think that I couldn’t change, that it was a waste of time to even try. I went into Dennis’s program with that thought process and quickly realized that I was wrong and I’ve learned that it was ok to have feelings of inadequacy and other things and to talk about people, with them. I’ve learned how to ask questions and not respond to people in a way that excites me or excites them, and not to have pre­ perceptions of what they’re saying, and if I have a perception that is not good, to ask and to clarify things instead of what my mind, take it somewhere else and then become upset and start an argument over something that wasn’t there to begin with, so.

Gollum became less blind to his mental life and to the experience of others.

His

humanity has entered into his experience, and he is more conscious of his past patterns of treating others as things and relating in mechanical ways. There is a mechanical quality to how Gollum experiences and expresses affect, in particular his awareness and experience of his anger. He has become aware of his chronic state of despair without realizing his lifelong state of misery. He is now in touch with more of what he feels and is better positioned to mourn. He can begin to think about his past, he can now remember rather than repeat, and can recall his past and its meaning rather than enact it. He is now open to human connections, seeing others as separate, and having caring experiences.

Gollum’s work is just beginning. Now that the thinking in his mind is clearer, he is able to feel and be aware of his emotional state and mental life. He is doing so in the context o f a set o f relationships; initially with the psychiatrist, and now with the group.

That was the first one. When I talked to Bemie . . . he started telling me what, he started giving me symptoms with dysthymia and I almost started crying. All the shit that he was saying to me was stuff that I had been feeling since my first memories of stuff, just you know, he’d just met me, and I wasn’t with him for ten minutes, and he started spitting out all these symptoms, it’s like he’s known me my entire life, it was

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123 kind of strange . . . I went to this thing saying that people are not going to change, I’m 40 years old, I’m not going to change, you’re not going to teach an old dog new tricks, and honestly without the Lexapro, I think it would be hard because I was very obsessive and I had a lot of self-talk going on and Lexapro eliminated that and allowed me to think more clearly about things and be able to absorb what this program presented me. If I didn’t have that, to be frank, I don’t know if I would have absorbed as much as I have.

Gollum has had a lifelong experience of being at the end of his rope and not realizing, acknowledging, or being able to think, process, or understand it. His experience in the abuser group put him in touch with his behavior so he could face the further challenge of deepening his understanding, mourning his victim mindset, and developing his capacities to think, feel, relate, and reflect. He has been dehumanized and treated like a thing, “passed around like an unwanted toy . . . blinded by .. . anger and disgusted by whatever was going on in my head that I could not take in what [others] had to offer.” He now must face himself and others, in the most basic way, to find his humanity and see it in others. In having now labeled his misery and depression, he is faced with his anger, fear, stress, and his need to understand, modulate, and express himself without bursting or hurting others. His anger still confuses and frightens him. He is cautious about his instincts, perceptions, and potential regression and is afraid that he will slip back into his old patterns. The capacity to mentalize includes the ability to reflect and think of one’s mental state and to attend to affective experience and modulate them. Gollum’s anger has been reactive and was an attempt to mask his hurt and pain. He is still struggling to understand it, but now is attentive and aware of a much broader range of his feelings and how to manage them.

It serves no purpose, it hurts me, it hurts everybody. I learned that I can control it if I try. I learned if I don’t try, it won’t be controlled. I learned that it’s not good, it’s always going to lead to bad, the only short-term benefit it’s going to get is to get

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124 people to stop doing what they’re doing at that very second, but the doors that it opens are far numerous and it’s just not worth it.

The way I’ve always describe it is it’s like a chemical, it builds up. I can feel my anger building and building and building and it’s to a certain point where the dam breaks, and I can feel those, like a chemical that I can feel go from my head to my toes.

You know, I think, from all my counseling and stuff that it’s probably adrenaline, which I didn’t know at the time, but whatever that was, as soon as that, as soon as I lost it and felt that, that avalanche, or that chemical go from my head to my toes, I’d lost it. I mean, I’d done something bad. I broke something or I hit someone, well, that, those were the two things that happened. Most of the time, I broke stuff, and then as soon as I did that, the feeling was gone, and it was like it was all over for me. It was just starting for everybody that was, that had experienced it. I don’t get that way anymore, I take the Lexapro. I feel my anxiety level’s increasing sometimes, but I’m able to recognize the symptoms now, and either talk myself out of it, you know, try and understand why I’m feeling that way, or get myself out of the situation completely, so it goes away, where before I never had the common sense or the tools, or the recognition, for that matter, I never had the acceptance that I had a problem, it was always somebody else’s fault, it was not my own fault, they made me this way, they drove me to this point, but in fact, it wasn’t that at all. It was me who drives myself and other people to that point, really. So now I have the ability to recognize it.

I think all of them that go along with it, being sad, being angry, being hurt, being inadequate, they just kind of, lot of things that for a lot of reasons, societal reasons or whatever, you know, they talked about, I don’t know if I buy into all of it, that men don’t acknowledge these feelings because for whatever reason it’s not accepted in society, or whatever. But, in any event, as you, as I started replaying things in my head, why did I do that, why did I do that, it was, you know, yeah, I felt inadequate, yeah, I was competing for this, I felt like I was not good enough, I felt powerless, I felt that actually backtracking and get to a root cause as to what started it. What was the little snowball that started the one down the hill that turned into an avalanche?

Group Learning Gollum is more attentive to stress and the difficulty he has in perceiving and communicating with others. He is open to management skills and learning how to better communicate and, in particular, deal with misperceptions. He is better able to cope and is

concerned about regression and his need for others.

Well, I always have, you know, every time you’re confronted with a stressful situation, just like an alcoholic can be confronted with a drink, your gut reaction is to respond the way your instincts tell you to, which, my instincts have always been wrong in that

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125 respect. It was satisfy my needs as opposed to everybody else’s, and now I try, I’m not 100% successful, but I try and address other people’s needs and ask them how they’re feeling and not if I have a perception of what they said that’s maybe a little bit disturbing to me, I’ll ask for clarification. I’ll say, my perception of what you just said is, and then, 100% o f the time my perception’s wrong, and then you can solve problems, but then there’s always something . . . always, that, that’s why I would like to stay in Dennis’s group, ‘cause even though he’s repeating the same things for people that are coming, honestly, I don’t think I can hear it too much, it doesn’t hurt on a weekly basis to have this stuff brought to the front of your consciousness and think about 'em.

I’m afraid to slip back in those patterns, absolutely. That’s why I continue to go to Dennis’s. Dennis’s program is 24 weeks, I went 40-something weeks . . . because I am afraid that, like an alcoholic, or a drug addict, that I can slip back into that behavior pattern again. And I feel that Dennis’s group keeps it fresh in my head o f how to cope with these things. In reality, all this is a result of me being able to cope with stress, obstacles that are thrown at me, and if his group gives me the ability to think about things before I react to them, um, better. Now, I don’t want to stop, even now, I don’t want to stop Dennis’s thing, because I can see and, and three weeks before the interview, that things aren’t fresh in my head, three weeks between sessions, things are not as fresh in my head as they were when I went every week. So, I think I was better able to cope with things going weekly than I do every three weeks. There might be a point at which that kicks over and fuels itself and I don’t have to go. I don’t know, I don’t think I’m there yet, I’m not comfortable with going it alone, honestly, I’m not comfortable for me, I’m not comfortable for my wife and kids. I need that.

Maybe other people don’t, but I do.

Gollum is now realizing his own feelings and the range of his affect, distinguishing between anger and anxiety. He has spent a lifetime in tantrums to get what he wants while missing the most basic needs: to be safe, valued, wanted, connected, soothed, comforted, and contained. In the group, he was affirmed, felt, loved, and helped to make sense of a confusing world. He now faces the challenge of remembering rather than repeating, reconciling his past as he mourns the loss of who others were and the failure they represent while attending to the relational experiences he has with others.

He now positioned to realize the problems that he has had both in his mind and in his relationships. He’s learning about care, that his feelings and those of others are important.

My wife just gave up arguing with me because she knew what was coming sometimes, or sometimes we’d end up fighting over it, so, like I said, I’m still, I’m a selfish

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126 person. If I’m left to my own devices, I’ll resort back to doing what pleases me the most, and not worrying about what pleases my family.

Yeah, I’d love it to be like “Leave It to Beaver.” Seriously, I would. You asked me what I do with my family and stuff like that. My father claims he’s antisocial. I am generally not interested in other people. If I met you out on the street and you started talking to me about something, even something I like, like hunting or whatever, I wouldn’t, I’d talk to you, but even 10 minutes after the conversation or whatever, I wouldn’t stick around there just to talk about it. I’m disinterested in other people, so uh, I lost my train of thought, I don’t even know where I was going with that, but my father’s like that and I, you got to get me back to where I was going.

I’m still dealing with that because that is one of my biggest obstacles.

Indifference. Not just my kids, sometimes my wife and people I meet. It’s like I’m self absorbed and could bury myself in my work and not deal with people and would be perfectly happy, and when someone comes up and starts talking about, even about something I like, like hunting, or something like that, I’m just not interested enough to care, really. I don’t know, I mean I guess, it’s certain, there are certain things I have to push. Push to help my kid do her homework, and stuff like that, I don’t, I don’t quite, I got to deal with that on a daily basis.

Gollum has grown, but still has a long way to go. He is thinking more clearly about what is going on in his mind and what he is feeling, and he knows that this requires continual attention. He has begun a change process, but he needs to continually attend to how he can easily thingify others.

I can recognize the feelings so that they don’t get to a certain point. I have the tools so that when I start feeling upset or mad then I know I’ll self-talk maybe a perception of what my wife said or whatever, then I’ll try and clarify the perception and that, I said that a while ago, I was 100% wrong. That is totally true, the times I have told my wife, my perception of what you just said is, I have been 100% wrong, so all of these years, when I have started an argument off of what I perceived her to say, I can only say that I was probably wrong 100% of the time, and because of the misperceptions, I’ve gone a fair way in ruining other people’s lives, including my own.

I think instantaneously, actually. My mother-in-law’s great, she suffers from Alzheimer’s right now, it’s dementia, memory loss of some sort. So, when she comes over and stays with us for a couple weeks, sometimes she gets on my nerves, and I’ll kind of jab her a little bit, you know, she’s getting a little rough on the edges, and she likes to start some trouble sometimes, and I jab her right back, but I do it under the pretence that oh, five minutes later, she won’t remember what I said, so it had no consequence to it,. Never got in an argument, she’s never got involved in our business so she’s never done or said anything. I love her, I mean, she’s great, my wife’s got one sister in her family, has always got along with them. Never had any issues.

To some extent that travels through to my kids and they’ll do stuff and they’ll tell me about it and I’m disinterested. I would love to be interested, I would love to come

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127 home from work and want to play a game with them, sit down and do their homework with them, and have all that stuff to, that my wife does and she’s nurturing and has an interest in the kids. I love my kids a lot, but when I come home from work, instead of dealing with homework and stuff, I’d rather grab something to eat, sit there and watch television, and veg out for three hours and go to bed. And that’s the selfish part of me.

I’d much rather try, satisfy that than satisfy the need of the kids.

Gollum has areas of strength that have been part of his survival. One is his work ethic.

He is finding an interest in others and wants different ways of relating, and he knows that he will have to work at relationships to have something more than work in his life.

I think at times she senses it, and at other times she doesn’t. You know, it’s one of her issues in the last week or so, that she feels that I’m not as caring, I don’t care about her because I have to work a lot and she wants me to be home and spend more time and to think about her and stuff like that, and I’ve got this job that is overwhelming and my work ethics and everything, almost puts work before family. But if we want to get further down the road and make progress, it’s not happening in a 40-hour week.

But I love it, I live for it, I love, I mean, I’m not kidding you, I, well, obviously, I’ll abandon, to some extent, family to work. I love my work. It gives me a sense of being. I want to be respected, I want to be important, and it’s something I drive for. I mean I have some issues mentally or with my personality and stuff where I don’t like, I generally like people, even though I might be relatively disinterested in talking them about stuff, I like people, I want people to like me, I want to be respected, I’ll work hard to be respected. If I feel that I’m not respected, I’ll work harder. It bothers me when I feel that I’m not respected.

Gollum’s growth is that he sees people in a more humane way. He is in touch with the suffering he has inflicted and wants something better and different. He speaks to how men who are abusive are stereotyped and dehumanized, noting that when seen as monsters, they are thingified and need to be humanized and helped. Mentalizing them and their experience may break abuse cycles.

Dennis’s had some people in before to sit in our group that work for women’s shelters and I guess he does, too. Sometimes it may be hard to do it, suffering through what we as abusers put people through, but we have a problem. [Sighs] I don’t know. I can’t speak for everybody, but everybody I’ve met through Dennis’s group has a problem that they’re not proud, they’re not happy with, and that they want to learn skills to get away from. They don’t, I think we’re all sorry for the pain that we’ve caused. Sorry only gets you so far, and we all want to, we all want to get better, learn

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128 skills to deal with these things, and we’re not monsters as I think that some people would picture us.

You hear that terms for domestic violence, or abusers, or spouse abuse, you have this painting in your head of a lowlife or something like that. I consider myself an abuser, but I don’t consider myself a lowlife. I’m not doing it to hurt somebody. I did it; I’m not doing it anymore. I did it because I didn’t know how to deal with whatever it is that I was going through, and I dealt with it the wrong way. I hit a fork in the road, and took the wrong road, immediately took the wrong road until skills were presented to me in a way that I could hear them and quite frankly, I had to be at the place where I could hear them. It’s like quitting smoking, if you’re not ready to quit, you’re not going to quit. If you’re not ready to be open, and be ready to hear some of this stuff, or see yourself for what you really are, you’re not going to, you’re not going to get help, you can go to Dennis’s for 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, you’re not going to get anything out of it. And you see that, I mean, those people come, he’s got a few of ‘em, I think he does a good job of screening and trying to determine who to help, but there are people who have come and not finished his group, stayed a couple sessions and left. They were just in another denial that they had an issue that it was somebody else’s problem, not theirs. But not all of us are the animals that they probably feel that we are, or certainly the women or children who have gone through the abuse probably, they have every right to feel that way, but maybe with a little education on everybody’s part, it can be dealt with, or it can be eliminated, or people can learn how to get help or get people to, other people could help them before you get to the point where other people get hurt.

Gollum is now faced with the possibility of confronting his past, remembering and reflecting rather than repeating and reacting. He is learning about love, care, and intimacy. It is a struggle for him to change and confront lifelong experiences and patterns of expectation.

I think we try to do things differently . . . Our family was not a huggy, kissy, feeling, touchy type of family, where, when I had kids, I decided that I wasn’t going to be like that, so, my kids, my daughters are 12 and 13 years old or are going to be very shortly.

I kiss them goodnight every night and I’m always telling them I love them and stuff like that, those are not common things around our house, although I think all of us kids felt that, that we were loved and stuff like that, it’s just we weren’t the type of family that demonstrated those things. So, that’s one contradiction, I guess, or way that we stray from the way I was brought up, otherwise, I think, I’m trying to. I mean it’s hard to say. I would say that there’s parallels of, it all depends on what aspect you’re looking at it, if you’re looking at discipline, then I would say it would parallel it, if you’re talking about the amount of time that’s spent with the family, that’s probably a parallel, too, my mom and dad were always very busy at work and stuff like that, they didn’t spend a whole heck of a lot of time with us. I’m a workaholic, if I can find a way of working 12 hours, 16 hours a day, working Saturdays and Sundays, I do it,

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129 because I just like to do it. Your question is hard for me to answer ‘cause I can’t see parallels. I can’t see any reference to what I experienced growing up other than like, what I said, my mother and father were not uh, I don’t recall them kissing us goodnight, or hugging, or saying, I love you. That’s one thing that I kind of made it a point to do with my kids.

We have, emotionally and physically, we haven’t been very intimate lately. Part of that is Lexapro, at least on the physical side of it, it’s, Lexapro has its issues, but part of it is also emotional and not being able to separate my work and my other priorities and put them in the background and, and put her and the kids in front, you know. Again, I don’t deny that that’s an issue and it has to be worked upon. I don’t have an answer. I’d love to say that I’m going to change the way I’m going to do things and put her on the pedestal and make her come first all the time, and it’s not going to happen until I come up with the catalyst to make it happen, or some way to balance it. I don’t know how to deal with it. You know, we’re very short handed at work, which is hard, it’s a very disruptive environment at work, so I don’t get what I need to get done during the normal work day, I get my, I get most stuff done that is on my agenda to get done before or after work hours, when the disturbances go away.

When they go home, my day starts. I can get stuff done at that time, for me.

Mentalization The implication for change and to help is to see these men in their humanity, as people who also have suffered and are not “animals, monsters, or lowlifes,” to differentiate them as individuals and help them through their experience as they confront and mourn their victim/perpetrator mindset. Gollum, through his treatment experience, found himself in a relationship where he could think and feel care. He developed a better capacity to mentalize himself and others. Problems with mentalization affect and reflect capacities to attend to one’s mental state, the experience of self and others, to empathize and to understand one’s difficulties, to label and know them while attending to feelings.

Gollum needs to link his thoughts, behaviors, and feelings while paying attention to the impact of his own feelings and those of others and making a choice. This has become somewhat clearer to him. He still needs to think and link his past and current

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130 experience, to further understand and see his problem with mentalization and pretend mode thinking so that he can recognize his mental state and caring about others.

Gollum has been reactive and a non-mentalizer. At the extreme end of the continuum, he related at best with apathy and at times with antipathy and violence. Far from benevolent and caring, he was demanding, controlling, and self absorbed. The emotional abuse he experienced kept him from being able to resonate with his own feelings and those of others. Given his traumatic relationships and experiences in childhood, people are too dangerous and feelings are too painful and unbearable. Others are not regarded as people, but rather treated, experienced, and thought about as things. Lost to him was a sense of his humanity and a human connection. The move from object to other is his developmental achievement, and a new possibility. Given Gollum’s history of physical and emotional violence, he realized a possibility and within the context of human relationship, his capabilities may continue to grow.

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131

CHAPTER VI

FAILURES OF MENTALIZATION

This is me over here, never had anybody to talk to, had to establish his own, my own, it should be empathic to somebody who’s got these problems . .. anybody who falls short of that ability falls short in my mind, and I get very frustrated with them. I get very pissed off.

— Hank Heller

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.”

— Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”

With a history of trauma and unrecognized and currently unresolved grief, the capacities for mentalization and relationships are impacted andcompromised. The men in this study have lived in a dark wood where promisesare broken.The dark wood represents the depression that they got lost in as children. Each has ample reason to be depressed, and each deals with his depression in isolation and in atypical ways. Their behaviors—the abuse, alcohol use, forms of affect dysregulation, and failures of mentalization — are ways of avoiding affect and relational problems. Disasters and

failures in mentalization are seen in the troubles with self-other differentiation, emotional awareness, affect regulation, thinking consequentially, and misreading what others think or could be expected to feel. Unbearable feelings of real depression, the pain of deeply

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132 embedded losses, and boundary transgressions blind them to themselves and other possibilities. The failures and distortions of mentalization limit our capacity to fully apprehend our humanity and degrees of inhumanity. “The antithesis of mentalization is mindblindedness.� (Allen, Fonagy, 2006) The experiences of loss, melancholia, dehumanization, and thingification were interwoven themes in the stories of Everett and Gollum. Loss and the complicated states of grief and melancholia underlie their difficulties and the problems they have in mediating their experiences.

There is a different kind of loss in the following stories, and for each of these men, different ways in which they have been dehumanized and now repeat and reenact patterns that thingify others. They each have missed an other who could see, hear, and help them understand what they might be feeling and what was actually happening in their social world as children. The only way to understand and help them is to see these men in their human experiences, to recognize the complexity of their problems, and to listen deeply and dynamically to each individual. The abuse cannot be oversimplified and reduced to focusing upon just the behaviors; instead, we must consider how and to what degree we can mentalize them in their experiences and relationships. When mentalization collapses, or if there is a deficit in this capacity, we can easily lose sight of ourselves, other human beings, and/or of our own humanity. This is the basis upon which maladaptive patterns, their atypical ways as seen in power dynamics, controlling and destructive behaviors, and coercive patterns, develop. Failures of mentalization occur when we react and cannot think through what we are about to do or cannot reflect upon our own mental states. The failure to empathize or understand what one feels and why or what another might be

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133 thinking or feeling is a problem of self regulation and in interpersonal relationships.

Everett and Gollum demonstrated such difficulties. The following stories link the failure of mentalization as seen in affect dysregulation and boundary transgressions.

In the next three stories the subjects illustrate how they have experienced transgressions and boundary violations in their past and present relationships. In each of their own idiosyncratic ways, they were overwhelmed by intense affect and emotional experiences that they could not modulate, understand, or cope well with. As adults, they continue to struggle. Powerful and intense feelings of fear, shame, doubt, and anger prevail and continue to affect them. Two turned to alcohol and drugs to numb themselves to their experiences; the other imploded and was physiologically overwhelmed by stress.

They all had trouble modulating, regulating, and expressing affect.

Two of the three subjects in this chapter were not in legal trouble. They participated in an anger management/abuser treatment group because their partners saw something not only problematic in their relationships, but also that the men had a problem with anger, stress, and communication. They have each had trouble with boundary management and their degree of comfort with closeness to others. They were all too alone as children. Without a relationship that helped them to make sense out of their experiences, they were left to do so on their own. They think that their experiences are normal. This dynamic begins to explain why they think abuse is normal. Each story tells of the terrible price one pays for isolation and how damaging it is to misperceive and to be deprived and confused.

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134 Bill Smith: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde I know it’s what I think, it’s the way I think, where I would say things that I typically wouldn’t say out o f respect. I wouldn’t say, I may think them, I may not like somebody, but I wouldn’t tell them that in a sober state of mind, whereas under the influence, I potentially would say, I don’t really like you, get away from me. I lose the ability to, to stop and think, and to think about my actions and my motives before, before I speak them. You know, the old Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde . . .

— Bill Smith The remorse, horror and hopelessness of the next morning are unforgettable. The courage to do battle was not there. My brain raced uncontrollably and there was a terrible sense of impending calamity. I hardly dared cross the street, lest I collapse and be run down by an early morning truck, for it was scarcely daylight. An all night place supplied me with a dozen glasses of ale. My writhing nerves were stilled at last.

A morning paper told me the market had gone to hell again. Well, so had I. The market would recover, but I wouldn’t. That was a hard thought. Should I kill myself?

No not now. Then a mental fog settled down. Gin would fix that. So two bottles, and oblivion.

— Bill W., in Jensen, 2000, p. 7

Bill is a 44-year-old Caucasian male who was bom and raised in the northern Lake County, Illinois. He has both a younger and an older sister. His parents divorced when he was 11 years old. He has a distant relationship with his father, who is alcoholic, was abusive to his mother, sexually molested his sisters, and was verbally denigrating and abusive towards Bill. He reports close contact and supportive relationships with his mother and sisters, but these relationships seem somewhat lacking in emotional security.

Bill has a high school education and is a successful businessman who owns a landscaping design and maintenance company. He is an alcoholic, currently working a recovery program with an addiction counselor, and is actively involved with AA. He reports four months of sobriety at the time of this study and considers himself to be a “dry drank.”

Aside from a DUI, he has had no criminal involvement other than the domestic abuse incidents.

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135

Transgressions The background of Bill’s story is a childhood filled with transgressions and boundary violations. Secrets, betrayals, and emotional assaults are traumatic experiences that are embedded in his childhood experience and family of origin. His father was denigrating towards him and made him feel small. He notes that “chaos ruled [his] life.”

Bill grew up in a tumultuous and abusive home, but for the most part, he didn’t realize or recognize this. He became a product of his invalidating environment, accustomed to chronic and subtly repeated trauma, emotional abuse, parental failures, and being a silent witness. His sisters were molested and sexually abused by his father. He claims that his mother was unaware of the abuse until the divorce, which occurred when Bill was about 11. Bill claims that he did not know the abuse was happening and that afterwards, it was not talked about within the family. Bill’s father denied the abuse and was never prosecuted for it. Bill describes it as “unfinished business,” still unaddressed.

His father was emotionally abusive towards him, berating him and telling him that he would never amount to anything. The failure on the part of his mother to protect Bill from his father’s denigration and verbal abuse was scarring. He minimizes the abusive incidents that occurred. The background of his story is a childhood filled with transgressions, boundary violations and chaos. The chaos he describes as rooted in his childhood and family of origin is repeated in his adult life. The one area that he functions reasonably w ell in is his work. There he experiences success. It is in his intimate

relationship and sense of himself that he has lost. The failures and betrayals continue to affect the relationships in his family.

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136 What he remembers and in some ways repeats is the familial chaos, patterns and expectations that are confusing, and painful affective experiences, which he numbed with drugs and alcohol beginning in adolescence. He developed a maladaptive pattern of coping that perpetuated the chaos and persisted into his adult life. The transgression occurred through traumatic assaults in an invalidating environment in which failures were abundant and the distress overwhelming. He attributes the problem to genetics in that he “inherited the disease.” It is this and so much more that frames his experience and story.

Alcoholism, violations like incest, failure to protect or confront, and verbal abuse are the traumatic boundary violations in his childhood.

What stands out for me being a kid? Well, I grew up in and the way I am now, how’d I get that? I think I was bom with a lot of it. I think that I was bom with my grandpa’s teeth, my grandpa’s oily skin, bom with the alcoholism from my father’s side, um, determination, my grandfather and my mother. I learned to take care of myself. I learned from the fact that my mother and father had a broken marriage . . . .

[My father] was sexually abusive to my sisters, to my understanding. I didn’t find out about that until the day he left the house, ‘til the day he had moved out from the house. That’s something my sister Laura’s has fought. She, she’s real resentful of my mother about it because she would not talk about it; she wouldn’t do anything. I thought there should have been more intervention; more help and counseling, there should have been more help. No. But there wasn’t.

My mother, and this is what I understand, she didn’t realize it was taking place until after the divorce. Actually while the divorce was being finalized it was all the emotion, and my sisters talked to her about it, and my mom was obviously upset, and confronted my father, which he denied, denied, denied, and this goes back into the early 70s, ’72, ’73, and it wasn’t talked a lot about to me . . . .

I don’t recall ever seeing it, only hearing about it secondhand. I never saw anything. I don’t remember ever seeing anything sexual or myself ever being touched, or put in harm’s way, in any way. I remember being yelled at a lot. I remember being verbally abused a lot. I was angry about the fact that I thought my sisters weren’t taken care of. They weren’t getting the help that they needed..

It was never evident to me, except for I know, when one o f my sisters would see my father, they just would be like a different person. I remember my sisters would be different, they were cold as ice, you know, but I didn’t see that until later on, I was 13, 14, 15, and regarding force of habit with my mother, and it wasn’t talked about, it just wasn’t talked about. They were, it just wasn’t, and that’s one of the things that I told my mother about that I was talking to you the last time, is I resent things about that, but it was never discussed in my family, it was just put to bed.. A lot of issues they

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137 have today are because of that, I don’t know that for a fact, I’m not a professional, but I think that.

I think the boundary violations that I thought was, probably, was my, was my mother’s ability to stand up with me to my father, and . .. that’s why they got divorced, but I resented that, and then it was my father’s verbal abuse that he did unjustifiably, you know, it, it, it was his issue. It wasn’t mine; I think he just didn’t mind me, you know. He had a bad day, so we had a bad day, you know. I think he crossed the boundaries there, and in the situation with my sisters, I think that’s definitely crossing the boundaries, but it’s not me, and I can’t go there, ‘cause I don’t know, it happened to me.

The difficulty Bill has in thinking about his experiences results in confusion. He has not been able to “go there.” His ways of dealing with loss, injuries, and miseries include abusing alcohol, which exacerbated his melancholia/growing depression and intensified his relational conflicts. His problem with alcohol and drugs accelerated and became an addiction. He was in and out of AA. He eventually married and had problems within the relationship. He expresses the confusion that was both in his mind and in his interpersonal relationships. Bill was addicted to chaos as well as alcohol and drugs.

I realized how addicted my life was to chaos, everything was chaotic. I was about 16, 17, really more when I was 18, but 16, 17,1 never really did pot, didn’t smoke marijuana. I was too paranoid, didn’t like it, then I started using cocaine, probably in my 20s, did that for a long time. But I wasn’t drinking, never did, never just cocaine, but was drinking. Then quit, didn’t do drugs for many years, actually, then started again when I got married to her, and she started using again. I was trying to clean myself up, starting going to AA. They had enough of an effect on me, you know, I was thinking of the glass being half full ‘cause I did pick up something. I was like a revolving door in AA, and people always were trying to help me. They’d keep trying, they didn’t give up on me, and takes the fun out of things, you know, it’d take the fun out of my life, and uh, you know, it hasn’t been easy, it’s been difficult. I think with the rotating in and out of AA, I took it for granted that I could get in at any time, you know, you could turn it on, turn it off, and I realize today I’m fearful, you know? I don’t want to be with people that don’t get it. I don’t want to be one of those people that wake up one day and didn’t get it. I w asn’t honest and I w asn’t honest with

myself, that’s probably my biggest problem, being honest with me, talking about what’s really going on in my head when I’m drinking. I could tell you things, but really I’m telling you just what I wanted you to know, so you wouldn’t ask anything more, so I didn’t lie to you, I just didn’t tell you everything. But I really, I’ve been really blessed, you know. I’m still here and life’s pretty good today.

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138 Bill’s alcohol abuse and boundary transgressions are interlaced. He has experienced much of his life numbed to his pain and to others. After 12 years of marriage, he and his wife are in the process of finalizing their divorce. The divorce was protracted, lasting more than a year. Bill underscores codependence within the marriage, describing a relationship that increasingly became tense and embedded in disappointment and power dynamics. It is a strained and distressed relationship.

What drew us together? We were both stupid thinking, both in that same frame of mind, both irresponsible, irrational, a lot of it was self-serving. I wanted a beautiful wife, and I wanted kids, and I wanted a house and I could afford ‘em, and that’s what I wanted, and she wanted somebody that would give her things, too. And we were attracted by the fact that we mutually took part in drinking and partying and we attracted each other for the wrong reasons.

Bill has two children from the marriage, a 12-year-old son and an 8-year-old daughter.

Both children reside with their mother. Bill has regular contact with his children and wants a close relationship with them. His wife had two sons from a previous marriage, one of whom was caught in the middle of the domestic violence incident which led to Bill’s arrest and involvement in the treatment group.

Bill minimizes the abusive incidents that have occurred. He found himself in a strained relationship. Once he had had enough of the tension and conflict, he wanted to leave. His wife tried to stop him, and he pushed his way past her. His account conveys little sense of understanding the consequences of his actions or what might have been going on in his wife’s mind. This was the most recent incident of physical aggression.

He describes an earlier incident o f physical abuse that occurred in 1994, shortly after they

were married. In both incidents, he is blindsided by his alcoholism and blinded to the consequences of his behavior. He is limited in his capacity to think clearly, empathize, or regulate his feelings.

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139 There was one in 1994, actually, the first year of our marriage, and that one actually was more of a physical situation. Actually it was when my son was bom, about three months after my son was bom. And we had both been out drinking, and that was one more of a physical situation, ‘cause being younger, we were stupider, but that didn’t go, in those days, that was back in 1994 in the fall, and that didn’t go anywhere, you know, there was no, I went out of the house, and it took us a while to get back together, but there was no physical consequences where there are today. Today I know it’s the law. My consequences are because of the law. Do I think they deserved it? No. Do I think the children should go through what I went through? No. No, it’s part of life.

But it’s not to say I resented mine, I just thought I was sad about it, a lot of people got hurt, but that’s not to say one of us should have been there, we both should have been there. I just truly believe it takes two to tango. It wasn’t like somebody just walking, very few people just walk up and punch somebody and keep going. I’m saying I think that Lisa could do a better job in taking both people accountable.

It happened when we were already in the midst of our divorce, and it’s been a very difficult divorce, and I was at the house and we had had words and she’d left, and I proceeded to drink, and when she came home. My wife and I had words, and then she had words with my, one of our children, to which I got involved because it was very disrespectful, but I didn’t help matters at all. I was disrespectful to the point where I had hit my child in the back of the head and told him to stop swearing at his mother, to which point I said I had had enough. I was going to leave and my wife tried to stop me, which, I wasn’t about to let her. I pushed my way past her. There was never any physical hitting, but pushing is considered domestic violence in the state of Illinois. There was verbal abuse and a phone call was made, and that was all it took. She had a scratch on her arm, and that was all it took.

I wouldn’t deal with the stuff, and I’d get so fed up, and so it was the last time before I left, the day before I left, I drank. And that’s how the domestic thing, the domestic violence thing occurred. I didn’t feel like I could deal with it in that environment. I could not stay there and take care of me.

Affect Dysregulation, Alcoholism, and Unbearable Pain Bill has difficulty with affect. He has trouble receiving, expressing, and identifying emotion in himself as well as in others. His trouble is not only in accessing and understanding his affect, but in regulating, tolerating, and labeling his feelings. He does not quite see the relationship between his thoughts, feelings and actions. He does not think much about the impact he has on or how he affects others, or what goes on in their minds. Bill’s way of coping and adapting to his feelings was to numb himself.

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140 Alcoholism and addiction have served the purpose of modulating his pain while also perpetuating and accelerating what he describes as his addiction to chaos.

I was addicted to chaos, and to the point today where I just don’t, it still happens at times, it’s through parts of my, through my divorce, you know. I’m like, making a big deal out of nothing, making a big deal out of taking the kids to a game where you’re getting all excited about a bad call; turning a simple thing into chaos. And today, I see that, and I don’t like it, but I was addicted to it, where I’d get bored and I was absolutely used to the chaos in my life, and today I still have a little bit of chaos, but nothing like I used to have. You know, things start getting crazy, I go, whoa, time out, stop. Why, why are we reacting this way? What, do I own any of this? What part of this is involves me? I don’t have control over people, places and things, but I have control over me, and I think, I don’t want to be involved in any of that, and it’s ok, I don’t own any of this, and get away from it. And that actually defuses things. My wife, she starts getting all, my ex wife, excuse me, she starts getting, you know. I just kind of smile and say, no, and walk away.

As he notes, Bill has been in and out of AA. It has served the purpose of helping him to think and to label more of what he feels. He is now more willing and better able to address his experience.

I’ve gone through some steps before, but I’m going through them again right now, and obviously steps 10, 11 and 12 on a daily basis. I’m actually going through steps 4 and 5 again right now because, I want to be honest to a fault, you know. I did at one time a very thorough one and it felt so good, no more shit in my closet. It’s all out there, throw what you want at me. I am who I am. And then just screwing up again, and filling that closet back up again, and I’ve emptied about two-thirds of it out, but I have another third to go, cause when I tried to get sober, it was . . . ‘cause that was that one time when . . . had me drinking, I didn’t clean house 100%, I didn’t, you know, fear of this program, fear of my life, fear of, of not getting . . . you know. I have great highs.

I’ve done a lot of things that a lot of people wouldn’t have been able to do, and I have lows just as bad, and today, I’m like this. I know I can’t get this, but I want this, I want to try to always achieve balance in my life. I only have ever had glimpses of it, never having it 100%, but knowing, I mean, I’m aware of it, I’m aware of alcoholism, how terrible . . .

How I fooled myself was the fact that I thought I could, even though I knew I was an alcoholic. I thought I could juggle my drinking and my professional life and my personal life, in other words, have it all. And that I could handle it, and I would fool myself into thinking that all the time, I would fool myself into believing I could save my marriage. I guess it’s the part that always, I could potentially use, use that scenario, was in that capacity.

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141 One of his more recent realizations is that his alcohol use covered other painful affects, particularly his fear. He was overwhelmed by trauma, the pain of remembering, and the difficulty of experiencing unbearable affect and painful memories. He has fought and is now striving to find himself and be comfortable in his own skin. In his struggles he has begun to get in touch with a broader range of feelings, including guilt and care. As he is more open to himself and better able to think, he is opening up to others.

Fear. It’s fear driven. There was a way to deal with fear, and it was a result of my thinking. I’m an alcoholic, but my thinking got me to where I was one of those guys that was a business drinker, I’m not a maintenance drinker, which means that I wouldn’t drink every day, but when I drank, I was drinking, and it could be for six hours. It could be for three days . . . and trying to deal with things, and fearful of things, and covering up things, you know, not being honest with myself, and I enjoyed it. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I used to tell myself if I deal with the consequences, if I pay my fees, if I got legally in trouble, if I go to the classes, I’m being responsible, I’m taking care of myself. And I always knew I was an alcoholic. I figured well, as long as I’m building this company, I’m doing good, I can justify it. That was my balance in my life, as long as I’m doing this, I can do these bad things, these big things weigh these bad things. Well, today, I’ve put that away. It’s more balance from myself and spiritually, and my family and my business, and that’s balance.

My concern, I never wanted to be like him, I never wanted to be like my father, . . . and my mother saying, you’re so much like your father . . . there’s that fear, and not knowing him, that’s one of the things that, I can say that it’s unfortunate that my son has seen me drinking, seen me drunk, but, you know, I just got to treat those kind of things positively that you know, my son’s seen me that way, my son now sees me today. I want him to know how much I care about him and to know I want to be there. And my father, you know, like I said earlier, I tried to talk to him, but it’s the unknown, I’m fearful is the unknown. I get fearful of the unknown, the unknown comes in, you know I can’t say I’m like him because I don’t fight to have these feelings .. . around the kids, it’s like I have to, I feel something because I don’t want to be like my father, I am, you know, so I think, I inherited some of him. I inherited my grandpa’s teeth, I inherited his oily skin, I think I inherited my dad’s alcoholism, I think I inherited his drive at work. My grandpa was a hard worker, my mother’s a hard worker, my grandma was a hard worker, so, I’m blessed in those areas.

Well, I think today I realize my fears, my anxieties. I recognize them, because I allow myself to. Before I wouldn’t deal with you know, I’d try to drink over most things, I would not deal with them. I wouldn’t deal with my personal issues very well, if at all, and today I do. Today I’m uncomfortable in my skin at times because I’m trying to do the right thing and I’m not used to doing that. I’m allowing myself to feel things that I never used to try and feel. I enjoy the little things, I enjoy watching my son, just watching him, I enjoy taking the time to listen and times I don’t enjoy

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142 listening, I don’t have to, [Laughs] Overall, I feel comfortable with who I am, who I am today, but there’s times I’m uncomfortable because I’m unfamiliar with it. I’m not used to acting that way, you know, the right way all the time, and . . . all the times, I shouldn’t say it, but, you know, try to do the right thing. And I realize when I’m not doing the right thing, sometimes after, usually after the fact.

[Sighs] Accepting it. I think the toughest thing for me right now is affected by what I’m going through is realizing how screwed up and chaotic my life was. When I thought things were good, they were chaos. They weren’t true, it wasn’t 100%, but you know, I had a lot of good times in my past life, but I had a lot of terrible times, a lot of things I never dealt with. A lot of personal feelings I never dealt with being a people pleaser, um, today it’s uncomfortable because, you know, actually, I’d s a y . . . being in the program, I’m more in touch with my feelings, and more, I’m honest, I care, I’m more . . . What I don’t like about this program is I’m more caring, I’m more honest, and I feel all these things, ‘cause it’s uncomfortable, there’d be times when I would just, I’d be sitting, and I’d be like, God, you know, and he’d be like what’s wrong. I’m bored out of my skin, I feel like something’s wrong. Well, you know, it’s life, it’s just life. It’s just being normal, just sitting there and not having to worry.

Those are times when I’d be out drinking or I’d be out using and I always had something going on in my life. Today, I try and fill my life with other things, changing the balance in my life, having balance, quiet times, but busy times.

Mentalization Transformation for Bill may lie in his recognition of his alcoholism and in the realization that he has to do something about it. He is thinking more clearly, and as such, he may be able to consider other aspects of what goes on in his mind and with others, and how he may need to remember his past “bumps and bruises” rather than repeat them.

Bill’s turning point may be acceptance.

My turning point today was acceptance, accepting the fact that I was an alcoholic and the subsequent fact of my life and accepting it for what it really is, was, and processing that and, and the other things are starting to come to light today. The past, ‘cause I’ve buried a lot of stuff, and obviously, I don’t mean to. I never understood subconsciously, until all these things started to pop back into my head. Where’d that thought come from? Today my turning point was my kids. I wanted to be there for my kids. I realized and accepted who I was, and if I didn’t do something about me, I wasn’t going to have the relationship I wanted with my children, and I wasn’t going to be there for my kids. So, and accepting the fact, accepting my alcoholism got me to the children part, got to my marriage, which allowed me to see those things in a

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143 clearer picture, and realizing that I wasn’t leading the life I wanted to lead, wasn’t being who I could be.

In simple terms, basically I don’t think I was a good person. I was blessed with a lot of good things, but just didn’t understand them. I just didn’t get the help that I needed. Maybe, I didn’t have the father and parental structure that I needed as a kid.

Not that I was beaten. I didn’t have a terrible life, but I just didn’t have the things that I wanted to give my kids, and my storyline I guess would be the fact that it’s kind of like an undeveloped.... I’m not a polished person. It’s like I was a diamond in the rough, and that’s a little too far left, but you know, I had a lot of good things, I just didn’t quite pull them together. And being an alcoholic hindered me a lot in not knowing how to deal with that, and not accepting it really, really hindered me greatly.

But again, looking back, I had a good life, I had a lot of bumps and bruises, but I don’t dwell on it, and you know, how the storyline goes is how you can turn your life around and how you can have everything and you can have peace of mind.

Part of the change he has experienced comes from within the abuser treatment group.

He was able to see himself from another perspective and as the experiences of others were similar and familiar, he felt engaged and could engage in a more reflective and purposeful manner. He could think, feel, and see that he had choices to make, uncovering a better sense of intentionality and agency and the possibility of understanding his mind. He saw himself in the eyes of others, their problems with abuse and alcohol, and that he was not alone.

The experience in group was refreshing to me. It validated a lot of things that I had been thinking. It helped to give me new perspectives from other people. I was very surprised at how some people that were participating in it talked openly and freely about their experiences and others said nothing. Because of the AA program that I’m involved in heavily, the openness, the respect, the honesty was very, was very important in that and so it correlated a lot to the discussion, so I was able to be very open and honest and there was youth there. Kids that were 21, 22, that has experiences of similar situations. I could see . . . that’s the way I was, that’s the way I would think about this. In a sober state of mind, I don’t think I’m responsible for my actions at all times. I’ve been accused of being Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde while drinking, and I totally agree with that. I mean, I totally, totally agree with that.

Today life’s pretty good. My relationship is still strained, but the group was good in the fact that I felt like I was doing something, I felt that I was truthfully talking about my situation and what I had done, things that I practice, I do have the right to, it’s my choice. I can choose not to engage, I can choose to walk away. I can take the high road. I don’t have to buy into things. I validate that, like being able to be clear thinking.

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144 I have choices I can make. I need to be in the right frame of mind to realize I have those choices. I found that in a lot of people in these situations. Not all of them, but I say my experiences in the group - it was a pretty big group, 12, 18 people - I saw come and go in that period. There was alcohol or drugs involved, which stood out big to me, and what I also learned was important, even though, in a certain state of mind, I’m really not perhaps reacting in a physical manner. I still would not act appropriately, even in a verbal manner. I still would buy into things, even though I was like being dry drunk. My thinking was still screwed up. Drinking isn’t only the affects after they teach you in AA here, it ties in a lot to where I was at. A lot of it’s the thinking. My thinking has changed, and they helped me. I don’t have to fight.

It’s easier to walk away from situations and deal with it when we’re all in a controlled environment.

Bill has been cut off from much of a connection to others and to himself. He participated in this study as a “cleansing.” He made time for it partially in gratitude to the counselor who treated him and the benefit he experienced from the group. In his participation, he conveyed a longing not only to be engaged in a relationship, but also to think and tell his story. The cleansing he referred to seemed to be in reference to the benefit he felt in remembering. In exploring his story of confusions and violations—the pain, suffering, and anguish of growing up in his family; his suffering in silence; and being failed—he found a sense of being understood. As a child, he felt alone, left on his own to make sense of a chaotic world filled with violations, secrets, betrayals, incest, emotional assault, and abuse. The consequences of his failure to mentalize are a distorted world view. Although this is unpleasant and painful, he may now be better able to reflect and remember, to address the pain of his past and remember instead of repeat, and to link instead of enact. Today he still searches for a better understanding of love and affection.

He wants balance and a better relationship with his children.

Honestly, I can say I’ve never thought about that. Can’t say I’ve ever really thought much about that because I can’t say I wanted to talk about it. But I did want to do something, give it a justification, ‘cause like I say, it’s an unfinished business and you know, it’s not my choice. It wasn’t me. My sisters, if that’s the way they choose to deal with it, and my mother, that’s their choice. I can’t tell them. I could, you know,

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145 ‘cause I did, and they just get mad. It didn’t happen to me, so I can’t go and say, you know, we got to talk about this. That’s the way they’ve dealt with it. They don’t talk about it. They don’t share about it, and I’m not even sure I want to hear about it today.

It’s been so long, today I said, what I have today is something I wish my father would have had and my mother would have had with me when I was growing up. You know, but we didn’t have that.

In a sober state of mind he is able to be think clearly, see from “new perspectives,” be less reactive, and be better able to manage and regulate his emotions. He sees that he has some choices and recognizes that he does not have to numb or “fool” himself.

Bill’s alcoholism and use of pretend mode thinking have kept his thinking narrow and concrete. Although he attributes the confusion to his drinking, the painful experience of a history of trauma and abuse coupled with the absence of an emotionally available and supportive relationship has left him alone and stuck in patterns of reenactment with feelings of despair. He states that his motive to change is, “I don’t want to be one of those people that wake up one day and didn’t get i t . . . I wasn’t honest and I wasn’t honest with myself, that’s probably my biggest problem, being honest with me, talking about what’s really going on in my head.”

I wasn’t the smartest guy ‘cause my business life justified my other life. To me, I can be so successful over here, but obviously, my life over here, my drinking and drugging is acceptable because I’m accepted over here. And my life was so chaotic over there.

I lived two lives. Two different things, they each crept into each other, obviously, I didn’t keep them separated. There wasn’t a line down the middle . . . .

I got to be able to understand and respect me more before I’m ready to ask somebody to share that with me. I’m still cleaning house, and I will be for a long time, but it’s not clean enough yet to where I feel like I know what I want. I don’t literally know 100% what I want. I know I want to keep working on it, and I think that eventually I’ll understand more clearly what I do want, ‘cause I truly don’t know.

And the beautiful thing about where I am today is I don’t have to figure it out today.

You know, today I understand that I don’t have to do it all today.

I think that they’re not treating, they’re not treating what needs to be treated, at least for myself. I know I’m a different person, my alcoholism, created an abusive person, and my alcoholism is just a symptom of other things, so you got to keep peeling the layer back. I think most of the time, the abusers that I know that drink, the

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problem is drinking and drugging, and that’s just a symptom. I’m not very philosophical, but I understand that even though I’ve stopped drinking, it doesn’t mean I’m a good person.

I met with Bill on two occasions; in both instances, in his office at work. It was an informal, though business-like meeting wherein we sat around a coffee table next to his desk. It was clearly apparent that he made time to talk with me in some way as part of his recovery program.

Alcoholism and being a recovering alcoholic were discussed in Bill’s treatment group with Harriet, his counselor. He agreed to participate in this study because Harriet asked him to help, saying he “had to give it away to keep it.” He described his experience in the group as “refreshing.” He said that it validated a lot of things he had been thinking about and gave him new perspectives on other people. He was surprised by the openness, respect, and honesty shown in the group. He learned that he has choices to engage or not, to walk away and take “the high road, not buy into things.” The group helped him to be “clear thinking.” He gained insight into his ability to stop and think before acting, giving him a greater sense of deliberateness and choice and the realization of how “screwed up and chaotic” his life was.

In the second session, he spoke about grieving. The only other previous mention of loss he made was in reference to losing his driver’s license and working to get it back.

He is in touch with the sadness associated with his divorce and hopes to “cleanse him self’ with a healing process and move on. Much of his language was the language of AA: “sober state of mind” and “stupid thinking.” His sadness over having just finalized his divorce was apparent. I was touched by the sorrow of his loss as he was realizing it and the hope for something different and better.

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147

Hank Keller: Matters of the Heart—A Darker Shade of Black

When I was in pain and couldn’t breathe, well, it would make me forget it, I mean it really didn’t take it away, but I’d get loaded and I really didn’t have to think about it as much . . . I remember as a kid, and other times, during my life if I couldn’t get my way or if I was disappointed, I’d go in and break the toys that were the most important to me. I still do that today with the people I love, and I know that, and I don’t know why. Only instead of breaking a model car or something like that, I’m usually breaking people’s hearts.

— Hank Keller Helen Keller once wrote: ‘Blindness cuts people off from things, deafness cuts people off from people.’ It is easy to imagine momentarily how catastrophic deafness and blindness can be for people who have heard and seen. But it is the everyday living that is most difficult.

—Walker, in Keller, 1988, p. xv

Hank is a 53-year-old Caucasian male. He is recently divorced from his second wife, Susan, after being separated for almost two years. He was married for nearly 10 years, the last seven of which were strained because of health issues that his ex-wife was experiencing. The earlier part of their marriage was strained due to Hank’s health problems. He is middle class, has a degree in journalism, and is self-employed. His latest ex-wife has two children from a previous marriage, a 22-year-old daughter and a 21-year-old son. Hank’s relationship with the children was difficult and he has had no contact with them since the separation.

Hank had a long history of alcohol use and addiction, which began in adolescence.

His use was a self-destructive pattern in which he medicated himself from pain and

mediated his experience. Hank has had trouble breathing throughout his life. His addiction helped him forget his pain. He has cystic fibrosis, which resulted in extraordinary physical problems and makes for psychological difficulties. His childhood

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148 trauma, a devastating experience of shame and unbearable psychic pain, crushed him. It was a transgression, an injury that shattered his worldview, highlights pretend mode thinking, and begins to explain the confusion he has in understanding what others think or feel and many of the features of his addiction.

Hank, like the others in this study, has ample reason to be depressed, and like the others, dealt with it in an atypical way. At age 39, he found his way into recovery through AA. The 12-step program helped him to get through his alcohol addiction into a healthier state. It was a major turning point that helped him salvage his life. Susan and Hank met through AA. At the time of this study, Hank has been in recovery for 15 years.

At age 44, a second major turning point occurred: he had a successful lung transplant.

Without it, he thinks he would have died. In his family of origin, Hank is the middle child o f three. He has one older sister and one younger brother. His parents are alive and have been married for 55 years. He has regular contact with them.

In his experience of growing up, his parents sheltered him from “unpleasantness� and did not address the harsh reality of an illness that he was living with on a daily basis.

They treated him as if he was normal. The secrecy and deception was unintentional; when revealed, it was deeply scarring. It is the underlying experience of living in an invalidating environment that has left him confused and routinely expecting chaos. His childhood adversity put him at greater risk for adolescent adversity that confounded him and compounded the developmental problems he has experienced. As an adult with trauma embedded in his history of illness and confusion, he acquired a failure to understand how others may think or feel as well as how he understands and regulates his

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149 own feelings. These are the experiences that underlie Hank’s problems with interpersonal relationships.

Neither the police nor the court was involved in the domestic violence incident associated with this study, and Hank was not ordered into a treatment group. He has never had any legal or criminal difficulties. He was encouraged to join the group by his wife, who saw anger and control problems in him. At the time, his marriage was “disintegrating” and he thought that he had nothing to lose.

Hank found the group experience positive and useful and he chose to participate in this study because o f that positive experience, because he had been asked to by his counselor, and because he was curious about it. He found that the group experience was deeper than what he thought it would be and raised questions that he had been asking himself (and that others had been asking him) for a long time. He found the group process “therapeutic” and he felt engaged.

Before coming to the group, he did not think there was “such a thing as verbal abuse or emotional abuse.” He thought it was a “kind of heat of the argument type thing.” He did not understand how his emotions and words were “pounding her into the ground.” He has begun to realize more about himself and others. He realized that he did have an anger problem and that he had not had to be so alone. He has developed awareness and skills, as he has realized how he “felt in [his] thinking, the self-talk in [his] head, and how [he’d] get wound up.” He is learning to recognize his feelings and how he would climb the anger pyramid and how to nip it before it gets dangerous. He is becoming more observant of his actions and particularly of how to calm himself through visualization and time-out techniques. He is seeing himself and others with a better grasp of his problems.

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150 I self-admitted myself to Harriet’s anger management class. My wife at the time had been telling me I had an anger problem. At the time of our marriage was disintegrating, and I thought, well, what do I have to lose. I called Harriet through a friend of mine who was in the class at about the time I worked it out. He had recommended Harriet. I found the class to be very insightful. It was interesting to talk with other men that seemed to have some of the same anger problems with their spouses or things with their wife. I also came away with a better understanding of how I respond to certain stressors in my life and I came away with a couple key visualizations that I can use to help me understand when my anger’s escalating and try to nip it before it gets to a dangerous position.

Transgressions Hank’s history is one of painful disillusionment, pretense, and pretend mode thinking.

The feelings of shame, humiliation, and inadequacy are linked to most egregious boundary violations, the attack on his sense of self and his worldview. He was confronted with naming a lifelong illness and overwhelmed by a loss that he has not fully mourned. In his most emotionally devastating childhood experience, his worldview and self-concept were shattered. It was in the fifth grade when he was confronted by the painful reality of his cystic fibrosis. His parents, in their attempt to protect him, hid the illness from him and compromised his sense of self and their relationship with him.

Trying to shelter him from the harsh realities of his illness, they cultivated his pretend mode thinking. The deception was not intentional, but it was deeply scarring and confusing.

Hank does not remember his parents arguing or fighting. He does not report alcohol or substance use or violence (witnessed or experienced) in his home. Instead, the familial dysfunction was in its inability to communicate feelings and to talk about real issues. He recognizes some generational concerns that have affected his parents and how they were raised, but in general, it is the emotional atmosphere in his family—the secrets, betrayals,

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151 and failures—that stand out. He was living in a pretend mode family culture. The shattering o f his illusion of normalcy is a deep injury that left him in a state of disillusionment, confusion, shame, and anger. He felt inadequate, defective, and broken.

In many ways, he still feels that way today. These themes thread throughout his story.

He was bullied in school and felt as if he were a “weenie.” He managed and avoided his pain through passive-aggressive and self-destructive behavior as he began using alcohol and drugs at age 14. He developed addictive patterns. Despite his illness, Hank began smoking cigarettes, and then using alcohol and pot. By age 18 he was alcohol dependent, and his addiction spiraled out of control from there. Hank describes the injury that he experienced and the shame he felt. The shame is linked to his anger, resentment, and confusion. It is linked to his problems with intimacy and his isolation and the shattering of his illusion of normalcy; consequently, his belief in himself and others is apparent in his reenacted patterns of expectation. He is still in search of the possibilities of intimacy and finding himself and others in a relationship where he can breathe think without being so overwhelmed. The devastating sense of being overwhelmed stands out with Hank.

When I was in fifth grade, everybody got health report cards at the time, and mine came out, and it was written on there that I had cystic fibrosis and I’d never seen that word before. It had never been discussed in my family and it was brought out in public in class, and the teacher asked me what it was, and I didn’t know. She sort of humiliated me with her inquisition. I don’t think she meant to, but I felt very humiliated, was told to go down to the school library, get a dictionary, look it up, come back and give a report, and all this, I had no idea. I had never heard those words.

I knew I took some medicine when I was a kid. I knew I had more colds than everybody, but my mom and dad never told me what was going on and I just, you know how it is, it was just a dumb. How old are you in fifth grade? Ten? And I didn’t know. That stands out real big, and then, and then after that I became aware of it, you know, and I was coughing a lot all the time, and I remember that, I remember people always asking me what that was all about. I remember later having to go to the hospital a lot. Always had a lot of friends, though, and I always tried to hide it from them. Always tried to hide it. I still feel that way a lot. I’m a little easier talking about it, I don’t, and part of the reason is today more people have heard about it, ‘50s

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152 and ‘60s, ‘70s, not that many people heard about it. So that’s what stands out as a kid . . . .

The year after that one experience I was talking about. I got off the school bus so this was in sixth grade - and my teacher was out there, and when I got off the bus, he said, what’s this cystic fibrosis stuff? And I grabbed him and I spat, almost spat back in his face, and I jerked away from him and ran off.

Then in eighth grade I got pretty sick and had to go in the hospital for some lung problems. Nobody really talked to me about it, not even my parents, forever. I learned about it by looking it up in dictionaries once in a while. You know, Marcus Welby had a show on it years ago that I watched with my family, but my coping of it and my understanding of it and assimilating it and not only taking it from my head, but to my heart, I did all on my own. I had this fantasy when I was young, 8th, 9th, 10th grade, that I wouldn’t have to tell my future wife about it until after we were married because that way at least we’d be married and she couldn’t jilt me.

I think it became known probably in college when I’d cough a lot, and people would say, well, you’ve had that cold for a long, long time. You know you produce a lot of thick mucus when you have this disease. And I remember one time in, I was in high school, 11th grade maybe, and I’m walking down the hall behind this girl that I kind of liked, and I started coughing real bad, and I hocked up a big bunch of phlegm and it landed on the back of her sweater [Laughing] and I was like, holy crap, and oh my god, just, I ju s t. . . [Sighs] That’s a terrible story . . . I think looking back, subconsciously, how my teacher reacted to that in terms of that sense of humiliating me, and maybe I read that as a rejection, I don’t know, and I don’t know how that tape played later in my life when I get in intimate situations.

I was ashamed of it. I really didn’t know what to say. I felt dirty in a certain way, broken and different, and I didn’t want anybody to know. Even my best friends, up until I was in high school, I didn’t tell them, even though I had to take this medicine all the time. I just didn’t talk to them about it and I remember one time my folks were going away for a week and asked my friend Dave . . . asked his mom and dad if I could stay there, you know, if they’d take care of me for the week, and they said fine.

And I remember my mother telling me, I told Mrs. P that you had cystic fibrosis and you had to take these pills. I remember just flipping out at my mother. Why’d you, well, and then later I realized, well, she had to do that, you know, and it’s no big deal, but to me it was a very big deal, and I hated talking about it, and up until I was, even the last 20 years, it’s been real hard for me to talk about. I have no problem talking about it today, partly I think because I’ve sort of been cured by this transplant. It’s a thing of the past, but it’s played a big role in my life, I don’t know how much of me it’s shaped, I mean, it’s shaped some good parts of me, maybe not real healthy parts of me, well.

The expectation of being alone and having to make sense of an incomprehensible illness that no one had explained to him kept Hank alone in his own mind, where he fantasized that he could keep secrets while regularly grappling with his illness and his

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153 affect, particularly his shame and feelings of being defective. The misperception and distortions continue to confuse him and confound his relationships. He sees himself as broken, defective, and alone. His disease had not been talked about. This failure has colored his relationships, how he sees himself and relates to others, and how he reflects upon, modulates, and expresses his feelings. It is a failure of mentalization that has confused him, distorted his sense of boundaries both in his mind and in his relationships, and that he still struggles with today.

It was something that I didn’t talk about. Nobody talked about it. My parents didn’t talk to me about it. Maybe there’s a sense of, boy, if you can’t talk about one of the biggest things in your life, how do you talk about anything else?.. . It was the big elephant that nobody in my family talked about. If my parents ever took me aside to talk about it, it might have been about as insightful as your initial birds and the bees discussion. You know how it works? Yeah, ok, bye. You know, one of those things.

I’d like to understand what connection that has with my intimate relationships and why, and if it has anything to do with why. When it just comes down to living with someone else I have a difficult time with, I think whatever part of my brain, the logical side says . . . well, maybe the reason you have trouble living with Susan is you’re just not made for each other.

And my dad tells me at the time, the doctor, when I was diagnosed, the doctor at Children’s told my mom and dad to treat him like any other little boy, let him do what any other little boy will do. He will know what his physical boundaries are and he’ll stop. Kind of with the tone of he’s not going to live very long anyway, so let him do what he can do. So, my dad and mom, particularly my dad, adopted this philosophy that, do what you want to do. That didn’t mean do reckless behaviors. It just meant if I want to try out for the baseball team, try out, if I want to swim laps, you know. I compare that today where some people shelter their kids or don’t let them do anything and they over protect them, and I think the fact that my parents let me be a kid and struggle some ways with my own differences was a character building for me. I think it helped me develop the sense of self reliance and self destiny. I never once felt that they favored me.

To tell you the truth, most times I didn’t talk over problems with either of them, I either just dealt with it. It was common in my school in those days to get bullied, you know, in that era. I don’t know of anybody that’d go and tell his old man that he’d get bullied at school, he dealt with it. You either just put up with it or you beat the bully up. I don’t ever remember with him, oh, my heart’s broken with this girl or I don’t know how to get this girl to like me or no discussions like that, I don’t remember doing that stuff. . .

I feel like I lose myself. That my identity goes, and in a way that becomes suffocating to me. I think part of that is I end up maybe sometimes not expressing

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154 clearly my needs and wants or drawing my lines and boundaries. You know, and not believing maybe I have the right to do that in a relationship.

Hank was alone in facing his illness, even in his marriage. He conveys a victim mindset as he makes references to roles that he plays: rescuer, enabler, and victim. He learned how to play these roles in childhood experiences. He enacted patterns established in his early relationships with partners who fit molds and have complementary needs that are a match for him when he is stuck with his problems and is alone.

At age 26, he married a woman who was 18. The marriage “was good for a while until the gleam wore off.” They divorced after a few years of drifting in what Hank refers to as his fear of intimacy and his dependency. Drugs, alcohol abuse, and misperception were part of their problems. He can now recognize that he has the “same issues with her and some of the same battles.” He had “hit bottom” while recognizing how his life was spiraling out of control and his addiction consumed him. He began recovery at age 39, and has currently had 15 years of sobriety.

He met his second wife through AA. They were married for about 10 years. At the time they married, Hank thought, “I’m probably going to die anyway. This may be my last chance to have a relationship.” Susan nursed him through his lung transplant. Then she became ill herself and suffered from depression, PTSD, and anxiety. This was too much for Hank to deal with. Susan needed a quiet home and someone to love and treat her well; Hank could not do that. They divorced. Hank can only now see somewhat more distinctly how he was putting horrible anxiety and pressure on her.

Hank attempts to explore how his relationship with his disease has affected his relationships with others—how the boundaries between fantasy and reality get blurred and how the distortion of mentalization breakdown, reality testing, and the ability to

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155 understand himself and others have damaged his relationship. Even after sobering up, Hank is fearful and confused.

I have clear memory o f this being bullied. I have a clear memory of my disastrous first sexual experience. But even after that was this mixture of emotions between all that goes on with getting to know somebody at that level and having them like you and you like them, with trying to figure out when do I bring into the picture and how do I tell them I have this disease? That was always extremely difficult, and I know for a lot of my adult life, before I met my first wife and then during my eight years when I was a bachelor, before I met Susan, before really I sobered up, well, even after I sobered up for a while, I had this behavior with women that I was going to get to know them, date them, have as much sex with them as I could, and then probably because once they knew I had this disease, they were going to boot me out, though I never gave them the chance. I always got rid of them first. You know, I’m going to get rid of you before you get rid of me ‘cause once you know how fucked up I am, you’re going to get rid of me soon. I look back at that and I have some not real good memories about that behavior. So those things stand out. And I’ve had two bad marriages stand out.

On the other hand, I’ve been successful in a career that I’ve fought for for years . . . .

The transgressions in his adult life are related to his sense of helplessness and inadequacy. They are evident in his emotionally abusive and controlling behavior. He had poor models and no skills, which framed and defined his adult relationship.

I’d hit it bad. I’d been drinking; I was 39 at that time. I’d been drinking fairly regularly since I was 18, and I’d been through one marriage where it had been chaotic and drugs and alcohol had been a heavy part of it. I had dated four or five women at the time, for some length of time where alcohol was a problem, alcohol was involved, most of those ended up, not by my choosing, breaking up, except a couple of them. I had a feeling that I was probably an alcoholic, I had a feeling probably that I’d end up there someday, but I wasn’t ready to quit yet. I had sometimes a perfection thing where I felt that I had to ride all the way to the bottom before I would come up. I also felt that part of my difficulty with women and anger, would, would, some of the women I was involved with, was because I was drunk, I found out later being with Susan that alcohol might have helped get me going, but I had some anger issues in there, particularly in situations with women where I was either confused, didn’t understand what was going on, or felt threatened . . .

And then at some point, I guess I get tired o f being the rescuer or I get tired of saying, I’ve tried to turn you into this, this gladiola, and you’ve only managed to be a dandelion, what’s wrong? I’m tired, goodbye. And I think at some point, I get there and I’m tired of working with you, I’ve been working with you to make this dandelion for 10 years, you’re not getting there, see ya.

You know, it’s one thing to watch it on TV. It’s another thing to have it happen to you. I never would have before coming here, this anger management, that there’s

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156 such a thing as verbal abuse, or emotional abuse. Yeah, verbal abuse. I can see that, calling each other some really bad names, but I just thought that was kind of heat of the argument type thing, though Susan has told me many times that I was just, with my emotions and my words, pounding her into the ground. I really didn’t understand that. She knew ‘cause she’d lived with a guy who was extremely abusive to her that way. And there may be some things she carries over with me, where maybe I say something that really isn’t, isn’t really worth too much, but because her experience is more, maybe she reacts differently to it and that may throw me a curve occasionally, but generally, you know, she’s pretty easygoing. She gets stressed easily; she doesn’t like a lot of fast, aggressive conversation like I gave her last night when I was talking about this. It tends to confuse her, gets her. Well, first it gets her excited, and then she gets confused and has to take a break. And I just want to keep you know, and then she goes, I got to take a break, I’m going to go outside for a while. Then sometimes I’ll go out and try to explain myself and end up starting the whole thing over again.

A lot of this is very embarrassing to, not embarrassing, I feel shamed about it. I thought I was a better person than that. I thought I had a better, healthier grasp of relationships and reality, I thought I was a pretty good guy. I’m kind of having the same epiphany about this as I did when I found myself in AA, thinking I was just a normal guy drinking and going out once in a while to the bar, how did I get here, you know? I remember saying to people, hey, you know, what’s wrong with picking up chicks at a bar? They’re normal just like me, and then I realized .. . [Laughs] . .. there’s the logic in that, you know, pick up women who hang out in bars all the time, they’re going to be as messed up as you are.

Hank describes the confusion in his relationship and the accelerating pattern of abuse and control that subsequently lead to his separation. He is in a victim mindset and has difficulty seeing, supporting, and empathizing with his wife. He is overwhelmed by stress and although he can identify the cycle, patterns and problems in their relationship, it is his internal life that frightens and overwhelms him.

I was overwhelmed with stress and difficulty. So when we would talk, normally conversations ended up in pretty severe yelling matches, name calling, and then remorse, and I was in the cycle of that, so after we’d split up for a while, for about six months, I tried to get back together. In March or April of 2005,1 came to this class. Soon after I came here, about two or three weeks after I came here, I realized that some of her behaviors that caused me to leave in the first place, falling asleep smoking, cigarettes landing in the sofa. I was afraid she was going to bum up and the house, so that’s what was going on and for quite awhile it was building up and I was at my end. I didn’t think I would strike her, but I did wonder sometimes. I felt like things were spinning out of control more and more.

I was just afraid that at some point in time I might strike her around. Who knows?

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157

Affect Dysregulation and Turning Points Hank used alcohol and drugs to manage his distress and it ended up perpetuating his problems and adversely affecting him and others. His epiphany is that he sees himself and begins to recognize the consequences of his self-destructive, long-term substance use.

Joining AA and his lung transplant comprise his second major turning point. He has a new lease on life. With sobriety, Hank can begin to think and feel more clearly. He has only recently defined himself as a “sober horse thief.” It is a shift in mentalization; he is beginning to understand his affective experiences and the underlying difficulties and problems he has encountered.

What the drinking did was made me forget i t . . . When I was in pain and couldn’t breathe well, it would make me forget it. It didn’t really take it away, but I’d get loaded and I didn’t really think about it as much . . . I started drinking pretty regularly when I was about 16, started smoking when I was 14, started taking heavy drugs when I was in college, but I got out of that in my mid-20s. But you know, but I wasn’t reckless in a lot of other ways. I mean, I didn’t drive real fast, I didn’t bungee jump, I didn’t do any of that shit. It was just kind of chicken shit bravado, I guess.

My doctors, my parents, you know, but who cares? I don’t care; I’m going to die anyway, so what the hell’s it matter? I mean at the time, growing up, I’m 14 years old, I’m pushing the envelope here. Then I’m 21, I’m really pushing the envelope, then I’m pushing 30. Even my doctors, today I went to an ear, nose and throat guy, and he goes, you have CF and you have a lung transplant, he goes, boy, you’re a relic, aren’t you? And I said, yeah, I shouldn’t be here for any reason at all. Well, I’m kind of an emotional retard, and I don’t know if you know much about AA, but they say that’s typically a lot of men begin drinking at the age when they emotionally stop growing.

Booze has been a part of me, part of my life since I was about 15, so. And I know I drank to feel normal, I know that, and I thought when I sobered up, all these problems would go away. Surprise, surprise.

It was like one of those E.F. Hutton moments where I thought everybody in the bar stopped talking and was looking at me. She walked away, and I remember, at this moment very clearly thinking, everybody’s looking at me. How do I put this beer on the table nonchalantly and walk out of here without everybody laughing at me?”

Actually, there are so many of them ‘cause most things that happen are turning points in one way or another. Most recently I think sobriety. To be truthful about it, it’s the incidents that happened before that that led me to sobriety, so they were all significant, too. The humiliation of work. The stupid thing that happened at the bar

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158 with these girls. All those different things, served to push me there, so they were significant, sobriety, I think the transplant was significant. It kept me alive. I think the marriage to Susan, for all the difficulty it was, was significant in that it gave me some insight into the other side of the addiction and the alcoholism problem. She taught me to love in a lot of different ways. She gave me some great things. And I have to say, this divorce is a turning point. I feel free again, maybe, it’s maybe selfish to say I feel free, I feel I’ve escaped a very bad place.

I’d certainly not be here today if I hadn’t had the transplant, but what’s really made the most difference has been recovery. I mean it’s made the most difference. I was a little surprised in recovery that I could still find that I could get as angry with Susan. But the old story in recovery is before I got sober, I was a drunken horse thief, and after recovery, I’m just a sober horse thief. That’s really what sent to Harriet’s program is if I do have this. I obviously have an anger issue that tends to come out when I’m in relationships, then maybe I ought to take a look at it. I said to myself, it couldn’t hurt. I’ve always been open to that. I’ve looked at things like, the power of positive thinking and books on edification and all that to keep my head in the right place, so I’m open to that kind of stuff. I know what a change AA made in my life, so I thought, well, if this anger management thing is anything like that, if I can take anything out of it, it’s time well spent, so I came to Harriet and I said, where do I sign?

Hank identifies a number of significant issues to consider. He begins to more clearly see himself and understand his emotional state. He makes a judgment about his developmental derailment and the emerging realization of the work he has ahead of him.

He notes a trend in his experience and that of others in AA: “.. . a lot of men begin drinking at the age when they emotionally stop growing.” He also notes that he drinks to feel “normal,” and that what he thought was normal was atypical. He somewhat fooled himself in an enactment similar to the patterns of experience and the expectations he had as a child, themes of being alone, secrets and betrayal. Feeling normal but being far from it is at the very core of his difficulties. He has done to himself that which has been done and modeled by others. The consequences of these impingements are seen in how he thinks about himself: seeing himself as broken, defective, inadequate, wishy-washy, and a “weenie.” He has difficulty trusting others, communicating, negotiating, compromising, working through conflicts, and empathically relating to others. He has had trouble

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159 understanding, interpreting, and managing his feelings, and consequently, he has had little tolerance of others’ vulnerabilities, needs, and feelings. As Hank talks about how his illness “helped [him] to develop the sense of self-reliance and self-destiny,” he conveys slight awareness of how utterly alone he has been. Sobriety gave him a chance to think and feel more clearly. The transplant has given him another chance at life, a realization of choice and intentionality. His current challenge is finding himself and connecting to others.

Hank’s humiliation and shame immobilized him. Despite much to feel fearful, anxious, and depressed about—his darker shade of black—Hank is now facing himself, confronting his past, and finding himself and others in relationships. These are the areas, his failure of mentalization, a pretend mode thinking, that complicate his life and his relationships.

I guess the first step is I have to understand them better myself. I don’t understand.

They range from fear to anger to melancholy. Most of it’s fear. As AA says the root of all of our problems is fear. They say it in different terms than that. And when I look around and everything’s wrong with the world around me, I have to take a look ‘cause all this shit begins inside me all this time.

I tried to make out of fear, a decision, last night, which was, go away, I don’t like you. You know, push you aside, instead of saying, maybe this is something we should take the next step and explore deeper. I’m scared to death. I’m really scared . . . . Yeah, it’s already getting a little chaotic, I can see where, I tried to get together, then the fear overtakes it, it’s go away, go away, go away, and hurt her feelings, and that pattern starts all over again.

That’s a good question, but I think part of my fear of all this is, is, and this is coulda, shoulda, woulda, but part of the fear of this is getting back and finding myself in some of the situations I had before where Susan was kind of out of control, where I had no choice. I mean it had, it, the choice I had was to remove myself from it, but there was nothing I could do, I just had to sit and take it. At least that’s what I thought, so I didn’t feel I had any choice, and perhaps part of my fear of even thinking about even dating her again is a feeling that I’d end, I’d lose the ability to have choices. That may be a boundary issue. It’s maybe part of what I talked about earlier, where I get in these relationships . . .

Last night I told her that part of the reason I’m acting this way is I’m scared to death. I told her I lose myself in relationships, and she started talking about

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160 boundaries and stuff. I know she’s right, and I said, I get squirrely like this, and I start pushing people away, and I said you’ve experienced it before, and she says, maybe you need to go get some help in figuring out how to do that, whether it’s with me or somebody else, and I say, yeah, I know . . . just get on with your bachelor life again, it’s free, you don’t have to worry about it. On the other hand, I go, yeah, but I don’t know if I want to miss out on an opportunity, I don’t know whether I’m short changing myself. It’s easy, as I’ve been told . . . it’s easy to live by yourself. It’s really easy. Nobody to have to negotiate with the telephone with, with the TV station, nobody to negotiate over what you’re going to eat for dinner, what movie you’re going to go see. It can just be your way, and it’s easy. And I go, yeah, I like it like that, I like it like that. It’s kind of empty too, sometimes.

I don’t know; that’s what I’d like to know. I’ve asked myself that. I think growing up a lot of that fear of getting close was that I would have to share at some point my disease that I had, and since that was so uncomfortable for me to talk about, I was deathly afraid that if I told somebody, they’d reject me. That probably worked up through about college, and I don’t know, maybe, I don’t know, it didn’t seem to be any issue with my first wife, and doesn’t at all with this second wife, but maybe that developed some patterns with me when I came close to people, if you know me, you won’t like me.

It gets to the point where people frustrate and irritate me. I can just mentally make them disappear, I just totally discount them. They have no meaning to me anymore. I don’t like those things about myself. I don’t know why I cope like that, I don’t know why I just say, you know, you’re different, I don’t have to like what you’re doing, but just ‘cause you do that doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It doesn’t mean, you know, and my thinking doesn’t go there. I would hope after 15 years of AA I’d have been able to not look at other people’s inventory, I’d have been able to be more tolerant, and I think that’s what I need to do is just, it’s just, I tend to forget to look at the good attributes of people. I think that’s why when I sat down with Susan and we had Chinese dinner and just listened to her and listened to her talk about things. I realized the depth of understanding and knowledge and compassion she had, and I hadn’t seen that in a long time. I just saw her as this girl with the bad back who caused me hell.

She’s using this, and here I’ve been taught that, too, and it gets away from me, and next thing I know I’m talking about stuff I had no intention of talking to her about.

It might have been in my heart, I don’t know, you know, I’m indecisive, I’m scared to death. But instead of just saying that, I start talking around it, and then all my fear just comes [Crashing noise] in words and sometimes not the most pleasant words, um, and it makes the other person feel like shit. And I think part o f it is, is part of me going, you cut me off [Chopping noise], get rid of me. Then somebody’ll make the decision, cause I don’t know whether to go here or here. Part of me would really love to say, Susan, I don’t know where this is going to go, well let’s go talk to . . . and work on this and see, give a timeline, six months down the road if we’re, we don’t feel better about it, we just go.

Do you remember the show Soapl Used to be on years ago. Uncle Bert was the guy who was a little nuts, and he used to, if somebody was aggravating him somewhat, he would do this, he’d go (clicking noise), and in his mind, they’d disappear. That’s

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161 how I deal with people that I’m pissed off at, don’t find them useful anymore, I want to be rid of, in my mind, I kind of go (clicking noise), and he still might be sitting there, but as far as I’m concerned, he’s ceased to exist. That’s kind of how I handled my anger, and some o f it was breaking stuff that’s important to me to get back at you.

I kind of look at my marriage to Susan and I go, some of that was going on, you’d piss me off and I’d go in, and I was a big collector and builder of model cars and boats when I was young, and I busted them, you know, and then I’d be, what am I doing, and I’d have remorse about that, and then I’d feel bad about the person I’d argued with, and then I’d go back and make up, and in some ways, I think I was still doing that, I’m probably still doing that today.

I get angry. Women have said to me, you’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I never really understood that. I still struggle with what exactly that means, I think what it means in these cases, I’m mad at you, therefore I’m going to destroy the relationship instead of working through that. And I don’t really know how to separate. Still, I don’t think, being angry with you and yet you still being all right and ok with me, you know what I mean? If I get angry at you, I’m done with you and I think this issue, now that I’m divorced again and this isn’t happening. What I’ve learned through Harriet’s program, and everything’s great right now, but, I figure if I ever get in another relationship, serious relationship, to say, ok, I’ve got this under control, cause that’s usually where it comes out.

You asked me if there were other things that I do know and this has just come about in the last couple weeks. I remember as a kid, and other times during my life, if I couldn’t get my way or if I got very disappointed, I’d go in and break the toys that were most important to me. I still do that today with the people I love, and I know that, and I don’t know why. Only instead of breaking a model car or something like that, I’m breaking people’s hearts. And then I have the same feeling I had then after I broke my favorite model car: tremendous remorse. And going back to the person who had frustrated me, usually my mother and trying to ingratiate myself to her again, get in her good graces. I’m sorry Mom, I’m sorry Mom, I’m sorry Mom, until she told me she loved me. And that’s still what I do today.

The challenges that lie ahead for Hank are defined by his failures of mentalization and his failure to tolerate and deal with feelings and memories. His failures to think clearly and consequentially, to consider others and what they may think of could be expected to feel, to consider what it feels like to be him, are all failures in mentalization. The confusion in Hank’s mind relates to his sense of self and others, to his sense of normalcy and of safety. Hank’s losses are layered in so many ways: of identity, trust, health, his place in the world, control, and intimacy. Hank provides an extreme example of not having good self care. An extraordinary physical problem made for overwhelming

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162 psychological problems. He had ample reasons to be depressed and dealt with in atypical ways. The projective quality comes through; now he is challenged with developing his capacity to understand himself and his past and to see not only the needs of others, but to tolerate and see his own.

I was bom with a lung disease called cystic fibrosis, and at 30, at 44 when I had this transplant, I was pretty much, end of the life cycle, those people, I’d been pretty lucky as it was, so my lungs were more shot, I was on oxygen 24 hours a day, and you know, I was given sort of an eight months to live type deal. And this goes back to some of my intolerance with people, illness and whining, even though I couldn’t walk very far, had to carry an oxygen bottle everywhere I went, knew that this may be my future, knowing I had no future, I still continued to work everyday .. .

I think at that time I didn’t know she was stmggling with some depression and anxiety again. She drank to try to dig her way out of that. And when she told me that, instead of maybe saying, well, slips happen to people in AA, let’s get your feet back and get going, I kind of reacted violently, yelling at her and getting very excited, partly because our relationship was founded on that spiritual side of the program, us going to the meetings together and having mutual friends, and I felt that this was shattering. And then from that episode, she admitted she was having deep problems again and had to go to a psych ward to get straightened out. It was ok with me, you know. I didn’t care. I said, it’s ok, it’s ok if you have some issues, we’ll deal with them. Well, I was a little naive, I didn’t realize. I kept thinking maybe I could still fix her. And I didn’t realize that issues of depression and PTSD and anxiety were more powerful and more difficult than I could, I could.... And while she needed a quiet home and someone to love her and treat her well, all the anxieties and things going on, I couldn’t do that, I tried real hard, but I just, I couldn’t do it.

I’d like to learn to just feel ok with you, meaning her or whoever, they’re in the room, conversation doesn’t have to be heavy, doesn’t have to be about anything. You watch TV, I do a puzzle, and everything’s ok, everything’s just as it should be, and feel ok with that. This has been a problem for me for a long time. I was talking to a counselor years ago about it. She drew an analogy for me, or a metaphor. She says it’s like being at the edge of a cliff with somebody, and mentally, you have to put your arms around them so they don’t fall off the cliff and you have to be very on guard.

Can’t you just stand on your side of the cliff beside her and you enjoy what’s out there and not worry that the other person’s going to jump off, can you just do that? And I go, no. I’ve got to take care of this person, I’ve got to be very vigilant. She goes, no, you need to learn to just look out there and enjoy what you’re doing. Instead, I’m always worried about this other person, what’s she going to do, what’s she going to say, what are we going to, you know, is she spending too much money, and I’m not saying you don’t pay attention to those things, but, and I have a hard time doing that. I hope I can learn [Laughs]

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163 Learning to feel okay with himself and others and looking not only “out there” but also within himself are the challenges Hank now faces. During our second interview, he noted that he was in a very “disconcerted” place. He seemed to be thinking about his experience from another perspective. I felt his sense of hope and his longing for the possibility of a healthier life and relationships. He seems to have been suffocating in his relationships and is now striving to find a way to breathe more deeply and freely. As a child, Hank was broken. He managed feelings by breaking his favorite toys and then destroying himself through his addiction. Now he struggles to find a way to avoid breaking people’s hearts. A wider ranger of his emotions and the possibility of thinking, feeling, and relating are more evident to Hank. He uses a metaphor of thinking with a darker shade of black, and perhaps now he will find and experience colors—with real possibility of personal and social growth.

Moussad Kahn: Learning to Speak Someone Else’s Language What’s confusing to me is I don’t know what’s on her mind, so again, you know, to me, sometimes she says, I’m not going to understand the way I understand engineering, or mathematics, it’s black or white, there’s never a gray ground in between. She’s more of a person who’s that gray ground . . . . And she, that’s where I think the personalities sometimes clash is I, I’m one or the other, and she’s in the middle, indecisive, so to speak . . . my fear again is not me telling her, it’s how she’s going to interpret it.

— Moussad

Cumulative trauma, therefore, builds up silently and invisibly throughout childhood right up to adolescence and leaves its mark on all crucial phases of psychological development, which become clinically observable later on in ego-pathology and schizoid types of character formation.

—Kahn, 1974, p. 61

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164 Moussad is a 39-year-old Pakistani male. He is Muslim and comes from a traditional Middle Eastern culture. He has a doctoral degree; he reports no history of alcohol or substance abuse. His parents emigrated from northern Pakistan to England, where he was bom and raised. Moussad has two sisters. When he was eight, his father decided that Moussad should leam and experience his native culture, and sent him to live with his aunt and uncle in Pakistan. He spent three years there. He did not have any contact with his father during that time; periodically he saw his mother. He came back to England when his father thought he was ready.

The readjustment was confusing. Moussad had little control over his experience. At college, he moved in with a woman he loved, knowing that his father arranged for his marriage to another woman. He was forced to break off his relationship without his family ever knowing about it. This is a loss that is still grieved and is a theme repeated in his present relationship. He came to the US 12 years ago, when he was about 23. At that time, he was married. The arranged marriage was traditional, to a woman who was bom and raised in the foothills of the Himalayas. It was arranged in the strictest sense: he and his wife had not met prior to their marriage. After moving to the US, their relationship became quite strained. He has a daughter from this first marriage. She is now 12 years old and lives in England with her mother and near his parents. The marriage was quite conflicted and disturbing for both of them. It ended in divorce, which required the approval of both families.

Around the time of the dissolution of his marriage in 1998, Moussad met Christine, who remarkably resembled his first girlfriend. She is the mother of his two younger children. The two never married and now have been separated for the past three

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165 years. They have a five-year-old son and a four-year-old daughter, both of whom now live with their mother and her parents in Indiana. Moussad has regular contact with them.

They are currently struggling to negotiate and determine the future of their relationship.

There is little trust on his part because he feels manipulated by her. He has problems managing stress and the relationship. The cumulative stress he experienced is rooted in his psychological and relational problems and became evident in problems with his physical health. He was blind to the range and scope of his feelings and blinded by and to the experience of others.

Moussad volunteered to participate in anger management counseling; there was no police or court requirement to do so. He also volunteered for this study. He got into the treatment group after his heart attack, and in the process of his recovery, Christine brought his anger management problem to his attention. She had been participating in counseling services through a women’s shelter and encouraged him to get help for himself if he was invested and wanted to improve their relationship. He did not understand the breakdown in communication between them or the mounting tension and stress they were experiencing. He has trouble hearing or metaphorically speaking and understanding not only her language, but also his feelings. Their conflicts were not being addressed directly or empathically and underlying issues of trust and control caught up with him. So, he sought help. Primarily, though, he went to the group because his partner wanted him to.

In the anger management/abuser group, Moussad learned about abuse, that “what we think is normal and okay isn’t,” about boundaries and transgressions that “step over the line and on another’s rights and feelings,” about communication that opens dialogue—

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166 which was missing in his relationship—and about anger-coping strategies. He learned that he was abusive, but believes “it goes both ways.”

Moussad is the ironic exception to the rule: Rather than explode with anger, he implodes. His story highlights how psychological problems can cause physical problems.

His experience of cumulative stress resulted in a heart attack. He did not see a problem with his anger until after his heart attack. Like the others, he didn’t have the internal software to mediate his social world and yet was seen as abusive and controlling.

He was stuck, left to broker a deal without understanding the contract pattern that he enacted and dealing with several confusing cultural scripts. As with all of the subjects, Moussad is dealing with familiar scripts that do not work. They have each had to find a way to adapt to a new cultural script in a new world. They all faced issues of faulty acculturation, living in the world of their past, and navigating in the here and now.

Moussad’s story underscores the need to consider acculturation. His story dramatically illustrates cultural differences in addition to interpersonal, emotional, and psychological dynamics. It provides another aspect of the context that helps to frame boundary transgressions, affect dysregulation, and problems that can be thought about differently with failures of mentalization and better understood.

Moussad’s Middle Eastern heritage at times clashes with his acculturation to Western values, attitudes, and expectations. His childhood and familial experiences clash with his sense of self. His story underscores his capacity for mentalization in his relationships. Like the other subjects, he experienced a different kind of loss, and in it, his is another account of loneliness and isolation. His is a failure to understand and regulate how he feels or how others may think or feel. Boundaries in his experience are

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167 held too tightly and rigidly. Decisions are made for him; he does not understand them and they are not explained to him. They are beyond his control, made without protest and based on unquestioning family duty and obligation. Within each of these decisions, the consequences were unbearably painful and he was left on his own to deal with them.

Transgressions To understand Moussad, his familial and cultural experiences that limited his opportunity to choose, while imposed decisions that weren’t explained were made for him, must be contextualized. Embedded in Moussad’s history are themes of indoctrination, indignation, and cultural dilemmas. He does not recall much physical abuse exhibited in his family of origin or his extended family. Prior to his experience in the group, he did not think he was being abusive and believed that his relationships were normal. He recalls two incidents in which he was hit by his father. In each, he thought he deserved it. His emotional struggle and confusion relates to choices and decisions made for him and without consideration of his thoughts or feelings.

He remembers the vivid and stark contrasts in culture and living conditions when he was sent from England to live in Northern Pakistan for three years. It was a lack of choice and imposed desires and expectations that he struggled with then and continues to struggle with now. He was raised with feet in two distinct and different cultures. The problems with his acculturation are seen with splits that he is still attempting to

understand and reconcile. There is a clash of values that is played out in his relationships and stops him from seeing others and their perspectives clearly, seeing himself as an intentional or free agent, and in being aware of and evaluating his own feelings and state

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168 of mind—particularly in expressing his anger. As he looks back over his first marriage and the confusion surrounding it, he sees that he has shouldered “a lot of burden.” His helplessness and trouble both in connecting and communicating became overwhelming and took a physical toll on him.

First marriage was, I’d just graduated with my, my undergrad back when I was 22, it was an arranged marriage. It had been arranged for way longer than that, as tradition goes back in Pakistan, in Kashmir, where my parents come from. I wasn’t too happy about it, at that time I had to break up a three-year relationship with a girl that I loved dearly. She was from India, but bom and raised in England. She was a Christian, and wonderful girl, but I was raised where you respect and are sort of have obligated towards your family, your parents. The parents looked towards, in that culture, look towards the sons as being the ones that are going to take care of them and the daughters, and I have no brothers. I have two sisters, two younger sisters, so I felt a lot of burden on my shoulders. To please my family and tradition, I got married, and I didn’t even know the girl.

She had very basic education and that was fine. At the time it didn’t bother me at all. She was raised in a small village community in Kashmir and there was never love between us. I tried, but we could never connect. She always felt that because she did not have a college education, she wasn’t good enough for me. I tried to make it work.

I mean, we came here to the States. Then within a short period of being here, she started hallucinating and saying I was having affairs. I was at work, and if the telemarketers would call the phone and mostly females, like that was the woman calling me, or I was having an affair with the person upstairs. She was hallucinating and so we changed a couple of apartments to see if that would be better, but it wasn’t.

Here’s me thinking, oh my God, I have done all that, I’ve gone through this arranged marriage, I have a beautiful daughter, and for the family’s sake, etcetera, and here’s where I’m getting to a point where my family is thinking I’m having affairs.

She got to a point in one story that I heard, ‘cause she would call her brother, her brother would talk to my sister about it, and it was to a point where, where one story was, oh, he came back home with a female, and came into the house and I came downstairs and I saw him with the female and he threatened to physically abuse me if I didn’t go back up again. And these were totally blatant lies.

I wanted to get out of the relationship, so we went back to England . . . but the way she was raised was that she would not just walk out of a relationship, so she tried to somehow create a bad image for me so she had a reason to walk out, so it would be ok, I’m walking out, not because the situation isn’t working, or I don’t like it, or whatever, but let’s blame the guy for things where people are saying, we totally see why you walked out of this.

So that was very, very rough few years. That’s where my heart attacks came from, ‘cause I was going through a lot of stress, I’m trying to make these things work and nothing is. I lost a lot of weight, ‘cause when I’m under stress I can’t eat. I’m hungry, but I can’t eat. I was at a point where I’d been to my doctor, I was in my early 30s, 32

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169 or so, I went to an annual check, and finally went to the doctor ‘cause I was physically pretty good, and he asked me, you know, are you on a diet? Um, ‘cause I’d lost about 10, 15 pounds since he last saw me a year ago, and I said no, but I told him, I’m going through this, this rough relationship with my wife.

He actually was Pakistani, and I said, here’s the reason what’s going on, and he said, if you carry on like this . . . in a few years you’re going to have a heart attack.

And shortly, I did. Yeah, that was very, very rough . . . .

The confusion abounds in Moussad’s mind. He is in conflict both psychologically and in his relationship. He had resigned himself to a state of helplessness, and in some ways, with resentment that he could not face. The trespasses that he has experienced were transgressions of boundaries in which he did not have a choice, a breakdown between his inner reality and an external, imposed reality. The pain of his loss is in not only his choice, but of someone he has loved.

The families go back generations, back in Pakistan. The mutual respect between families and so on, and it was to tie the knot between the relationship, make it a stronger bond, I guess.

Your fathers arrange it; you never meet. Arranging marriages is different in different parts of the world, what it means. Where my parents are from, basically the families decide. If the families are a good fit, you’re going to be a good fit. It’s as simple as that, and that’s a cultural thing.

I was being more of a Pakistani, but you know, I’ve just turned 39, but over the last 10, 15 years, my life’s not the way. I’m more English or American, that’s what it is. But back to that sense of confusion, because you were raised in an environment where you know, your cousins, your parents were married that way, people of your age being that first generation, they were married in a similar fashion, so you accepted it. You didn’t question it. Some people did, but to me it was something that I had to do, so I accepted. I didn’t jump up and down in joy. I accepted it, it was part of life.

It was great, like anybody going to college, dating etcetera, before I married. The last date that I had was for a number of years, I was with the same original, Helen, we went to college together. My parents never knew her, couldn’t accept. . . , and it was very unfortunate ‘cause I would have married her had it not been for the arranged marriage, and she always knew about it. I mean I told her.

Beneath the issue of the arranged marriage were other decisions that were imposed and culturally driven. The confusion in values, in language, and in his mind is related to his experience of transgressions. He is blinded to his affect, minimizes his losses, and

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170 has a veiled anger at his culture and a recent realization of the impact it has had in his mind and on his life.

My parents left me, they wanted me to learn about the culture, so when I was eight I was sent to Pakistan and I stayed there for three years. I stayed with my grandparents.

I missed my parents at the time. I do recall missing Mom and stuff, but it was, in terms of the time period itself, I would say, probably the best three years of my life, in terms of maturing and learning. We were in an environment where, little village, foothills of the Himalayas, and there was no electricity inside, no running water. You had a well, so life had a few more burdens than, than they would here. So, you learn a lot so that’s why I put it down to a very good experience in my life, those three years.

It wasn’t my decision. My parents decided that they wanted us to . . . learn the language and learn the culture and, and his idea was that, if you ever, cause I asked him, Dad, what was the reasoning behind it, he said, the only reason was, it wasn’t easy for us, but the thing was that if you ever wanted to go back and live there, I didn’t want you to feel as if you were strangers. It’s your culture, it’s your heritage, and I didn’t want to deprive you of that. Now, whether you do or not is your choice, but I didn’t want you to feel alienated by it and unable to go back there, so that was his thinking.

When I was eight, there wasn’t much impact because, again, I was raised in a Pakistani environment at home, so other than the geographical differences, there wasn’t much more than that. At the age of 11, it took me some time to adjust because between 8 and 11 you learn a lot. So now, I was acting like a total Pakistani kid ‘cause that’s where I’d been for three years. When I came to England I had to start learning the language again, because nobody spoke English in Pakistan, but it was fairly quick. So all that growing up of that three years where people get into soccer and into their comic heroes. I missed all that era. It took a little bit of time to transition back in, but being outgoing, it wasn’t much of uh, much of a problem at all.

But negative, if anything, was more of the emotional side. I missed Mum and Dad. I do recall, right now, one or two occasions in my life where I really missed Mum, you know, as a seven-year-old, or eight-year-old. I really wished I had my Mum, so there was that part of it. Not too much of it, but it was there.

I was angry at the culture because I didn’t think I deserved it. I mean, if I’d been raised in a purely Pakistani culture, it would be acceptable. I wouldn’t have been dating to start with. I also felt that a lot of the reasons why the culture and what they expected of me was put in place because of the way of life in Pakistan, which doesn’t exist in England. So, we’re trying to fulfill the sort of values that really don’t have a value anymore, or not as much, so that’s where I felt that I was just trying to please a culture just for the sake of it, and yes, it made me angry. Two of the things I’ve always detested are people who are racist and people who are against other people’s religion. We don’t have a choice. Everybody is a human, so people say, oh, Helen was also a Catholic, oh, she’s this religion and that religion and there’s this going on, it’s like as long as there’s the two of you getting along with each other, there for each other, why should it matter? And I think that was the sort of turning point, where, with that loss, it was like, I’ve got to start living my own life a little as well.

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171

M oussad’s proclivity to distort his own internal experience and external reality is

colored by projection. He fails to identify his own distress or to understand the distress of others. Moussad’s intimate relationships are confusing and strained. In his most recent intimate relationship, he is unable to make a commitment towards marriage because of a lack of trust and understanding. The confusion in relationships and trust lies within his experience of misunderstanding and feeling misled. He implodes as he has a heart attack and is under the strain of interpersonal and intrapsychic conflict. He thought that the abuse in his relationship was normal. He had difficulty seeing the trespasses of boundaries and transgressions. Underlying the physical aggression were acts of emotional abuse and controlling behavior. He is overwhelmed in the relationship and by his anxiety. He is blinded to much of his affective experience and those of others.

Okay, what happened was that our relationship, me and my partner, her name is Christine . . . Christine and I were going through a, a rough patch and there were several reasons: me, her family, all sorts, mix of races, religions, whatnot. It was putting a fair bit of strain on us; in fact, I, just before Christine left, I had suffered a heart attack about two months earlier. And why at my age, with my health, don’t know, but it happens, and stress is the only thing I can put it down to, and I am the kind of person who gets wound up pretty easily. Uh, I’ll confess to that, and so there was, you know, conflict between us, at that time I did not think it was abusive any way at all, I thought this is a normal relationship, etcetera. Anyway, one thing led to another, we parted our ways and she brought to my attention that hey, I needed to look into anger management, and after my heart attack, I kind of thought that myself as well, because I end up, I remember the day before she left, we got into an argument, verbal, not physical at all. It was very, very rarely physical. In fact, I could define what physical is now I’ve learned more what abuse is. I could say, yes I have been abusive, but it goes both ways, and at the end of the argument, I stopped and I said to her, I don’t know why I did and said what I just did. There was absolutely no reason for it.

Y ou’ve not provoked me. And I actually said I think I need help.

Oh, the course itself? What did I learn from it? A number of things, first of all, what got to me was that I wish more couples took counseling prior to deciding to be with each other because there’s a lot of what we think is normal, which isn’t, so a lot of that came to surface. What is okay in a relationship, and what isn’t, what is stepping over the line and trespassing on, on another’s rights, or feelings, etcetera.

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172 That never, ever came up in our relationship when we were together. . . we used to get in arguments, etcetera. I mean, did I ever physically touch her with marks on her? No. Did I ever push her out of the way? Yes. She pushed back, too. I wanted to get out of there. I’m angry. She’d hold me and restrain me, and I’d move her out of the way or push her, that type of abuse, but now, I count that as abuse, you know, if you push somebody out of your way, that’s, you know, physical contact. That’s abuse.

What happened was that when she moved out, after a couple of months, she started going to this abused women’s group, and I almost felt that sometimes she was taking their burden on, because suddenly she started coming home with, you’ve done this, you know. She’d start and, where did that come from? You used to hit me. I was like, what? And I’d been very reluctant in trying to argue about it, because I want to get the family back together again, because w e’ve got two beautiful kids. We know we love each other. Yes, we’ve made certain mistakes, that’s fine, and what happened was that after we parted, the first sort of, I would say 8 or 10 months, I went through a lot of anxiety, and frankly, looking back at it, even at that time, I realized why people want to commit suicide. I didn’t know what anxiety was. Here I am, six foot tall, big guy. God, what’s anxiety, you know? But it’s a mental condition that you have no control over, so being in that state, when she used to bombard me with this in emails, etcetera., I just wanted the whole thing over, I wouldn’t like confess, but I would say, I am sorry if I hurt you in any way, etcetera ‘cause I wanted to finish that, I wanted to move on, and, and put an end to it.

Neglected, for sure. I won’t use the word abused. I feel abused. If you asked me, honestly, I feel mentally and psychologically abused. I really do. The reason why I say this, I mean, now I’m in far better shape but back a couple of years when this first happened, I had just had my heart attack as well, and if you’re familiar with people who have heart attacks, anxiety is something that we suffer from and it’s not the fear of the heart attack, but just the chain of the chemical composition of all your blood, the chemicals, that causes that, and a lot of people actually commit suicide after a heart attack ‘cause when I had a heart attack, you know, yeah, it hit me. But a week later, it was like, “you know what, what can I do about it?” and it didn’t bother me, the fact that, oh, am I going to die? Medically. But when she left two months later, that’s when the anxiety hit me. For the first time in my life. So at that time, for about six months to a year, it took almost a year to get past that and I’m glad that I’ve got friends who I can talk to, and in a way that was shifting a lot of burden off my shoulders and it let me live a little. But knowing I was going through this for about a year or maybe a little longer, when she would say, okay, I’m coming home, last minute. I was going through panic attacks again and again, and I thought that was abusive. And even now, when she throws her weight around because she knows she has the kids, I think that’s abuse as well, that’s mental, psychological abuse.

It’s basically just because he happens to be the strongest sex of the two more or less makes him guilty. ‘Cause he’s seen as being somebody who could potentially be abusive. I’m sure there’s a lot of cases where the female is abusive, I’m not saying that, but in general terms, I would think, and because of history, historical reasons, men have been abusive, I was reading . . . just recently the, I don’t know if you know where the phrase “rule of thumb” comes from, be aware of that, so these were accepted practices at one time, and so the mindset from the historical point of view is

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173 just, the man has always been abusive, so literally for being the strongest sex, you’re under the same assumption.

Affect Dysregulation and Language Barriers Alexithymia, the difficulty of putting words to affect, is a part of the trouble Moussad and the subjects of this study face. Moussad’s problems are problems with care, both for himself and others. He does not see others for themselves or how he influences them.

He continually puts Christine’s views in a framework of how and what he thinks and feels or in an intellectual frame that distorts his capacity for mentalization. This comes across most clearly when he states, “I feel abused.” His victim mindset is a failure of mentalization. His problems with acculturation abound. He is a stranger to his feelings and in his full capacity to empathize with others. Problems with language and understanding how he and others think, feel, and communicate are evident. He states, “I was angry at the culture because I didn’t think I deserved it.” He rationalizes his affect as he struggles to understand and keep intimate connections. He is fearful of being exploited, of being lied to and deceived. These are his problems in adulthood, problems in understanding himself and others. He claims to be confused by not understanding what is on Christine’s mind though, in actuality, he is stopped by that which is on his mind— a problem of interpretation.

So now I’m reluctant, even if we got back together again, she said, sorry, if we get back together, I want to get married, and I’m saying, I truly understand where you’re coming from, but I’m sorry, I cannot make a commitment to marry you. I mean, I can commit to myself to be your partner for the rest of my life and treat you as if we were married, which I have been, every step of the way, but in terms of legally, because I just don’t trust her anymore, I’ve seen what’s happened once, and I just do not want to put myself into a situation where I’m left on the street. . . surely you can come back, but sorry, I don’t trust you anymore, you may come back and in six weeks, you know, walk away with the house and everything, and I’m going to walk the street.

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174 I’m just afraid I’m being lied to and deceived all the time, and so I let her know that, I mean, in nicer words. I wasn’t angry or nasty or anything, just said, I’m not sure if I can trust you anymore, and so on. So, she got upset. She gets upset at me now for saying, it’s amazing how they, they sort of turn the tables onto you, saying, it’s your fault because of all this, like, you don’t give me enough attention, you don’t listen to me, I don’t know, and so she called back to, well, five years ago, you said this to me. You know, so that’s where the trust comes in, it’s like, if she comes back, is she coming back because she wants to come back and be a family, or is she coming back because the first time around from a legal point of view, she didn’t get too much out of me? Is she coming back to say ok, you know. I don’t know.

I felt very let down, betrayed and lied to and misled, which I did let her know it, in exact those words, and they were calm words. I wasn’t angry; it wasn’t anger because I think I’m beyond that anger point. It’s more of, is it time for me really to move on? How long can I really keep putting up with this kind of behavior? When do I really turn around and say, no, I have to move on? That I didn’t express to her, I didn’t mention that part of it to her at all, but I did seriously think about going and talking to a lawyer . . .

More of a loss, not a rejection at all, because we were raised with a lot of love in the family, and my grandparents and so on, so it wasn’t that my parents rejected me.

It’s just the loss of not having a parent with you. The emotional attachment that you have with a parent, no matter how good your grandma or your uncle or your aunt is, you’re not going to get that, and that’s wonderful, because our aunt, we were never deprived of anything, nor were we any different from the other kids, the family, it’s just th a t. . . wasn’t there. Dad I didn’t miss as much, Dad was always working, but Mum I did.

Uh, sort of, I mean, it’s difficult to, they were just sort of, again, emotional, the emptiness, or worthless, life itself being, you know, you’re just tom because you love somebody so much and they’re no longer with you, so all that that I had to go through.

Moussad has needed to adapt to culture and family traditions that were confusing. In being sent to Pakistan, he missed his mother and “Dad became a stranger.” The feelings were not addressed then, and residual effects continue to complicate his relationships now. The problems of acculturation coupled with the cost of being alone left him on his own to leam another language while simultaneously dealing with an ambiguous and confusing internal script and social world. He is attempting to communicate more openly

even though he is often frustrated by his own black-and-white thinking, a form of psychic equivalence where he has trouble seeing the perspectives of others, especially when they

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175 differ from his own. He is challenged and limited by his own projection, which limits his ability to see himself and understand others.

The other thing that it taught me was communications are essential, open dialogue and communication, and that was something that was really lacking in my relationship.

Not from me, I’m a talker, I’m open about things, but Christine, although she never admits i t . . . I don’t know if it’s because she’s the only child, or what, but she’s very closed. She always keeps her feelings to herself, and that was half the frustration for me because I knew there was something on her mind, but I could not get her to talk about it, and that was very frustrating, and that led to arguments and frustrations and anger at times. I would tell her, is there something wrong, please tell me, what’s going on. And she wouldn’t . . . .

I mean to me, my impression of a relationship, um, I mean, you’re both equal, Even with my current relationship, I always want to make sure that if I’m doing anything, no matter how slight it is. I consult with Christine, even the littlest thing. I want her opinion ‘cause I want to make sure that I don’t do something that she deems it wasn’t right. And it could be a minor little thing, so I’m always the one who will share. I don’t always see that from the other way, and sometimes it gets very frustrating when I have to make decisions and I’d like to know, it’s like I either, it’s black or white, there’s no grays for me, and Christine’s a person where there are grays, it’s not a yes or a no, it’s a maybe. Well, what do you mean by a maybe? Is that a yes or a no? That gets frustrating at times.

I think she almost feels that I don’t care and maybe in her shoes I’d think the same because if I can’t comprehend her feelings, understand what she wants or needs, then I’m not going to go down that path. She’s expecting me to understand and thinking it’s my responsibility to know, and I’m not doing it, then maybe she feels neglected. Do you see, it’s like a vicious circle, and again, to me, I’m a communicator, I talk, but she’s not. I hate second guessing people, so half the time I really don’t know. The worst thing is if something is not right, and I ask her, ‘cause you can sense, she won’t tell me, she’ll say, oh, it’s okay. And sometimes if an action needs to be taken, she thinks, well, if I do this, or say this, he’s going to be upset, the thought comes to her mind, she will say something completely different, just to avoid the confrontation, so to speak. She’s always been like that, her entire life with her parents, etcetera, if she feels there’s going to be a confrontation of any form, she’ll sidetrack it by totally doing the opposite of what she’d already done. But the person she’s talking to doesn’t really know that’s the case, you only leam afterwards, and then you get really upset by it, because why did you do that?

What appears to be missing and foreign to Moussad is an understanding o f what is

happening in his own mind and the experience of being in a secure relationship. He has encountered vast differences between growing up in Eastern and Western cultures, with notable distinctions and emphasis on traditions. He has trouble accessing and

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176 assimilating his emotions and, consequently, communicating and understanding others.

His story highlights a generational transmission of family tradition and an experience where boundaries are too rigid and constrictive. Moussad has not quite considered the impact or the importance of his emotional fluency. His heart attack got his attention and he had to deal with his immediate stress. His separation forced him to recognize how his past experiences relate to his current relationship. Unique to his story was the dramatic impact of culture and acculturation. He provides some insight into his cultural experience and some of the underlying tensions, dilemmas and motives.

The kind of culture I was raised in, where to put it in a crude manner, I would say, the wife obeys the husband. That’s a very crude statement and probably not fair, but that’s what it was.

The guy’s the one that leads the show in terms of, I’m trying to think of the right words here, not authority, but just has the upper say when I was younger, but of course things are very different.

The mixed marriage was looked very negatively upon in our culture. When I say mixed marriage, not even mixed, but even outside of, forget the race, but the community, so if you married even someone from the same religion, but a different part of the world or different part of the country from where they came from, it would still be looked at as a negative thing. But now, accompany that with a different race and religion and it elevates to a different level. But my dad [said], I don’t give a damn, I’m going to accept my son as long as he’s happy, I’m going to accept that and accept Christine and uh, uh, most parents my, my parents age would not accept at all and not even let the son be allowed back to the house, say, you’re an outcast.

I’ve been exposed, to a certain degree, not too much, to my parents’ culture. And again, to me, abusive people, I think are abusive by nature, I don’t think you just turn abusive; I think the situation brings out abuse in you and you just can’t control yourself. Some people are probably abusive, or would be if they didn’t control themselves. If they do so, they’re fine. So, it’s not to really say that abuse is culture dependent, it’s everywhere. But then how do sort of cultures see abuse? Now, in that part of the world, etcetera, the male is still very much the dominant member of the household, in 95% of places. Now, that’s not to say there aren’t very dominant females . . . But on the other hand, I mean, abuse does take place, and how is it perceived? In some cases, if, as I said, the female is physically abused because she is going against the wishes of her family, or the husband, whatever, and her family agrees that what she’s doing is wrong, they won’t interfere. They’ll say fine, she deserves it, so to speak. It’s like, you know, hitting a child when they misbehave.

Now it’s considered abusive, but 50 years ago spanking somebody wasn’t abusive, a child. There can be sort of degrees of abuse, physical force is used .. . She will say,

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177 no, it was nothing, cause she wants the group or the family to survive. On the other hand, if abuse takes place where the husband is very abusive and the girl is really not to blame, then the girl’s side of the family will step in.

I think abuse is wrong at any level. The other thing is the cultural aspect. As I explained, my feeling is it’s totally wrong. In the Eastern culture, there really is no real protection for the female. So, again, abuse will take place no matter where you are in the world, so that’s really, really bad for the females. It means that abuse will continue until a protection for the females is found. On the other hand, you look at the Western culture and say, great, you’ve got legal rights, and so abused women are now protected, but on the other hand, as I mentioned earlier, I think we’ve gotten to a point where the word abuse is abused.

I understand the culture, it was great in a time and place, but today it isn’t, that’s my personal belief. On the other hand, it still has some values, and you may disagree with me here, for the females. That culture is so very protective of their females, you know, I’ve got to sound Pakistani, I’ve got to sound like an extreme case, but actually, if you’re in a culture where the females are not allowed to date, to go out, to meet partners, so if you keep that, maintain that part, but say you can marry who you want, it’s not going to work. There’d have to be a complete shift of paradigm if you are going to change. Then you have to make other changes too. You can’t change overnight. So if today, in England, the young girls who are still in that realm were told, okay, you can out and do what you want, they wouldn’t know what to do. So, for them I would say it still has value, until that conflict completely changes, but in general terms, it has its pluses and its minuses. It has different values. There are aspects of it that I really like, there are aspects of it that I don’t like, similarly in this culture, the Western culture, there are certain things that I like and others I don’t. So, you try to pick and choose if you can.

I saw Moussad on two occasions, both in my office in Wilmette. He found the group he participated in to be valuable. Although it helped him, he keeps looking outside of himself and coming back to the notion that “it takes two to tango.” His difficulty is mostly externalized; his mental life feels foreign to him. Moussad is engaged and engaging, bright and articulate, a polite Englishman, formal, to the point, and rational.

He responds to questions as I ask them in a somewhat straightforward manner. He began his story by discussing Christine. It took him awhile to come around to talking about

himself. In fact, Moussad’s story focuses more upon the impact of others upon him than on himself directly. Moussad’s story took me down a different path: the experience of abuse in an Eastern culture. His history, his arranged marriage, provided a noticeable and

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178 quite different cultural context. It compelled me to add another subject, another diverse voice in this study. Culture and context matter significantly in understanding each of these subjects. Their commonality is seen in their struggles with problems of feeling, thinking, and relating, the difficulty and failures of menatlization.

Well, I think we’ve talked a fair bit, and hopefully it made sense. The only thing I may want to add is there’s a lot of people who I would say were in my similar shoes, not from a, the relationship point of view, but a cultural point of view, that sometimes get lost, confused as to which side to they please. As you got older, it becomes a lot more clear. Sometimes you question your identity to say, for example, am I Pakistani, or am I an Englishman, or am I somewhere in between? Am I going to be a Pakistani when I’m at home, but when I’m out in public I’m an Englishman? You know, that stuff confuses you, and what it does, it then, because of your confusion sometimes, it also sort of dictates how you view and treat others. So yeah, that’s the one aspect that I would definitely want to, but it’s a very difficult time of your life when you have to make those decisions, you know, should I marry Helen or should I go through an arranged marriage? That’s the one path that I’ve found really challenging. As I was growing up and then again, the last 10 years it’s been a different scenario, but yeah, that was a real challenge.

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179

CHAPTER VII

DISCERNMENT: VARIED PATHWAYS, PAINFUL STORIES, AND UTTER LONELINESS

‘A mind can be a scary place.’ A patient presciently responded: ‘Yes, and you wouldn’t want to go in there alone.’

—Allen, Fonagy, 2006, p. 19

All of the men in this study had troubled childhoods. In each of their stories, they account for failures in relatedness and failures in mentalization. They were hungry to relate and it is a palpable hunger, a longing that needs to be understood and harnessed.

The subjects who participated in this study benefited from their group experiences. They made a connection and felt something that helped them deal with their aloneness. Their realizations and insights varied, but in general they recognized that their relationships mattered and that they needed to address their problems.

It may only be through having a relationship in which they can be engaged and heard, can have positive identifications and attachments, that they can mentalize their experiences and begin to change. The challenge of change lies in their viewing of themselves and others in a different relational context. They need external support to address their inner and interlacing experiences o f loss, failure, and confusion. The

beginning of their recent change was one of painstakingly small steps forward. For each of them, these small steps are a major turning point and monumental first strides forward.

Their problems are complex, compelling, and varied. Loss, dehumanization, and

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180 dysfunction have overwhelmed them. These are the deep issues and real dynamics beneath their experiences. For these men to humanize others, they need a humanizing experience to discern and help them through their crises as they mentalize and mediate their experiences and situate them in relationships.

Both individually and collectively, the subjects told stories that chronicled loss, deprivation, alienation, rejection, abuse, family dysfunction, egregious boundary violations, transgenerational problems, helplessness, loneliness, and the disruptive consequences of abuse and being utterly alone. Each of the following stories has something unique and special to offer. Each is a singular finding in and of itself, yet each is linked to the others and connected to the previous stories told. They are not indiscriminate stories; they have logic and coherence to them. They each underscore that these experiences are not random, that these men are abusive for discemable reasons, and that there are real and deep dynamics that need to be understood. Each of these men experience loss as a unifying theme, but there is a different kind of loss and hurt for each one. They have all been dehumanized and thingified, and all have experienced failures of mentalization. Each is a representational, multidimensional story. In their stories are scenes that happen repeatedly and where everyone has a hidden history, dynamic roles, and troubled relationships. They were left isolated and alone, failed by others in their childhood.

Each of their stories demonstrates the many varied pathways towards abuse: the absence of fathers by lack of either a physical or a positive presence, mothers who victimized and who could be as emotionally or physically damaging as fathers, and unaddressed environmental or situational crises. This is a population that has been

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181 traumatized in its own special way. Each has experienced painful and confusing life events. They saw and had no one to understand or help them make sense of a confusing and disturbing social and mental world. The consequence of having a childhood full of trouble and turbulence and without an other is the prominent failure. It is a failure of mentalization, as seen in their problems of mediation and mourning and in relationships.

Dynamically embedded in their experiences are problems such as the difficulty in connecting both with themselves and others. They tend to repeat rather than remember, to enact rather than understand the impact of their pasts.

Through repetitions, enactments, and acting out these men symbolically represent and keep alive early primitive identifications and relational problems. They end up entrenched in dynamics of power and control that develop in cycles of coercion and abusive patterns. The encoded behavior is frequently ruthless and demonstrates what can happen when loss, narcissistic injuries, and omnipotent grandiosity are not addressed or transformed. When their helplessness and confusion abounds, the need for omnipotence prevails and trauma is repeated. These men have trouble with care and closeness, and are unable to let other people fully be themselves. As an element of their own loss and dehumanization, they cannot fully understand another’s perspective or the depth or degree of the impact they can have upon others.

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182

Chuck Rowe: Positive Manipulation I don’t think there’s anything wrong with holding a carrot over your kid to make him clean his room. And that’s positive manipulation . . . what I was getting at was getting someone to do something for you ‘cause they want to, ‘cause they think they want to, they may not even know that they’ve been manipulated. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, I think it’s great. . . and it was just a very empowering thing to be able to . . . manipulate and have people work with me to get them to a common goal .. . same with what I do here . . . Now it kind of goes right down the same line as my problems at home, you know, my way or the highway, but I was much better with strangers, being able to manipulate people, you know, I call it positive manipulation, and they laughed at me in that program. They said there’s no such thing as positive manipulation. Manipulation is manipulation.

— Chuck Rowe And no prince ever lacked good excuses to color bad faith. One could give innumerable modem instances of this, showing how many pacts and promises have been made null and void by the bad faith of princes: those who have known best to imitate the fox have come off best. But one must know how to colour one's actions and to be a great liar and deceiver. Men are so simple, and so much creatures of circumstances, that the deceiver will always find someone ready to be deceived.

—Machiavelli,1999, p. 75

Chuck Rowe is a 38-year-old Caucasian male. He takes pride in the notion of positive manipulation, which has been a way of survival and adaptation for him. In many ways he has not only fooled others, but fooled himself. He is college educated, works as a park district manager, and owns his own home (the house is in his name only). He grew up in a middle-/upper-middle class family as an only child raised by a single parent in what he refers to as “Suburbia, USA.” His father had an affair, and his parents divorced when Chuck was two years old. His father has been absent throughout most of his life, and Chuck sees him as a bitter and angry man. He and his partner have been engaged for the past year-and-a-half and plan to be married at some undetermined future date. They have been together for the past six years. She has a 12-year-old son (who refers to Chuck by

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183 his first name) and they have a 5-year-old son together. Chuck has no strong family support in the area.

The incident that led to Chuck’s arrest occurred in August, 2004. It was a domestic battery/DUI. He punched his partner in the face, and then drove off while intoxicated.

He was arrested when he returned home. This was his first domestic violence offense; he has no prior arrests. He was referred to me by a local domestic violence shelter that runs a batterer treatment group. Despite the seriousness of the incident, he was able to maneuver a plea to lesser charges. His arrest appears to have been the most recent turning point in his life. It scared him and put him in touch with the possibility of devastating losses.

The incident was a celebration that turned ugly. The couple had been celebrating the approval for a loan to buy a new house. They had been drinking and, in fact, seem to have gotten into a regular pattern of alcohol consumption that had intensified and accelerated. During their relationship, Lily had had an affair, and the subject came up in the conversation the evening of the incident. Chuck thought that she went into the house and called the other man. He was hurt and intoxicated, and he lashed out at her. The argument accelerated and he punched her in the face, got into his car, and drove off.

Realizing that he was too drunk to drive, he returned home. By that time, the police were there. He was arrested for domestic battery and DUI. He took action immediately: informed his employer of the situation and enrolled in alcohol and domestic violence treatment programs. His employer worked with him and, actually, may have politically helped Chuck so that he would not lose his drivers’ license and could keep his job and level of responsibility. His immediate actions add a

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184 broader conceptual element of power and privilege to his story and experience, somewhat underscoring his notion of positive manipulation and the power of who you know.

The treatment group was a positive experience for Chuck. He felt that it was straightforward and comfortable: a safe place to let it out, where he was not judged, could read through the “BS,” and where issues could be brought out openly so that if “something stunk” he could say so. His most significant learning was the realization that “there’s a whole other reality that you need to look at.” Although he learned skills like timeouts (even though he uses the technique manipulatively), the group made him look at himself and at what his actions teach his sons. Although he did not see much of anything in common with the other members besides the violent episode that brought them there, he appreciated the honesty in the group.

The bottom line for Chuck was that he did not want to lose his family and all that he has worked for. He realized that something had to give, and it had to be him. He participated in this study because he had a good experience in the group and because his counselor asked him to. The crisis provided an opportunity for him to mobilize and begin to address some of his difficulties. He notes a realization from the group that while his actions were not normal, they became the norm in his home.

Chuck first met his partner in the apartment complex in which he was living. He saw her and thought she “was the most incredible thing in the world,” an object of desire and possession. He uses the phrase “positive manipulation,” an approach of getting from point A to B, getting people to work on a common goal. Positive manipulation is also at the root of the difficulty he has in relating to others and with mentalization. His way of thinking is one of psychic equivalence.

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185 Very independent. My way or the highway type mentality, which isn’t healthy, but before I went to this class, I used to believe this. But that’s not really true. [Laughs] That’s very simple tunnel vision. But I have that. What I perceive is true, but that’s you know, that’s not the truth. You kind of get these blinders on. So, maybe if I had some other people in my life, siblings or even my father was there all the time, maybe I wouldn’t be so tunnel vision. It’s my life, my world, I control it, I’ve gotten where I am because of hard work. I think I have a very good concept of how to get from A to B because of that, because I was very independent, because I had to figure things out a lot on my own. So, I think that’s been pretty positive. There’s a lot of people that can’t fight their way out of a paper bag. They don’t know how to get from this step to this step, and I always had the philosophy is if I want it done, then I do it. That’s one thing that Lily does not, she does everything three quarters of the way. I don’t know if she’s ever, I mean except giving birth . . . .

Positive manipulation aptly describes his approach for obtaining his needs and wants and his way of relating to others. Chuck and Lily’s pattern of communicating and relating had turned into a vicious cycle that became violent. He sees his alcohol use as a conduit to explosion. Alcohol use and abuse was an accelerant that fueled his relational problems. Blinding himself to his experience through drug and alcohol use dates back in his history to when he was 10 years old. He notes that “we always neglect the ones we love.” This sentiment is at the core of his story, and is a thread that weaves it together and links his past to his present.

Chuck grew up as an only child and was raised by a single mother. His parents divorced when he was two, after his father had an affair with his secretary. Although Chuck had physical contact with his father, he does not believe he was emotionally there for him. He describes himself as a latchkey kid and says that he was often left on his own.

His relationship with his mother was also strained. He describes her as being “overbearing, critical, and controlling.” He notes that he was most often told what he could not do. In thinking about his childhood, Chuck notes that “there was nothing out of the ordinary except ordinary life trauma.”

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There is the sense that he did not witness or experience physical abuse or violence; however, his environment, particularly the relationships with his parents, was confusing and emotionally depriving. The overall impact is that he had to fend for himself and to figure things out on his own. Themes of neglect run through his childhood story, as they do now in his adult story. Between the ages of 8 and 10, his family faced two significant crises: his mother’s breast cancer and his grandmother’s death. His life was in a tailspin from that point on. He reports that he began using marijuana at the age of 10. The time between the ages of 10 and 18 is a “blur” for him. Developmentally it is a lost period of time in his mind, the consequences of which have definitely been a fact that has adversely affected him and put him at greater risk for encountering the struggles and compounding his adult problems. At age 18, Chuck stopped using pot because it was making him physically sick. His alcohol use continued and intensified.

Chuck describes an idyllic childhood, one filled with adventures, travel, and outdoor life. He presents a major contradiction between his external travels and inner experience, which is lonely and desolate. When he hit early adolescence, he numbed himself to any pain and spiraled out of control with his drug use. At age 17, he withdrew from public high school and was sent to a private boarding school. After graduating from college and spending a few years as a ski instructor, which subsequently led to his current job, he met his partner. She had a six-year-old son already and their son was bom about one year later. At one point, Chuck offered her a “contract of cohabitation,” which was more of an agreement of dissolution for when the relationship would (inevitably in his mind) end.

She did not sign it.

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187 Chuck’s relationship with Lily began fast. The two quickly became parents. He talks about his family life as being everything and having the quality now and then of living in a “cocoon.” She was a stay-at-home mom for several years. When she returned to work, the couple felt strain and struggled with the stress of parenthood, growing apart, and what felt to each of them like single parenting.

Chuck conveys a familial and generational sense of repetition and reenactment as he searches for the family life and relationships he never had. While exploring the effects of his childhood experiences, he could not imagine how his life would have been different if his parents had not divorced. Still, the themes of loss, control, and detached relationships permeate his history. Chuck describes his warmest relationship as that with his grandmother; he admired her knowledge, craftiness, and resourcefulness about the outdoors and sees her in a positive light. However, when she died, he took the loss in stride and was unable to mourn or express his pain. He has a remote awareness about how cut off he is from his feelings. Chuck is distant and detached from people. He states that he likes and gets along better with animals than with people.

Lost in Chuck’s narrative is a sense of coherence between his past and present. He tells a concrete, impoverished story that lacks the quality of a rich, emotional connection between himself and others or an awareness of the connection between his past and present experiences. Lost is sensitivity to his emotional experience and emotional reality of others. Also lost is the experience of an available other. He speaks of a sense of loneliness and of being alone, but lacks an understanding of why. Themes of wounding, injury, betrayal, neglect, loneliness, detached relationships, alcohol and substance abuse, and loss ran throughout his history. He does not see much of a connection or pattern of

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188 enactment in his past and present experiences. He struggles with commitment in his current relationship. The assault that he experienced in his current relationship was related to the affair that his partner had; a wounding experience and narcissistic injury with an overdetermined quality related to early and previous loss and betrayals. He dismisses and diminishes his father’s absence and the neglect and conflict he encountered with his mother. The emotional assault and neglect seem to be the chronic, ordinary, normal life trauma that he has internalized and repeats. His great escape continues to be numbing himself to his feelings and to others around him.

Chuck’s history of loss and his inability to mourn or integrate his experience is a theme that threads his life experience. In a sense, his fear of losing everything he has worked for has propelled him to change. He notes that “once a loss is in your face, staring you down the barrel, you set your priorities.” In the domestic violence incident, he was faced with “losing everything,” which meant his partner, the house, and all that he worked for. That realization has compelled him and is his catalyst to change: “When . . . everything’s ready to fall through the cracks in the floor, it hits you.” His experience of “nothing out of the ordinary, normal life trauma” is his inoculation towards painful affect.

He is immune to tolerating affect, both his and that of others. This is underscored by his statement, “I didn’t know how to handle this; no one was there to show me.” He has little sense of the pool of anger or underlying sadness that can rush through him, nor does he have much of an idea of where it came from.

I met Chuck in his office on three separate occasions. I felt as though I was somewhat of a visiting dignitary. Still, as I sat across from his desk, the interview was periodically interrupted by telephone calls and business questions. After the initial interview, he

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189 showcased the magnitude of the projects he was working on, boasting somewhat to impress me. Chuck scheduled me in as a business appointment at the end of his day and for about an hour each visit. It seemed as though this was just about the limit at which he could tolerate thinking about his experience and dealing with me. He seemed to have a fuzzy and somewhat remote sense of how to relate to me. He was engaging and it was clear that he benefited from the group. He brought artifacts from his group experience: anger logs, homework assignments, and his cohabitation contract. In probing some of the issues, the struggle that he has in negotiating relational experiences was noticeable and Chuck’s frustration shone through. For example, when asked about timeframes, he responded, “You do the math.” He seemed to be organized around concrete things and to give them much more meaning than softer feelings. He participated in the interview because he felt helped by and through the experience of the group and the counselor.

Troy Wilson: Whuppings That Are Deserved How was I disciplined? Oh, with the belt or with anything that my dad could grab.

Oh, you know, with a belt or a switch, cause I used to stay with my grandmother for a little while when I was a kid, so I would get whuppins with a switch, and then, when I moved in, when my parents found a place here in Chicago, then we moved here in Chicago, and then my dad would whatever, mom, with a belt, whatever . . . it wasn’t just out of the blue sky that he would just abuse me or beat me or for no reason, there was always a reason that I was getting a beating for, it wasn’t just out o f . . . he didn’t beat me or anything, he was just mad, I mean, I can understand why he was mad, because their son was gone. But no reason, he didn’t really just do anything out of no reason. It was always a reason for what I got.

—Troy Wilson We were down by the creek enjoying ourselves when my daddy come up on us.

Surprised us. He had taken leather straps off the mule and commenced to whupping me like there was no tomorrow. I jumped up mad and embarrassed. I was scared of my daddy. When he commenced to whupping on me . .. quite naturally I ran to get out of the way . . . Now I thought he was mad cause I ain’t done my work . . . I got to

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190 the place where I could feel him kicking in my blood and knew that the only thing that separated us was the matter of a few years.

—Wilson, 1991, pp. 148-149

Troy Wilson is a 34-year-old black male. He has been married for six years, having dated his wife “on and o ff’ for about eight years before they married. He has two children: a six-year-old son and a four-year-old daughter. He got through about one semester of college before dropping out. He lives in Lake County, Illinois. He works two jobs: department manager for Home Depot (five years) and manager for one of his father’s two restaurants. Troy has a younger sister (age 20) and a brother who is still in high school. For the most part, Troy was raised as an only child until high school. He had difficulty in school. As an adolescent, he saw himself as “average,” got in trouble for reckless driving and drinking. He was raised by his maternal grandparents until age eight, when he went to live with his parents in St. Louis.

The domestic violence episode associated with this study was Troy’s second domestic violence arrest. The incident took place in the fall of 2004 and the previous incident occurred one year before that. He reported that the same things were going on in both incidents. The more recent was an explosive incident associated with yelling and screaming. He said that “things just happened; nothing so terrible.” Troy grabbed his wife and pushed her onto the bed. Although he minimized the incident, he felt bad that she was holding their daughter at the time.

Troy conveyed a sense that he has become more aware of his abuse and perhaps that it is a chronic pattern of abuse. He stated that his first group experience was good and that he learned some things that helped him to understand himself. He thought that, at the second time around in group, he had to apply the things he learned during his first

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191 session. His realization that he plans to keep in mind is that his wife “is a human being like I am, just like everyone else is. I should treat my wife as equal to me all the time.”

Troy’s insight from the incident and group experience put him in touch with a need to think before he reacts, care for others, and to pay attention to his behavior and the skills he has acquired. He is currently trying to “not be so aggressive . . . that just gets [him] more riled up in the process.” This is a small but important step.

He talks about “whuppins” as deserved, a commonplace, routine part of his life. He describes an experience of growing up that was quiet and lonely.

He did not have

anyone to turn to when in need and was told to mind and not talk back. As a result, he just kept to himself.

Troy was raised by his maternal grandparents, who were in their 70s, on a farm in Mississippi. Events that stand out for him include being disciplined with a switch. He believes that when it occurred, it was deserved. A sense of fear shrouds his experience, as impressed upon him by his grandparents. For example, he was not allowed to talk to white people, even the ones who lived around the comer, because “things happen down here.” He moved to St. Louis to live with his parents when he was seven or eight years old. He notes that his mother was physically abused by his father, who was a drug addict.

He witnessed the abuse repeatedly. He minimizes the abuse, but what is most obvious in his story is the chaos and confusion and that he was left on his own to make sense of it.

He gives a sense of the generational prevalence of the cycle of abuse in noting the stories of his father, who was abused by his own father, kicked out of his home at age 15, and left to grow up on the streets.

Abuse. I have seen my dad just cause havoc in the house, ‘cause I think that’s how he knew from what he grew up from. He would come home, everything was cool, it was

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192 fine, but if something was not right you would know about it because he would not stop until he goes to sleep and you would hear it all the time. If I did something wrong, or I’m not making grades or something like that, you know, just something. It wasn’t tense because I got used to it. It didn’t bother me. At first it did, but I already knew what was going to happen, how he was going to react, so I already knew how everything was, how it was going to play out. As time got on, my dad changed. He always, he didn’t do all the stuff he used to do. He was more understanding, I guess.

Troy thinks that the abuse was normal, and in a detached way, he came to accept it.

As an adult, he says that he can see his dad in himself sometimes. Troy was disciplined with belts or whatever his dad could get his hands on. He reports that as an adolescent, he was once in conflict with his dad, who took a swing at him with a golf club.

There is a detached yet repetitive quality to the relationships that Troy details. These relationships are overly simplistic. There is an absence of concern for him as a child, with little attention or value given to his thoughts, feelings, or needs, and a questioning on his part of the concern and care for his wife. He was left alone and remains confused and perplexed about relationships, which are bewildering and somewhat foreboding to him. His most intimate relationship is precarious. In it he feels attacked, persecuted, and misunderstood. It has the quality of a war; at times a cold war and at others an explosive battle. He and his wife have a difficult time tolerating each other; they find themselves “walking on eggshells.” She, too, has a history of abuse. This gives Troy a distorted justification to think that “she made [him] that way.” There is a collusive quality in their relationship. His ambivalence and confusion come through in his statement, “I want to leave, but stay for the kids.”

Troy seems somewhat clueless about intimacy and negotiating closeness and distance, and even more so about the impact that his past has had upon him. Troy describes his relationship with his children as excellent, “no complaints . . . they’re not

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193 pushing me away.” He has “whupped” his son, “but only once.” He has friends, but his friendships have the quality of adolescent relationships. His time with them becomes a source of conflict with his wife, and as a result, he feels deprived and controlled. He never learned how to intimately connect, negotiate, or effectively deal with conflict.

Troy denies that there was any alcohol or substance abuse in either o f his domestic violence incidents. He noted drinking as a problem as a teen, and a family history of severe drug use on the part of his father throughout most of his childhood. He minimizes his father’s drug use as part of the difficulty in his current relationship, but during adolescence it was a concern. Power and control issues abound and permeate just about all dimensions of his marriage. His wife tells him that he is “not in [her] world,” illustrating the problems they face. On a continuum of abuse, Troy has been physically violent and emotionally abusive. Troy is remotely in touch and yet detached from the realization of his experience of the cycle of abuse.

Yeah, I’ve sat back and thought about how I act, and I can see my dad in me sometimes, just how I don’t let things die down at times. When I’m aggravated or pissed off about something, I would just keep going on and on and on and on and just find everything what’s wrong, and not try to find and solve the problem, just keep going on and on about it. I used to tell myself I wasn’t going to be like my dad, but I guess I turned out to be like him, which was a bad thing. I wish it hadn’t been like that because it wasn’t just me, maybe the person I was with, Regina, just maybe made me that way because I wasn’t that way with my other girlfriend, ‘cause she wasn’t as aggressive, well, not as aggressive, more not as vocal, ‘cause she is more vocal than my other girlfriend, my old girlfriend, so I never had that problem. So, I never ran into that situation, versus now, and I thought I just was, just let things slide, I slide, but it kept just, more, um, not pushing the button, but just keep pushing you over and over and over and over until it was just enough, so much that I could have taken was probably what, and I’m just, I’m in that, in that rut right now that I don’t like.

Troy’s is a story of fractured bonds with his father and the confusion he experiences in relationships and problems with attachment. He has difficulty both tolerating his feelings and putting them into words. He did not talk much about loss, but there is a prevailing

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194 and lingering quality of loss throughout his experience. The physical loss and abandonment, the loss of his grandparents, and the loss of safety in relationships underlie the loss of his capacity to mentalize, understand, interpret his needs or intent—those of others around him— and to express himself or his confusion.

Troy met with me in my office. He participated in this study because he was asked by his group counselor and because he was still in touch with the benefit of the group. There seemed to be a secondary gain, which was opposing his wife. She had questioned him and did not want him to be away from home. Although I offered to meet him at a convenient time and place, we met at my office. Troy had to be drawn into the conversation. He seemed uncomfortable and awkward, a social awkwardness that may have been related to my being a stranger, the material we were talking about, and the difficulty of putting his feelings into words.

The interview seemed to be more stirring than he might have imagined. It took several calls before we found a time to meet initially, and he left the interview with a follow-up plan to meet a few weeks later. Despite about a dozen calls and messages asking him to contact me, I never heard back from Troy. I got to the point where I felt like I was stalking him. We met only once for a period of two hours. He left conveying a sense of interest in returning, but had no further contact with me. I was concerned about an underlying depression and possible recidivism, so I had a follow-up contact with the counselor who referred him to me to check in with him.

Donald Quixote: The Picture of a Duck I’ve always been able to take care of my own business, you know. I don’t like to depend on anybody, you know. I always feel like I can fix things, and I think, I think

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195 what bothered me the more was I didn’t learn how to be a man, even though I’m smart and um, I have a lot of good qualities. It’s taken me longer to grow up because I started getting high when I was 16. It’s taken me longer to mature. I didn’t have an example, I didn’t know how to be a man, you know. I was raised by a woman, you know. I have a lot of qualities that some guys don’t have; you know, I could bake you a cake, I could change the oil. .. Yesterday was my 25th wedding anniversary, so you know, my wife and I, we both went to work, and after work I stopped and got her flowers and a card and you know. I went to her job and presented them to her, and on the way out she gave me this card that I knew she bought like at the dollar store. Had this picture of a duck on it. You know, I wish that I’d handled it better, but I was disappointed. And I was like, man, that’s the best you think of me. Man, I don’t know, I felt slighted. She says, you know, it’s unintentional, but I don’t know.

— Donald Quixote In search of adventures he pined Among these rough woods and rocks, Still cursing his pitiless mind, For a wretch amidst bushes and brakes And crags will misfortune find.

And Love’s whip gave it him not, Nor did his lasher relent Till he’d touched his tenderest spot, And drawn tears from poor Don Quixote Dulcinea’s lack to lament.

— Cervantes

Donald is a 51-year-old Hispanic man. The symbolic meaning of the duck card presented to him by his wife captures the Donald’s underlying struggle. It captures his deeply rooted feelings of inadequacy, the search for connection to himself and others. It is a representation of many parts of his experience that have been deeply confusing to him. He is in his second marriage; he divorced his first wife after 5 years and he has been married to his present spouse for 25 years. He has 5 children, a 33-year-old daughter, who is divorced and has 3 children (ages 14, 11 and 8) who live with Donald, and a son who is 32, with whom he has an estranged relationship. He has three children from his second marriage, an 18-year-old daughter, a 14-year-old son, and a 13-year-old daughter.

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196 They live in a home they own. Donald works for the post office. He dropped out of high school as a sophomore and later obtained his GED. The incident that led to his arrest and participation in the treatment group occurred four years ago. He had been drinking when his wife confronted him about his drug use and threatened to call his work and tell them he was using again. His response was to hit her in the mouth, and a brawl ensued. Donald is an on-again/off-again crack cocaine addict with a history of substance abuse that dates back to early adolescence. In October, 2005, he had a relapse and attributes this to an affair that his wife had and subsequently told him about. She called him a “crack head” and he called her an adulterer, and the situation exploded. It was a terrible physical fight. The police were called and Donald was arrested.

Donald feels connected to his counselor, Harriet, noting that “she helps get [his] thinking straight.” Donald feels that Harriet genuinely cares about him and has been supportive and available to him. He agreed to participate in this study because he is interested in finding out what makes him “tick.” He identified that the benefits he took from the group were learning to calm down with self-talk and being able to “see the symptoms” of when he is beginning to get angry. He reports that before the group he never realized that he had certain feelings or could anticipate his anger. To Donald, the self-talk was the best part of the treatment group.

Donald is the fifth of six children. His parents divorced when he was five years old.

His father was an alcoholic who was abusive towards his mother, attempted to sexually assault one of Donald’s sisters, and went to prison for stabbing a man while intoxicated.

He describes his father as “brutal, a bad alcoholic, a stranger, a loser.” Donald has little

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197 memory of having a relationship with his father, stating that he “didn’t have a dad.” His mother was “old school.” He said that she was strict, “whipping” them whenever they did something wrong and with whatever she could find.

He felt threatened by violence as a teen, having grown up in a neighborhood where he was exposed to “guns, gang banging, and lots of drugs.” He comes from a long line of alcoholics on both sides of his family. He married at 17 to become “a man” and get out of the house. His first wife died of a drug overdose after their divorce. He raised their children with his second wife. His daughter came back with her children and is now living with them. Donald spoke of his Hispanic cultural background, where there is hyper-masculine bravado and men have “to have total control.” He has a sense of inadequacy and a feeling of being out of place. Alcohol and substance abuse pervade his story. He says, “My thing was getting high.” He repeatedly states that he did not learn to be a man, and he continues to struggle with his insecurities, inadequacies, and identity.

He has a sense of his underlying difficulty and struggles, but not of how deeply they run or how injured he has been.

There’s something I wanted to share with you. I was thinking, and I don’t know, I probably heard it on the radio, this program called New Life Line. They talked about men that, you know, yell. They’re out of control because they feel like they’re losing control, I think that’s the way he put it. In other words, I think in my mind by yelling that I’m going to gain something, you know, ‘cause I feel like I can’t control the situation. But it, it doesn’t work, and then I end up, it’s almost like using, after you do it, you feel like, guilty. And I was thinking that the reason I do that is I’m probably pretty much immature, you know, I didn’t have a dad, I didn’t have an example, and maybe that’s one of my insecurities. Maybe that’s why I’m angry. ‘Cause I don’t, I didn’t have, you know, I didn’t learn how to be a man, I think.

Donald’s prevailing relationship is with his addiction. Over the years, it has spiraled out o f control and escalated in severity. He has difficulty negotiating closeness and distance in relationships and he attributes this to his addiction. He sees his wife as strong

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198 and admires her for that, but he also says that she is very cold. He compares her to his mother. Donald describes a nonexistent relationship with his father. He had a close relationship with his younger brother, though he feels overshadowed by him. As his mother worked, Donald was raised by a sister. “I was controlled by a woman when I was growing up and I’m controlled now.” He has a brother-in-law he idolizes and considers a role model, but who is an alcoholic, is abusive towards Donald’s sister, and who supplied Donald with enough liquor as a teen that he developed a bleeding ulcer.

He is struggling to define and develop a relationship and clear boundaries. Lost to him was a good sense of himself. His experience is much more one of repeating than remembering. He recognizes that there is something essential that he is missing, but he is unsure what it is. The generational experiences of alcoholism and domestic abuse are deeply embedded, though he does not make direct connections or define his relationship conflicts as abuse. Donald has come to believe that abuse is normal, and he is unable to recognize the pain of how he was wronged as a child by the abuse of trusted others. His history is full of examples of enactments and repetitions that are problems he tries to fix rather than understand and feel. He did not have anyone to turn to when he had a problem, which underlies the consequences and conflicts that he still experiences. He, however, feel engaged and connected with his counselor.

The theme of loss is predominant in Donald’s story. At the center of his story is the loss of a sense of safety and protection as a child growing up in a volatile household.

He has had a cascade of calamities, loss, and trauma in his life; for example, his parents’ divorce when he was five. Violence is seen in his father’s brutality and his mother’s

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199 abuse towards him. His father’s absence—he was in prison due to his violence—and emotional unavailability was striking until his eventual death in 1971.

Also striking is the impact of safety in his community, the move from a neighborhood where he felt safe to Bridgeport, a more threatening community, where he was exposed to and made a victim of regular violence and bullying outside his home.

Too, the loss of freedom that came with the move and the loss of his dream to enter the Air Force resulted in an ulcer. His problems were continuing through his divorce and first wife’s death from a drug overdose. The patterns are repeated in the loss of a relationship with his adult son, who disowned him. His loss of control through his addiction, and most recently, the loss of trust and fidelity that occurred with his wife’s affair and with this betrayal and deep injury are all linked in his story and seen in the loss of his own self respect.

Themes of power and control are dominant in Donald’s story. They underscore his helplessness and sense of inadequacy. He has been physically abusive. While he is aware of the emotional damage that he has incurred, he is less aware of the impact of his own victimization. His substance abuse anesthetizes him from what he feels and compounds his problems. It dates back to junior high, and remains a major part of his struggle. He has little tolerance for strong feelings. He has difficulty with dependency and dealing with conflict, communicating his needs, and understanding or responding empathically to the needs of others.

His story is also associated with themes of boundary violations and transgressions; he conveys his wounded masculinity and the struggle to discover how to care about himself and others. Underlying his emotional wounds is his confusion about

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200 relationships. He is aware that his wife’s experience of being sexually molested in her childhood affects them as a couple. He sees the impact of the abuse, but stops short of making the connection to what it means and how it affects them both.

Donald talked about how he is always interested in improving himself. That and the fact that he was asked by his counselor, compelled him to participate in this study. We met on two occasions, once at his home and once at his counselor’s office after his session with her. In his home, we met in his basement. The house was orderly and well kept. He attributed the cleanliness to his wife’s obsession. While we spoke, two of his children watched TV in the same room. He was open and engaged in the interview. He spoke freely, but at one point questioned whether he should talk about his wife’s affair.

During the second interview, Donald actively participated, seemed more focused, and continued to be open with me. He seemed hungry to talk and to develop a relationship.

Towards the end of the interview, I explored how he thought about his wife’s feelings and I suggested that she may not be the woman he thinks she is because the two of them have quite different views. He seemed startled and jarred by my words and stated that the insight and interpretation really hurt and that it had not been something that he thought about. His failure of mentalization was not only in his capacity to manage his own feelings, but also to see her as separate. He could sense the projective quality of his experience, the “not knowing,” and it painful aspects and unbearable nature.

I never thought of that. See that, I never thought of it that way. I always want her to be what I wanted her to be, I never thought of her like this. Boy, you really blew my mind with that one. Hmm, boy, that hurts. I think the thing with the affair; it’s almost like I don’t know who she is anymore. You know, you have an idea of, of the person who you’re living with. I always thought my wife had great character, you know, she goes to work, she never misses work, she’s always been real honest, she’s always been there, and you know, when this happened, I didn’t know what to make of her anymore.

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201

Gus Patton: Caught in a Domestic War Zone

I was his First Lieutenant, he was the G eneral. . . whatever he said, I did . . . I, my dad would, you know, relay to me through whatever was going on in his life, you know, don’t live like this, don’t .. . She took full advantage of it and she continues doing things like that, whenever I’m vulnerable she takes advantage of it. She has no compassion or sympathy or no human characteristics.

— Gus Patton A background of safety and a feeling of wellbeing . . . a holding environment of adults who can respond appropriately to the child’s developmental needs, an environment that provides containment that helps the child . . . process negativity in relationship, processes that help children regulate affect, value relationships and learn to mentalize, in a secure attachment experience.

— Twemlow, 2002, p. 303

Gus Patton’s story is one of power dynamics and failed relationship. It is his story of growing up in a domestically violent home where emotional abuse and controlling attitudes and behavior prevailed. It was a domestic war zone and a cold war. Gus’ story illustrates the conflicts, the internal and external battering.

Gus is a 36-year-old Caucasian male who describes himself as “happily divorced.” He and his ex-wife dated for a few years before having a child and marrying.

They were married for four years and were divorced in 2002. They have two children, ages five and eight. Gus is a Jewish middle class man who grew up on the North Shore.

He has a degree in accounting. He currently lives in a western Chicago suburb and works two jobs. He grew up in an intact family and is the eldest of three siblings. His brother is three years younger and has a serious drug addiction. His sister is 10 years older than Gus. His parents are alive and still married. Gus notes that there was no physical abuse in his family history, but both his family of origin and his grandparents’ marriage

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202 relationships were turbulent, combative, and emotionally abusive. He is accustomed to conflict and intense confrontations.

The violent incident that led to Gus’ arrest occurred on Memorial Day 2001. After the incident, he and his wife entered counseling and reconciled; however, they divorced 18 months later. Their relationship continues to be antagonistic and “absolutely atrocious.”

Gus has had a restraining order imposed upon him due to hostile and belligerent emails and recorded phone messages. He has supervised visitations with his children (his parents must be present). His most recent difficulty was the verbally abusive emails and voicemails that he sent, which dealt with the children. On Father’s Day, 2005 he hit bottom, sent an email to his wife, and subsequently signed up for the group, however, he did this only as a condition to see his children.

Gus reports two incidents of physical violence in his marriage and notes that the emotional abuse was constant: “There was always some source of conflict, some drama, some chaos.” Power and control issues were rampant. They were caught in a “most cruel,” nasty, and vicious cycle. His epiphany was the realization that he “was actually scaring [his] daughter when [he got] angry.” He describes his relationship as follows: “Verbal sparring . . . character assassination . . . screw up attitudes . . . one-upmanship . . . pushing buttons, negative compatibility . . . it was hell.”

The group has been a most helpful and “powerful thing to do” for Gus. He volunteered for the group because he wanted to see his children. He was also in touch with how aggravated he felt and that he was in bad shape “mentally.” His insights were that he saw other people “just like you and it’s real disturbing, but you don’t want to see it and you don’t want to be like it, and so you change your behavior.” He saw some of the

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203 same patterns in the other group members as in himself and realized that the solution was to get himself healthy. The group helped him to see relationships somewhat differently.

He came to understand that abuse is not just physical, but can also be verbal and emotional. This was a shift in what he had thought of as “normal behavior.” He was able to get in touch with some regret and how his abusive behavior affected his children. His relationship with a co-leader of the group was quite positive. He continued his individual counseling after the group ended, and he participated in this study because the counselor thought he had made good progress and asked him to participate.

Gus describes his childhood as “happy . . . if you went into it, it was pretty ideal. . . I never wanted to grow up, you can call it like a Peter Pan syndrome.” He had a nice life, achieved what he wanted to by the time he was 30, and then wanted out of it. He claims that there was no single explosive, traumatic event or chronic pattern of physical abuse or violence that he witnessed, though he conveys a sense of chronic patterns of indoctrination, control, and emotional affronts in his adult relationships. He states that he became exactly what everyone expected him to become. Gus grew up in an affluent north suburb. He lived in a state of pretense. Alcohol use, family dysfunction, addictive behavior, and confusion in relationships both then and now are apparent. The patterns entrenched within his family of origin, and in some ways transmitted across generations, provided the sense of growing up in a cold war, a combat zone. “My relationship to my ex was very similar to my mom and dad’s. The arguing . . . verbal, you know, just the competitiveness . . . It’s really destructive . . . winning every battle.”

Although the physical violence is not overt, the psychological and emotional abuse, the turbulence in the relationship, was ever-present. He remembers only one

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204 incident of physical abuse in his childhood experience, but the verbal and emotional abuse was “absolutely atrocious . . . the verbal abuse was worse, much worse than the physical ‘cause the physical was always just isolated incidents . . . there was always conflict and can still be.” Conflict was the main dynamic in his relationships then and continues today.

Gus’ relationships are intense and rocky. He sees himself as “selfish and selfcentered.” He clings fiercely to his independence and is aware that he has always “been distant in [his] relationships and that probably comes from the distance that [he has] with [his] parents.” He does not know if he can become dependent or if he can trust others.

The one, the one thing that sticked out for me was when you asked me a question of how I solved problems when I was a kid and I said, I did it myself, you know, and that’s created me to be real independent. It’s also caused a lot of problems in my life, obviously, ‘cause I don’t, I get along real well with people, but ‘cause of my independence, it’s hard for me to be dependent. So, you mentioned, like, I forgot the exact verbiage, it’s on the tape obviously, but it’s like, do you think you could be dependent, and I don’t, I don’t know if I could be. I’ve tried and I want to be, a part of me, but I’m so, so dependent on myself that it’s hard for me to be dependent on others, but obviously it’s affected my divorce, my relationships, friendships, business, you know, ‘cause ah, there’s a whole, of 36 years to support, the point that you touched on actually, it was the one main point, that I noticed.

The cost of not having a secure attachment and having to go it alone has affected Gus’ capacities to trust and experience social trustworthiness. He struggles with dependency and separation. He has felt left alone to solve or figure things out on his own. The result is that he feels forced into things, and he often portrays a clear sense of objectification of the other, thinking and relating to others as things to be manipulated in a dehumanizing manner. This is best exemplified by his reference to his ex-wife as “the experiment.” His experience, rooted in his family of origin as well as in generational patterns and family history, parallels his relationship with his ex-wife.

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205 Gus describes a concept that he calls “negative compatibility. . . attracting others who are very screwed up. Unfortunately, I attract that, and some people say that’s because I’m screwed up.” This “negative compatibility” has affected his ability to compromise, communicate, see the consequences of his actions, and what and how others might be feeling. It has impacted his ability to negotiate distance, closeness, and intimacy.

Communication has been combative, secretive, and manipulative. He was the “First Lieutenant, [his] father was the General.” His language and relationships illustrate military roles, warring strategies and family life as a battleground. He was caught up in the combat between his parents and now fights his own war with his ex-wife. Power dynamics abound in his world, and it is his vicious patterns that have easily “escalated into insanity.” He wants what is best for his children and expresses concern for them, but at the same time he treats them as pawns. His hope lies in the fact that “their experiences aren’t like” his experience. He regards his experience in therapy highly, and he has had two helpful and supportive allies. Still, he lacks a deep connection or engaging process or relationship that he truly believes in. On the positive side, Gus is still in a therapeutic relationship.

The theme of loss began in Gus’ childhood and appears to relate to a family myth of staying together not because of love, but because a family works things through no matter how miserable the situation. The cost of the loss appears to be one of his own sense of identity, a sense of being himself, connecting to others, and having authenticity—all at the price of intimacy. Alcohol and substance abuse play an underlying role for him and

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206 many of his family members. Gus describes parallels between addiction and domestic violence.

You just pick up all this shit and it enters your head and then your thoughts proceed your actions, like Dennis likes to say. You got all these perceptions that just lead to disillusionment. . . . [Hje’ll even say the alcohol, like everyone says, you probably are familiar with this, society views alcoholics as the problem is the alcohol. The problem isn’t the alcohol; the problem’s the person. ‘Cause the person turns to the alcohol as a relief from issues that they have inside themselves.

Patterns of abuse and the cost of being alone both in his mind and without secure attachments thread Gus’ life experience. The consequences are seen as he struggles in relationships, but are deeply embedded in his early development.

I get afraid more, the more aware I am of it. When I was younger, I wasn’t afraid of it.

It was like my strength. It’s like, I got so much to do, I got to get angry, and then I succeeded at whatever I had to do ‘cause that anger, it’s . . . I was really athletic as a kid, so that’s where it comes from . . . I have feelings of fear, and I never used to have those feelings.

Gus has gotten more in touch with his feelings, particularly his anger and his fear. He has also gotten in touch with his violence and abuse, recognizing that what he “thought was normal behavior, as stupid as that sounds,” was not.

Gus was nervous about participating in this study; however, he noted that participating felt good because it helped him to think about his experience and see some of his conflicts and feelings. He viewed himself in a process of change: “You’re raw materials, and I’m a work in progress stage.” His participation also raised more questions in his mind. In the second interview, he started out with the observation of his independence and the difficulty he has depending upon others.

I met with Gus at his condo. The room was filled with toys, large stuffed animals, and games. I was surprised to learn that he has supervised visitation with his children and that they infrequently come to his home. Throughout the interview, I kept steering the

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207 focus back to the questions at hand. He would wander as he attempted to answer my questions and explain his circumstances. At the end of the second interview, he asked for a tape. I sent him the tapes and a few days later received an alarming call. He told me that he had destroyed the tapes because hearing himself was disturbing, painful, and disruptive to him. He heard “yesterday’s news, what can’t be controlled and is in the past.” He had trouble tolerating what he was hearing and had to rid himself of the painful reminder, the unbearable experiences of the past.

Alfredo: Stuck in No-Man’s Land

I gotta watch just unhealthy crap going on, scares me, and you know, some fear makes me react one way, and other fears make me react in an angry way, and it’s those fears and having to tow the line of you know. I mean, it really feels you have to turn it on, turn it off, turn it on, turn it off, within seconds of every reaction, you know the game is going on .. . you gotta take care of that situation . . . you’re just stuck in no-man’s land.

— Alfredo Many depressed men are not diagnosed, because they tend to deal with feelings of depression not by withdrawing into the silence of despondency, but by withdrawing into the noise of violence, substance abuse or workaholism.

— Solomon, 2001, p. 178

Alfredo is a 38-year-old Caucasian male. He is divorced and has a 16-year-old daughter whom he is raising as a single parent. He has not been “involved in an intimate relationship for many years for a lot of reasons.” He has contact with his ex-wife, though the relationship is often combative and conflicted. Alfredo has a history of drug and alcohol abuse, but has been sober for almost 10 years. He owns multiple properties and is of middleclass, socioeconomic status. He is self-employed and works in the construction field. Alfredo is the older of two boys. He parents separated and divorced

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208 when he was six years old. Although he lived with his father, he was raised by his grandmother until adolescence, and then by his maternal aunt. His father has a longstanding mental illness and a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. Alfredo continues to provide some financial support and regular care for his father.

We weren’t children to be raised and loved and to show how to live life, we were possessions that he wanted to control because he didn’t have control of his own life, and also along with the mental illness he thinks people were following him, and he would have outbursts of um, attacks towards other people that he thought were after him and stuff like that. We saw just a lot of dysfunctionalism [sic], a lot of anger, and he was angry towards white women . . . there was a lot of underlying anger that he was taught to keep deep inside. Don’t talk about your problems to anybody, all the years of therapy, don’t tell them anything. Don’t be honest, you know, that’s none of their business. He believed that because that’s what he grew up and no matter how much older he got, and no matter how much more he recognized life whether it was because of the mental condition, or whatever it was, he kept it bottled up.

Alfredo is in a state of depression and affected by a generational experience of familial mental illness that has trapped in a “no man’s land.” He has a history o f loss, of hostile and rejecting attachments, of generational dysfunction and transgenerational confusion, experiences of abandonment and of violence, and a family history of severe mental illness and alcoholism. He has been witness to and a victim of a cascade of cumulative life events that can easily be described as one train wreck after another. One of many examples he gave highlights his experience.

The incident that led to Alfredo’s arrest and participation in the anger management group occurred in March 2005. It involved his daughter, who was at a party against his wishes. He went to retrieve her, and while leaving, was pulled over by the police. His daughter reported being pushed and pulled by him, and Alfredo was charged with domestic violence. During this incident, Alfredo had difficulty screening his report to the police and understanding why he was charged. He had difficulty acknowledging any

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209 aspect of the assault, which included both physical and verbal abuse, but even more significantly, he could not screen his report to the police of his “off color comments . . . ‘you can go live under a bridge like your mother used to . . . like a scumbag nigger trash motherfucker.’”

Alfredo entered an anger management group as a result of the incident and reports that what got him there was a “lifetime of stuff’ that happened. The group provided him with an opportunity to vent. He used this experience to further process his experience. He participated in the group before he had to, knowing that it would help his court case but not believing that he should be there. He participated in this study because he was asked.

He attended the anger management group for 31 sessions, 5 beyond the required number.

He was searching for someone to tell him how he could have handled the situation better, how he was wrong. Mostly he seemed to want to be heard, to process his experience, and to explore his reactions. The group provided this experience for him.

Alfredo had chosen the anger management class because he wanted to learn how he could have better handled the situation and not get angry. He did not get that, but he did get involved. He believes his arrest was unjustified and unwarranted, and that the situation with his daughter was maybe just waking him up to what could happen. The domestic violence charge forced him to face his behavior and how he deals with his anger—rather than just reacting to it. It opened his eyes to the possibility of danger and the damage that can occur as a result.

Alfredo’s relationships are all problematic, highly conflicted, and intersect with all of his attachment problems.

I never saw my mom and dad have a healthy relationship, never saw my grandparents have a healthy relationship for 47 years of their marriage . . . I wanted to take care of

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210 myself and maybe not getting into a relationship was a good thing, because I didn’t get in healthy ones and the ones I did were controlling and possessive.

Relationships are about possessiveness, control and manipulations, plots and ploys, and boundaries that are loose, confusing, and poorly contained. His past and present relationships can be characterized as intrusive, demanding, manipulative, controlling, and overwhelming—particularly his relationships with women. Relating to women is particularly stimulating, unsettling, and disturbing to Alfredo. He sees being in a relationship with a woman as very demanding on him. He feels controlled and possessed.

Abandonment, rejection, betrayal, detachment, enmeshment, and a sense of danger are all aspects of the experiences that he had in his early development and relationships. Now, relationships are threatening, malignant, dangerous, confusing, and overwhelming. He has not experienced a deep sense of emotional intimacy in a secure relationship and in the area of sexuality he is frightened, confused, and overwhelmed. He engages in obsessive thinking to protect himself from shutting down and collapsing. He is fragile and can easily become overwhelmed. Emotional intimacy is missing and missed from his life.

Themes of possessiveness and control thread his relationships then and now, especially with his daughter. Entrenched patterns are still evident in his current relationships.

Raising and wanting to protect his 16-year-old daughter perplexes him. Their relationship has a repetitive quality and seems to reenact his childhood emotional experiences. As he tries to protect her from his “own mistakes,” he ends up repeating them.

For the most part, all of Alfredo’s relationships are strained and confusing. He is in a cold war with his ex-wife and he denigrates her to his daughter. He has occasional contact with his mother and is a continual caretaker for his father. He is an active care

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211 manager for his father, managing his money and bailing him out when he fragments. His relationship with his brother is bitter and confused. His brother has recently filed for bankruptcy and left the family business. Alfredo feels that he has been cheated and “stabbed in the back.” Many misunderstandings and confusion about his relationships and emotional strain are as evident today as they have been in his past. They all have a disorganized and dysfunctional quality.

I get into that whole situation having to bring up all the past experiences that were not positive for me. Now they might have been for him, he might have gotten loaded that day, he might have gotten laid, he might have had a great day, but for me as a child, it wasn’t a great day. It was a great day for him, but it wasn’t a great day for me, and when I have to bring that up, I’m bitter. No, I just don’t want to talk about it. Don’t tell me he dragged me anywhere. John, that’s my father’s friend, he dragged me to a ballgame once in a while, told me I had to split a Coke and a hot dog with my brother while he had seven beers with his buddy, who half the time was paying for everything anyways ‘cause the guy never worked. I said, you were there John, you know this stuff, don’t play this game with me right now, I don’t need to get aggravated, I got a lot to do, you guys have fun today, go, here, he borrowed three bucks, go buy yourself a Coke, here’s your three dollars, I gotta go, I gotta be left alone, you know, it’s not that I’m bitter, I just got older, I got a different life. I don’t mind helping my dad out, but don’t bring up stuff that really is not all that rosy ‘cause it’s not. Maybe they’re joking around, maybe they just want to get under me a little bit and have some fun, but I have a little problem doing that with them.

My dad would rent out my room for $25 to his buddies, they’d have sex in it, while I either had to go up by my grandmother or I had to go out, and then I couldn’t go out past five o ’clock, and you know, I don’t want to relive that. I have a different life today. I have a daughter that I gotta be concerned with, I got businesses that I have to be staying on top of 24/7, and I got my own brother stabbing me in the back.

Alfredo has a history of loss, chaos, and unbounded relationships. He grew up in a confusing and invalidating environment: “Bullshit. . . whacked-out crap . . . all those years of growing up and, uh, the family thing and the bitterness and anger.” He is still living in one. He describes losses that connect his life experience and loosely thread it together. The loss comes through in his views on relationships. The turmoil in the

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212 family, the rejections, the abandonment, the chaos, and the confusion in roles and relationships all have had a significant impact upon him and his development.

Alfredo traces his memory of his father’s mental illness to the time when his parents moved in with his paternal grandparents. He remembers the scarring effects of witnessing his father’s violence, recalling a particular incident towards his mother. His mother abandoned him and his brother. He was fearful that his dad would be aggressive towards him, as he would take him to bars as a kid and knew that “he apparently did beat people up close to death.”

Alfredo’s history is a cascade of traumatic cumulative life events (his father’s illness, tantrums, and physical outbursts; bouts of arguments between his grandparents; his grandfather wanting to put them up for adoption; alcoholism in the family; witnessing abuse; and his father renting his room out to his buddies for sex). It is a history filled with assaults, confusion, betrayals, contempt, and resentments. All of this had a cumulative effect and has compounded his developmental problems as new waves of noticeable impingements like loss, abandonment, and divorce. Alfredo dropped out of school during his freshman year to live with his aunt and her husband, and then proceeded to trade one chaotic set of events for another. In his teens and 20s, he got seriously involved with drugs and alcohol; today he has near a decade of sobriety. After he left his aunt’s house, he was taken in by a friend. He married their daughter, but the relationship was short lived. He has been adrift throughout his life.

Alfredo has seen violence and abuse throughout his life. His alcohol and drug use dulled his senses and his emotional pain. It was his way of dealing with loss and the “inner-lining crap.” The generational dysfunction is evident in an embedded family

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213 history of alcoholism on both sides of his family and by uncles, aunts, and parents. He used obsessive thoughts and behaviors to manage his anxieties; here, too, is an indication of genetic components of transgenerational mental illness.

Alfredo classifies himself as an addict and alcoholic because he “did it to no end.” He used drugs and alcohol to curb his emotions; it is a learned pattern from a long time ago, “to not feel so guilty or overwhelmed.” He cited the generational impact and his parents’ alcohol use: “Maybe alcoholism never allowed them to grow up emotionally.”

He is

stuck in a train of thought that is narrow and one-sided and in which there is little room for good mentalization. Although he is aware of his process of thinking and other mental states like desires, his coping is rigid and awareness is concrete. Developmental deficits of mentalization, the use of psychic equivalency, pretend mode thinking, and teleological stance are noticeable in Alfredo’s descriptions: “The proof is in what’s really happening with the actions.” In his thinking process, he goes off on tangents and covers quite a bit of ground; he gets animated, excited, intense, and has trouble interpreting what is going on with himself and others. His rigid patterns of thinking seem to govern what goes on in his mind and how he interprets and makes sense of others. He is pained when thinking about his past and has not linked the impact of how his past experiences connect with his present experiences. He repeats rather than remembers, and is easily overwhelmed by demands, “plots and ploys.” He sees little choice in his life. If he gets angry, he explodes; if he holds it in, he gets physically sick. He is stuck, under strain, and in a victim mindset.

I don’t know. That means I have to have an opinion, and, and I don’t, because it can be taken so many different ways and lately I’ve been taken completely wrong, you know. I’ve been misunderstood, I’ve been misjudged, and I’ve been mistreated, so to form an opinion, it would not have to be out of anger and it would not have to be out

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214 of being a total wimp about it, you know. I mean, my balance is making time to do this, being honest about it, if it means I’m going to get in trouble or not.

Poor and loose boundaries stood out as I engaged Alfredo in this study. He was a willing participant because he had been asked and had benefited from the treatment group. Our first meeting was in the public lounge in his condo building. In this open area people milled around us. He noted that he could “bum up 5,000 tapes.” We met for more than five hours. I turned on the tape recorder and he was off telling his story.

There were times when I felt uncomfortable being in such a public place and talking about such personal experiences. At other times it was as though I was not even present in the room and was in touch with what it must be like for him to be alone. On the first side of a two-hour tape, I asked one question. Alfredo presented a steady stream of consciousness and went on extended narrations, tangentially linking various thoughts about his experiences.

More than two-and-a-half months passed before we were able to hold our second interview. Every time we attempted to arrange a time, an emergency came up. The second meeting took place in the courtyard outside of his high rise overlooking Monroe Harbor. Again, this was a public, open setting. Alfredo was cordial and engaged in telling his story, but I felt disconnected from him as a person. He seemed to be a mind alone despite my presence. The unsettling quality of the story of his relationships and the manner in which he conveyed his thoughts and this sense of isolation while being in the presence of another was disturbing. The sense of being unbounded came through in the sheer volume of his words, as well as in the fact that he did not feel unsettled by telling his story in a public setting. Alfredo’s story is one that illustrates the anguish and pain of boundary violations, generational transgressions, and mental illness, and the impact and

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215 rippling effects they can have. He has missed out on an emotionally secure intimate relationship and is hungering to know and experience one.

Oliver Santini: The Lost Child

I think we’re, we’re lost children. We have, we’re, when you’re a child and you’re abused and your childhood is pretty much taken away from you, because it is, I think that uh, in this, that that, that loss, I think you’re, I feel because of that, because I have, because I’ve lost that respect for myself in the sense where, you know. I feel like I’m, people don’t understand me, and won’t take the time to understand me, that I come across a certain way, or I show, showed anger because I felt rejected, so, as a child, being treated like I was cut down, relationships I’ve had, I pushed people away because I felt they didn’t take time to understand me; therefore, I would be, I was very negative in the physical aspect of that, so I think that um, that what I had, I think a way for an avenue to go get help, that I wouldn’t be where I am, or where I was, a couple years ago. Even in school, and you’re going through these things, and you’d be portrayed as this bully, instead of being like, you know, he needs, he needs some understanding, is what he needs, he needs someone to talk to and find out what’s going on with his life, perhaps I wouldn’t have, it would have changed a lot of things for me.

— Oliver Santini Bull’s tone had registered. Each child knew the exact danger signals in the meteorology of their father’s temperament; they were adroit weathermen who charted the clouds, winds and high pressure areas of his fiercely wavering moods with skills created through long experience. His temper was quick fused and uncontrollable and once he passed a certain point, not even Lillian could calm him. He was tired now after driving half the night. Behind his sunglasses, the veined eyes were thinned with a dangerous ice over them. The threshing winds of his temper buffeted the car and deep, resonant warning signals were sent out among the children.

— Conroy, 1976, p. 49

Oliver Santini was lost as a child. His terror overwhelmed him and the aftereffects still impact him today. Oliver is a 42-year-old Caucasian male. He is in the process of divorcing his wife; the proceedings have been going on for the past eight or nine months.

He has three children: a 12-year-old son and two daughters, ages 9 and 12. The children

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216 live with their mother and Oliver has visitation rights. His wife, her boyfriend, and the children live in the house the family recently built. Oliver is currently living at his mother’s home. He works in transportation logistics, and he works long days. He has two older sisters and one younger sister. His father was a military pilot and he was “raised in a strict family of utmost morals and values.� His parents divorced when Oliver was 15 years old. His father was an alcoholic and had an affair.

About one year ago, an incident occurred in which Oliver spanked his nine-year-old daughter. A DCFS report was filed and the matter was investigated. The charges were unfounded, but his wife got an order of protection at the time nonetheless. Oliver says that this was a manipulative way to get him out of the house because she was having an affair with another man, which had been going on for a while and of which Oliver claimed to be unaware. His wife is currently expecting a child and lives with the father.

The incident that led to his arrest occurred three-and-a-half years ago. He had been drinking and blacked out. When he woke up, his wife was picking herself up off the floor and running out the door. Oliver realized he had done something, but he did not know what. He was placed on probation and required to participate in an anger management program and substance abuse counseling. The two reconciled after the incident, but the relationship continued to deteriorate. They are currently negotiating visitation and custody.

Oliver found that the experience in the group helped him evaluate the domestic violence incident and see it in a new perspective, to learn techniques and skills for dealing with his anger, and to deal with stress and anger without drinking. At the time of the incident Oliver also enrolled in substance abuse counseling because he realized that

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Ill he needed to change in order to save his family. He was determined to make the best of the classes, and he learned about himself and what he needed to do to change and make himself better for his kids and his wife. He has become a calmer person. He learned that he was abusive and came to realize just what he was saying and doing to his wife and others. The understanding of what abuse is has helped Oliver to stop and evaluate what he is going to say or do before he does so. He no longer reacts to things as he used to.

He feels that counseling has helped him become a better father and a better person. His relationships feel better to him because he is more empathetic to people and has insight that abuse is a “learned behavior.” The DCFS referral occurred about two years after he completed the group, and as a result of that event, he returned to individual counseling.

He volunteered to participate in this study because his therapist asked him to.

Oliver’s history of abuse is one of indoctrination, trepidation, and control. The confusion and contradictions of growing up in an abusive home while living in terror comes through in his statement that he had a happy childhood—except for the nights that his dad came home drunk.

I had a pretty happy childhood except for the nights my dad would come home drunk or . . . or whatever. We feared my dad, always said when he came home he wanted to see our homework or he was going into a tirade or, or something like that, so, I think the strictness of him pretty much put the fear of God into us, so much sometimes that we’d have a nervous, I mean, we knew when we heard the garage door open, we ran up to our bedrooms, got in bed.

He was afraid of his father, who was a Navy pilot and very strict, controlling, and abusive. He was also violent towards Oliver’s mother. He spanked his children if things

were not done his way, and Oliver came to view this as normal behavior. When he dad was present, he felt degraded. He was not able to label the abuse until he learned about it in his anger management group and the realization of “how much it really hurts” and how

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218 obstructive it was to him became clear. He carried the confusion he felt then well into his adult life.

Um, destroyed, destroyed me in the sense where I was always very nervous, you know, I had a nervous stomach, I would literally shake in my bed, I, you know .. . surprised I don’t have an ulcer today because of that stuff, so yeah, it scared me. I was very sensitive, when I was in class, the teacher would call me or something like that, I would cry. I was very shy in the sense where I would have a hard time dealing with it.

It was a sense of insecurity, being very unsure of myself, besides that, getting heavier, my weight in fourth or sixth grade, so some confidence was lacking . . . I pretty much just dealt with it myself, listened to music. Music has always been an outlet for me, because I wasn’t really allowed to go out and play with friends, and get that energy out. I mean, I had opportunities come up here and there where I’d ride my bike, or something like that with my friends, but not as much as I needed to as a child, to be a kid as much as I wanted to, or I thought I should be able to.

Other significant factors to consider in Oliver’s story are the impact of alcohol. His father, maternal grandfather, and other family members are alcoholics. Oliver developed an accelerated pattern of alcohol use, although he does not currently drink and does not see himself as an alcoholic. The generational effects of abuse are embedded in his father’s history, and Oliver experienced the residual impact of generational abuse and loss. His father was fatherless growing up, and Oliver rationalizes that maybe his father simply did not know how to be a father. His father had an affair that ultimately led to his parent’s divorce.

At that point, Oliver began using alcohol and pot. He married at the age of 30, and felt that he and his wife had a good relationship. His wife was pregnant at the time of the marriage. He did not want to get married, and felt that he had to grow up quickly. He did not see until after they split up how controlling, possessive, and emotionally abusive he was in that relationship. After the violent incident, he got into treatment, but the relationship continued to deteriorate. Subsequently, his wife had an affair. They are now in the process of a divorce.

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219 Oliver’s father died a few years ago. A year before his death, Oliver realized he could not be around him anymore because when he was around him, he was a wreck. The degradation he felt centered on control; his father made him feel terrible. He noticed that he would treat his family and kids poorly after seeing his father, and that made him feel miserable. Oliver ended the relationship a year before his father died. He feels he made peace with his father before he died, saying he loved him despite the abuse and acknowledging that he did teach him many good things.

Oliver sees parts of himself in his dad because of the abuse and the drinking. He has carried with him the experiences of multiple and cumulative forms of victimization and abuse, confusing identifications, contradictory behaviors, and emotional sentiments that imitate those of his father and his family. He describes his relationship with his mother as very loving, caring, nurturing, and supportive. He also say that she was “there for us to a p o in t. . . she was dealing with her own problem” and unable to protect him from his father’s abuse or provide him with much help to make sense of what he was experiencing. Oliver sees in himself and in his relationships with others qualities and attributes that he saw in his parents.

Not knowing how to deal with my pain, the way my dad treated us and all the anger, I take a lot of that, just repeat what my dad did to us and all that anger I had built up inside of me for all those years, I hurt a lot of people with i t . . . it’s an upstream battle, all of my whole life.

The current status of his relationship with his wife is strained. The two are still struggling with the breakdown of their relationship. Throughout their relationship, there

were signs of deterioration and problems that were ignored: power dynamics and transgressions instead of empathic understanding and regard. Now their way of communicating centers on the children and the divorce. Oliver is in touch with his regret

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220 and his hope for a better situation for his children, striving to see them and their needs, struggling to separate and understand his own.

The predominant theme of being a lost child is threaded throughout Oliver’s history.

He says that he would shake in his bed when his father would come home. He was scared, overwhelmed, hypersensitive, and had a difficult time dealing with stress.

I remember as a kid when my dad would come home at night and I would go in my room, close my door, turn the light out, and literally shake in my bed, where I felt like I was going to throw up, ‘cause I was so scared of him coming home. And when she started doing stuff like this, I was like, you know, I lay in bed ‘cause she wouldn’t be home at night, wondering where she was or whatever, and maybe shaking. It was just like when I was a kid again, you know. And it was like I didn’t want to deal with it. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to confront her with that. I was just hoping it was something she was going through that I’d live with that would eventually come to the surface, you know, that’s how we communicated, you know. We wouldn’t deal with it at the time. It would be something that would have to build up and then we’d have a big to-do about it.

There is a striking pattern of enactment that links not only Oliver’s emotional reactions, but also the patterns of enactments that relate to his father’s affair and then his wife’s affair. With both, he has suffered. He was insecure, unsure of himself, upset, and distressed. He had no one to help him to make sense of his experiences. His way of coping and adapting has been to repeat rather than remember. Being misunderstood is evident both then and now, particularly in that others often say that he is hardheaded or a hard ass, though he sees himself as very soft. He says that he puts on a hard shell to protect himself.

I first met with Oliver in his counselor’s office after he had a session. For our second interview, we met in my office. Initially, he was somewhat shy and reluctant to talk about the domestic violence incident, which was partially due to his lapse of memory from blacking out. As we got more into the interview, he was open, engaged, and

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221 reflective. The power of the words that he uses in his descriptions is intense; in reference to an emotional injury he has incurred, he talks about being “destroyed.” His realization is just as powerful: “Just the understanding of what abuse is has helped me to stop and think.” I was affected by the terror and anguish he seems to have felt as a child, but also by his hope, regret, and the prospects of the possibility that his children will have something better in their childhood and life than he had. His closing statement was most poignant: “We’re lost children. When you’re abused, your childhood is taken away.”

That is the loss that he is dealing with, and he further suffers, as have those around him.

The hope is in his understanding of his plight and in being understood. Oliver is in touch with his pain and aspects of regret. I picked up on the depth of how lost he has been, how absent others have been in his life, and his sorrow and his hope—as seen in his belief that he can make a better life for himself and his children and in the possibility of interrupting a generational cycle of abuse.

Paul Maclean: The Prey in the Venus Fly Trap of Life I just more or less put it out of my mind . . . I wasn’t there to tell my side of the story and I said even if I was it probably wouldn’t have made a difference . . . I didn’t know if it was a Venus fly trap or not, but there was always that thought in the back of my mind.

— Paul Maclean One great thing about fly fishing is that after a while nothing exists of the world but thoughts about fly fishing. It is also interesting that thoughts about fishing are often carried on in dialogue form where Hope and Fear—or, many times, two fears—try to outweigh each other.

— Maclean, 1976, p. 18

Paul Maclean has spent much of his life searching for an intimate connection in his relationships. He has settled for an “outdoorsman’s paradise,” a place in his mind where

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222 he does not have to think about painful experiences or troubled relationships. Paul conveys a victim mindset and a pretend mode way of thinking that blinds him. It blinds him to the thoughts, feelings, and consequences of his actions and those of and upon others. He has a style of pretend mode thinking that frames his experience. Paul is a 57year-old Caucasian male. He is self-employed and works as a manufacturer’s representative. He has two sons, ages 19 and 21. The elder son is in college and the younger son is in a vocational training program. Paul was married for 18 years, got separated 5 years ago, and was divorced 3 years ago. This was a second marriage for his ex-wife. Paul grew up on the North Shore and still lives there. He has three siblings: one older sister and two younger brothers. His father died when Paul was 18 and a freshman in college. It was a relationship he was just beginning to appreciate and a loss he has not recovered from. Paul has a college degree.

The incident that led to Paul’s enrollment in the abuser group involved an insurance policy for his children. He said something to his wife about the kids participating in a life insurance policy and she “got crazy.” He tried to get past her but she stood in his way, so he pushed her several times. There was a skirmish, a wrestling match in which she came after him with a telephone. He grabbed it and broke the antenna. She chased him, he pushed her, and then he left the house. The police were called and an arrest warrant was issued for him. Paul spent two days in jail, and then signed up for the assessment and the anger management group. He thinks that “anyone who is suggested to go to the interview, they’re in the course.”

Paul has a surface grasp of his interpersonal struggles and a remote sense of his intrapsychic conflicts. He does not quite see the conflict in his relationship, the physical

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223 aggression that escalated into an emotional storm which had been brewing for some time.

The charges against him were dropped, due to the costly legal representation he obtained, and he dropped out of the anger management course. A restraining order remained in effect for another six months. Paul keeps a copy of the order in the glove compartment of his car for legal protection as well as to serve as a reminder for him. It is significant to note that while under the order, Paul did not fully comply with it. He had no police involvement prior to or since this incident.

Paul found the domestic violence treatment group useful. The group taught him to “at least think about what you’re doing before you react, and walk away from a bad situation.” He sums up his learning as “stop, think about it, and just relieve yourself from the situation, just remove yourself.” He listened and was a good student in the group, but in regards to the incident that brought him there he states, I guess I was inducted because I had a skirmish with my wife that was considered domestic violence . . . I pushed her, she called the police, and the next thing I know I’m signed up for the anger management course.

Things just seem to happen to Paul. He agreed to participate in this study because he was asked by his group counselor. He attended one interview with me, but then elected not to participate in a follow-up interview. Although he scheduled the second appointment, he subsequently cancelled.

After the last interview when I left that place, I felt really drained. It brought up bad memories of things that happened in the past I would like to forget. With that in mind, hopefully you have enough information and it will help you some. I can’t go through another session again.

In a follow-up call, he explained his decision and wished me well. It was difficult for Paul to participate in the study because the feelings and experiences are painful to remember. It touches upon the challenges that Paul faces in mentalizing his experiences.

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224 He tends to use a pretend mode approach that is illustrated by how he explains the divorce to his boys.

Paul has in his history a sense of neglect associated with impoverished relationships, injuries, rigid responses, chronic and acute loss, and experiences that are not processed or understood or thought much about.

I felt as though she didn’t want to be with me. Even when it was decided that we were going to get divorced, I told the boys, you know, not much has changed. It was very painful was not being there at night and waking up with the guys and having morning conversations and coming home at night and having family dinner. Other than that, not much will change. We’ll go on the weekends to the lake or whatever it is we do, and I said that we can continue to do that anyway, and I said, the three of us are still the three of us, there’s no fourth party, and it’s unfortunate, but that’s just the way it was.

He has marked difficulty tolerating painful feelings and thinking about bad memories and experiences. He describes an idealized family of origin experience, saying that it was “terrific” and that his family was and is very close. He talks about that sense of closeness, but there is an absence of others and a loneliness that seems to pervade the subtext of his story. He conveys a deep sense of the loneliness, detachment, accepted confusion, and a pretend mode quality that seems to indicate that if you do not think or feel, then you will not have to deal with life’s challenges. Paul describes himself as a nerd, not a very good student, having few friends, and interested in looking good and feeling strong. Being part of the swim team helped him through adolescence. Paul benefited from structure in his youth, but seemed to miss people and a sense of importance in the eyes of others and himself. He conveys a deep sense of being a loner and feeling “out of place.” Paul was held back in the third grade, and this was devastating to him. He would have been a learning disabled student, but “they didn’t

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225 have the label back then.” He felt like an outsider. He states, “You get over that. From that point on, I just forgot about it.”

The major turning point of his youth was the death of his father, when Paul was a freshman in college. It was a devastating loss, but a relationship that he missed all along.

With his children, Paul defines himself in the role of “recreational director.” With his exwife, he experienced a chronic and pervasive sense of detachment and rejection about feelings that could not be touched, and suffering and disappointment that could not be addressed. Unresolved loss has had a significant impact upon Paul. He sees that pervasive feelings of anxiety that he describes as social phobia, depression, and an underlying sadness have impacted his family life, but he sees them in others and not in himself.

Paul talks about his entry into the anger management group with terms like “skirmish,” “induction,” and “enlist,” which indicate a mechanical approach to his relationships to people in roles and with labels. He also uses such terms as “recreational director,” “ex-wife,” and “number two son.” He talks about feeling trapped in the events leading up to his divorce, as when he says it was “like living in a hospital.” His relationships are awkward and there is a concrete quality to his thinking and relationships that comes through as a pattern. He has trouble dealing with conflict, communicating needs, and addressing the anxieties and feelings of himself or others. His marital relationship is distant and perplexing to him; he and his ex-wife stayed together for a time for the kids. “I guess you’d say we just grew apart. The divorce was imminent, fine. I figured I wasn’t losing anything anyway.” Once they separated, they both used the kids as pawns, and are still caught in the midst of their conflict.

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226 Paul feels unimportant in relationships. He has closeness with his boys, but the boundaries are blurred and he seems to be playing a role. Their relationship is more like that of peers, young boys playing together. His early developmental longings and need for relationships are links to his childhood wishes and the distance he felt from his father.

He longed for a relationship with his father, and then, “boom, he was gone.” He continues to reel from this loss today. He conveys a deep sense of loneliness that seems to replicate the loss, isolation, and confusion he experienced as a child. The longings and need for closeness with his father were exacerbated by the loss he felt in his father’s death. These losses compounded those he experienced as an adult, which include abrupt loss of a job (which shook his wife’s confidence in him), the loss of his own self-esteem, the strife that ran the course of his marital relationship, his divorce, and the life he had known and dreamt of.

Paul has developed and uses pretend mode thinking as a way of relating, experiencing, and thinking. When asked how his wife would describe him, he states, “I haven’t the foggiest idea. I don’t know.” This is a failure of mentalization in which he puts things and people out of his mind. He wards off painful feelings and memories that are unbearable and unthinkable. He does not see or cannot think about the problems and tensions that accelerate over time. He cannot readily communicate those to others, nor can he easily understand what others are feeling, thinking, or needing from him. It is a boundary problem, one of separation and closeness and of understanding himself and others.

The themes of loss and neglect are not addressed or understood yet, but are injuries that are deeply embedded and prevail. Paul does not make connections between what he

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227 sees and feels. Transgressions are accepted as a matter of fact. He is detached from the feelings, the failure, and any sense of narcissistic injury. Longings and losses that have affected his development, like his father’s absence and subsequent death, are losses which are grieved, but never quite integrated or mourned. “I don’t know if I really had a chance to be close with him,” is the sentiment he expresses. This is at the core of his melancholia. He recovered by going to another college, and “outdoorsman’s paradise,” a little hamlet being “somewhere, but nowhere.” This is both his ideal and where he is trapped with increased feelings of helplessness, frustration, and misunderstanding. He is in a victim mindset, a “prey in the Venus fly trap of life.”

Missing for him and in each of these experiences is a relationship where he could be understood and helped to think about meaning. It is the experience of being lost, lonely, and emotionally impoverished. He was left alone to manage his feelings without another, which had a detrimental impact on him. His sense of not knowing keeps him from intimacy, empathy, and emotional understanding. It is a hungering for social and emotional connections and understanding. In his imagery and longing, there is a wish for the ideal. The contrast in his mind illustrates that he has found his outdoor paradise and a way to cope.

I try to get out and see my brother at least once or twice a year. He likes to both hunt and fish, and I said, both of us like to do that, and he lives . . . out in Oregon, and he’s got a prime location for sailing, he lives right across the river from a granary, so you know, it’s com-fed salmon, and we usually go and fish. This year we went out to Fargo, South Dakota and went pheasant hunting. We had a ball, just had a ball. He’ll come in here, once or twice, so we’re up for communication at least a couple times a week. Steve lives here, hell, he used to call every morning: get over here, what’s going on? We’d have coffee in the vicinity, and my sister I used to see, well, I still see her on weekends, uh, up at the cottage, sister and brother-in-law. I see her at least twice a month if not more, usually on weekends. It’s good.

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228 Paul and I met at my office. He seemed to be anxious and was somewhat awkward and uncomfortable. He actively participated in the interview, but was surprised by the depth of the issues. He only participated in one session. The interview stirred far too many memories and feelings that seemed disturbing to him and that he would rather keep out of his mind, things we would “just like to forget.” On two occasions after our interview, I ran into Paul in public. He asked me if I remembered him. He was friendly, engaging, interested, and more animated than he was during our formal interview, a most striking contrast.

Diesel Jr.: Man Up! Man up . . . I would not have married her if she was not pregnant. . . I met my obligation . . . fulfilled my role . . . I felt trapped, I thought here’s another person that did that to me . . . didn’t have anyone to talk to, so I had to keep it in, and somehow, hoping that I won’t screw up, I’m a screwed up person, you know . . . I have two boys, 16 and 15 and I tell them to man up, I mean, it’s just, it’s take responsibility, take ownership, to run, you know, not be a follower, but be a leader, you know, become a man . . . I man up just by taking it in . . . I was too young to man up to my dad, so of course it ended up being couldn’t help my mom, needed a roof over my head, so it’s like the whole thing, damned if you do, damned if you don’t . . . I became a man faster than I was mentally or emotionally equipped for . . . I coach them to not, to use condoms and I coach them not to get married until they’re 30 and not to be emotionally tied until they’re in their late 20s, don’t do the same mistakes I’ve done . .

— Diesel Jr. During violent coaching, novices are taught the proper course of action to take towards people who provoke them. Their coaches teach them what to do or not do when provoked by another person. Novices are taught that they should not try to pacify, ignore, run from the protagonist, but should physically attack them. Furthermore, novices are taught to use at least enough force to ensure they will prevail. . . There is also a more subtle difference between violent coaching and learned helplessness, which is easy to overlook. During violent coaching, the subject does not always learn, but is always instructed to be forceful, dominant and self-reliant.

— Athens, 1992, pp. 46-47

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229 Diesel Jr. has had a violent coach. He has learned to “man up” and this has become a pattern that he is teaching his sons. Diesel is a 43-year-old biracial male. He is half black (father) and half Hispanic (mother, of Mexican descent). He has an MBA and works in marketing. He owns a condominium and currently lives in northern Lake County, Illinois. His parents are still alive. Diesel was bom and raised in Chicago. He “grew up in a tough neighborhood.” He was robbed, “had to defend [himself], experimented with drugs.” He and his family moved to Oak Park when Diesel was a teenager because his parents were concerned about gangs in the city. He was “sexually abused, which no none knows” by a maternal uncle when he was a teenager. Diesel is the oldest of three siblings: his brother, who was 11 months younger than Diesel, died in a car accident when he was 27. He also has a sister who is eight years younger than Diesel, but the two are estranged.

He was married for 11 years and divorced 4 years ago. The relationship was strained. He married because his girlfriend got pregnant and he felt trapped. He describes the relationship as living in hell. They have three children: two boys, ages 16 and 13, and a 9-year-old daughter. The divorce was bitter and contentious, and Diesel and his ex-wife continue to be in conflict over the children. The children are currently living with him due to a DUI that their mother was issued.

There have been several instances of physical violence in Diesel’s relationship with his ex-wife. The two experienced increased difficulty early in their marriage and the strain escalated as they continue to be in conflict even since their divorce in 2002. The last domestic violence incident resulted in Diesel’s arrest and a referral for counseling. In the incident that led to his arrest, Diesel violated an order of protection, and although

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230 there was no physical violence on that occasion, it was a violation of space in which he came within 300 feet of his wife several times.

This is the second incident of domestic violence in which Diesel was arrested. He and his wife went to “light” counseling after the first incident, but they did not fully address the issues o f abuse. He reports that it was more “marriage courses,” rather than domestic violence counseling. In his recent counseling, Diesel initially felt out of place in a group setting with guys who “looked like criminals.” He went to the group because of a court order and felt that he should not have been there simply because he violated an order of protection.

He was very bitter, but about midway through the group, he changed his attitude and recognized that he is a violent and angry person—even when he does not express it physically. This was a turning point with insight, and he developed skills like self-talk and timeouts. The most significant turning point came with the sharing of his story.

Diesel realized that he has two teenage boys who are beginning to mimic his behavior.

He describes his anger and benefit from his group experience: “I’m a pop bottle ready to explode.”

I think the turning point was as I started to participate more in terms of sharing my story and knowing that if I could share something to help others in the group . . . so I think when I started to acknowledge that, hey, you know what, I’m gaining some insight from the group. Harriet was a phenomenal instructor, phenomenal. I give her a lot of kudos. And when I realized I should have been here anyway, that’s where I started to say, I need to gain something out of this, ‘cause I’ll have two teenage boys and they’re starting to do the same thing, and I was teaching some wrong behaviors.

In the sharing of his story and hearing others’ stories, Diesel learned a lot. Most significant is his realization about his anger and being in the environment of talking, letting it out, sharing some experiences, getting opinions, learning to think better, letting

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231 out the story of anger, and feeling understood. Diesel agreed to participate in this study because of his relationship with his counselor, Harriet, and his trust in her. He was reluctant to be recorded— fearful of how the tapes might be used—but his trust in Harriet is wholehearted. Because she endorsed participation, he was willing. He sees his counselor as very genuine, and he appreciates her interest in helping others and him. The group helped him make connections to people and ideas; he was able to see and hear others. Although he minimized his issues, he was able to find in the experience something that was common to him. In the process he found some aspects of himself.

Diesel has a lifelong history of violence and abuse. He grew up being a witness to his father’s verbal and physical abuse towards his mother. A maternal uncle sexually abused him over a couple of summers, which even today no one in his family knows about. As an adolescent he experienced danger, gangs, and drugs. Diesel recalls experiences of institutionalized racism and describes otherness, feeling out of place in both the black and Hispanic communities. He states that he is an angry man who wakes up angry every day without realizing the impact of the underlying experiences he has had.

He married his ex-wife when he was in his early 20s because she was pregnant and threatened to move away. He felt trapped. The first incident of physical abuse was early in their relationship when he kicked her “for not following through with an obligation.”

He describes a pattern of failures and breakdowns in his relationship, emotional abuse that evolved into a vicious cycle. They divorced in 2002 after spending years living “on pins and needles.” Although divorced, they continue to be in a heightened state of conflict where the children are caught in the middle. He thinks the abuse and their experiences were “pretty norm al.. . from the outside [they] looked pretty normal.” He

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232 thought everything was okay. In understanding Diesel and the context of his experience, the impact of race and culture are significant to consider. He identifies with the machismo of the Hispanic culture and some of the anger issues of the African American culture: “They influence me because of the environment I grew up in.”

Roles and boundaries are blurred and confused for Diesel and his children. The confusion comes gleaming through in his description of “manning up.” This is an idea that frames his mindset, experience, and way of raising his children. With them, he describes their relationship as close, noting that his older son is his “best friend.” He conveys a sense of hope that things will be better for them.

The experience of his lost childhood gleams through as he talks about his relationship with his children. In his childhood, he witnesses and was a victim of violence. The abuse is hidden and he has no one to help him make sense of his experiences. His thinking is muddled and he repeats the painful experiences he has had not knowing why or how to manage. With women, he has felt trapped and has objectified them. In his family of origin, Diesel both identified with and feared his father.

He sees his mother as helpless to his father’s abuse and feels guilty that he cannot do anything about it. He treats his sister “like a rat,” and his brother was a drug addict. His relationships are fragile, filled with vulnerabilities, secrets, and conflicts.

The generational effects of family dysfunction and the implications and consequences of growing up in abuse and isolation are in a process of transmission and lived on a daily basis in a subtle process of coaching his children. He recognizes the effect have made him “the screwed up person” he is today. He does not see the implications or effect he is having on his children. Only recently has he come to realize

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233 that his experiences and relationships were not normal; for much of his life, he thought they were. The consequences are in this sense of missing a relationship. He wants to make sure that his offspring do not have their own anger issues because he has never been a positive role model.

The themes of playing a role and fulfilling obligations come through in the opening statements of Diesel’s story. He married his wife out of obligation to fulfill the role of husband, father, and breadwinner. He and others are fit into molds and roles. They are missing as subjects. His violation is one of space. Themes of transgression and boundary violation create a state of psychological warfare and terror that is expressed through verbal assaults and attacks while other explicit and overt tactics are used to gain power, make points, and win battles.

The roles and boundaries are blurred and enmeshed. Diesel considers his oldest son his best friend who helps him contain his anger and calm him when he is upset.

These roles are confused and reversed. He relates to his children by attempting to provide for them something he did not have, an emotionally attentive father. He does not quite fully link his own experience of transgression and boundary violations that he encountered as a child to the version he is repeating as an adult. Boundaries are easily collapsed and violated, there are experiences of anger and helplessness that he can’t think about, and his failures and injuries are still deeply felt. Diesel sees that he is an angry person. His anger is like a freight train; it just comes. A stimulus happens and “boom, the train’s here and I release it.” He does not always see it coming, but if he does he can temper himself. He struggles with thinking, relating, and feeling as he relies upon his

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234 children to regulate that which he cannot tolerate. He is bottled up because he had no one to share his experiences with.

I met with Diesel on two occasions, both at his home. The first session was awkward for me in that his older son was home and watching TV as I began the interview. He had the foresight to leave the room as I began the interview. Diesel was open and engaged in the study. His relationship with his counselor was readily transferable to me. He was willing to explore most questions. It was clear that he agreed to participate because he had a positive experience with his counselor. He is articulate and insightful, but also somewhat jaded and bitter. He is most uncomfortable talking about his victimization and when he was sexually abused. It is evident that it’s a painful secret that he has shared with few people. His opening up about his anger is straightforward, but other feelings are more difficult for him to touch upon. He was appreciative and thankful for the opportunity and thought that he came away from the interviews with some new and different ideas. Mostly he felt respected, engaged, and heard.

It’s not a fun story, but it’s a dynamic story . . . these are real stories about struggles, about growing up . . . I wish they didn’t happen. I mean, I’ve been in situations where people said, I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes. Well, I don’t want to be in my shoes either, but it’s the shoes that I walk in, and I just have to deal with them.

To close this chapter, I will use Diesel’s words. They frame the many individual differences and striking similarities of each of these study subjects.

Probably one or two in my mind where you know, probably Dad hitting my mom, like I said, I blocked these things out of my mind, and where they stood out, or I’d see her crying ‘cause my dad would come home late or be very belligerent, or whatever, but they’re not as clear, but I knew that he had hit my mom . . . . I had thought about this for a second before you came in. I mean, if I look at myself and look at the issue, you know, anger, whatever your thesis write up is about, I think paths cross socioeconomic scales, gender probably comes from being a male, economics. I mean, I’m somewhat educated. I’m an MBA, so I should know better, live a pretty modest lifestyle. I’m not impoverished at all. I should know better. So I think you can’t

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235 pigeon hole this or put this into a compartment. I think it j u s t . . . the bases from every gender, every lifestyle, goes across. I don’t think you can pinpoint to a demographic profile, green, blue eyes, hop on one leg, likes alphabet soup, I think it defies, it spans across. I look at Harriet’s group, and people from different walks of life, from senior executives to laborers, blue collar workers, so, I look at them and . . . that scenario, but I think it just, you know, you, you can’t pinpoint to a particular profile I think that if I look at it, all these guys, pretty much like myself, have been hurt. We’ve been hurt. I think we’ve probably been hurt by a female, so I think, if you look at myself, it’s that, even i f . . . God was, Jesus was angry like 13, 15 times in the Bible, so it’s okay to be angry, it’s how you handle that anger, so I think, unfortunately, people like myself are unable to channel the anger positively, or use that to work those through.

I mean, I think we’re men, I think there’s hormones. I think there’s testosterone level and somehow we use that because of our build, because of what have you, to dominate situations and use that to negative events and consequences . . .

I don’t think any guy, including myself, don’t want to be classified as, I wish I could be regular in terms of being your, you know, Mr. Brady, you know, stress happens and talk it through, not let that out, but I don’t think that anyone wants to be known as an angry person or have issues.

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236

CHAPTER VIII

SUMMARY OF THE RESULTS

Stories can be told when they can be heard . . . Much of storytelling deals with the worlds of emotions, and yet often whole worlds have been left out. Lots of feelings— including ways of feeling not even recognized as feelings— can get written out of the stories we tell of our lives . . . Here is a previously hidden world of emotion, emerging in confusion through a story, and helping to provide a language for someone to find their own experience.

—Plummer, 1995, p. 154

The study provided significant insights, though many of the findings confirmed the most basic and essential values of social work practice. One of the most poignant of these findings is that relationships matter. The most alarming and disturbing finding was how utterly alone these men have been, particularly as children. Through their many varied experiences of loss and trauma, they came to believe that their experiences were “normal.” They were failed as children. As I framed the literature, I provided a broad context from which to understand, hear and bring forward the voices of the subjects.

Their stories provide a framework from which to consider the dynamic, societal, and narrative context. The integration of these diverse orientations would greatly assist in the understanding, assessment, intervention, and treatment of this population.

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237 One discovery was the extraordinary usefulness of the concept of mentalization.

As I listened to the stories and heard o f their “hidden world of emotion,” painful, unpleasant, and troubled experiences, the relevance of many of the ideas and concepts put forward was confirmed, but mentalization was the one that appeared to be most useful. It became the pivotal explanatory concept that I used in interpreting the subjects’ stories.

Mentalization, “the idea of attending to states of mind in oneself and others,” (Fonagy, 2006, p. 3) focuses upon self-reflection, affect modulation, empathy towards self and others, boundary differentiation and self-agency. “Mentalizing pertains to a vast array of mental states . . . to such states in oneself, but also in other persons . . . includes a wide range of cognitive operations pertaining to mental states . . . perceiving and interpreting behavior or conjoined with intentional mental states.” (pp. 6-7) The consequences of poor mentalization are evident in the problems each of the subjects have with selfawareness, self-regulation and in empathically relating to others. The absence of good mentalization, as evident in each of their stories, is seen when they have difficulty attending to, tolerating and managing affect. Everett describes his “magma bank of anger,” and eruptive behavior. Diesel calls himself “a pop bottle ready to explode,” and looks to his children to signal him to calm down. It is also evident in their understanding and description of their behaviors, which are often manipulative, controlling and coercive.

This can be seen in Carl Rowe’s acclamation of “positive manipulation,” how Gollum thinks about and relates to his daughter, hitting her with a yard stick because he’s frustrated. The absence of good mentalization is evident in each of the subjects’ stories and is demonstrated wherever power dynamics and controlling behaviors are described.

Mentalization provides an extraordinary framework that, if integrated within current

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238 treatment practices, would potentially yield significant results. The benefit will help these men—and even more so, their children. It will interrupt the process of intergenerational transmission of abuse.

These subjects were not simply willing to talk to me, they had a palpable hunger to be engaged. Highly regarded scholars in the field, experienced practitioners who work in the area of domestic violence, were doubtful that I would find subjects who would be, interested or engageable. As I began to recruit subjects, I attended a most telling meeting of state-approved providers who treat violent men. As I described my research proposal and the subjects whom I sought (domestically violent men who have had successful experiences and benefited from abuser treatment groups, men who have stories and are open to talking about them, men who are currently nonviolent and do not pose a risk of violence towards others by thinking and talking about their experience and by participating in the study), the response ranged from laughter to skepticism about where I would find such men. This reaction expressed feelings of frustration, disappointment, and hopelessness, and represented an expression of how easily we can dismiss and dehumanize subjects. This was the initial response to the question of who were their successes, how they viewed success in abuser treatment, and the sentiment that is stirred up when thinking about domestically violent men and their behavior. Even during the Institutional Review Board (IRB) process, the committee raised significant concerns about the risk of danger that domestically violent men posed and the need for safeguards.

Working with these types of subjects and their difficult issues and behavior presents unique challenges.

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239 Significantly, the 13 subjects who did participate all came to me from agencies or treatment providers who had either a professional relationship with me or were familiar with my work in the domestic violence field. This association was instrumental in obtaining a successful referral. Underscored in this experience and in the process that lead to subject participation is not only the sense of how these men are viewed, how a successful treatment experience is defined, and what is stirred up in us when we think of violence and experiences of abuse, but also how essential, meaningful, and significant relationships are.

These subjects, for the most part, were grateful to have the opportunity to talk and think about their relationships and experiences— and to be heard. They all chose to participate because they had been asked by a counselor who helped them and because they benefited from their treatment experience. They felt engaged, listened to, and treated in a humane and understanding manner. As they were engaged and explored their experiences, they were able to see themselves through the stories of another and get in touch with parts of themselves as though they were looking in a mirror. They had a humanizing experience and wanted to give back. This study substantiated that relationally-based therapy is an essential part of the treatment model.

The sample of 13 subjects was somewhat homogenous. They were in a category of men who debunk many o f the stereotypes of this population. They represented a group that dispels the myths and generalizations about abusers and that domestic violence occurs in poor, minority, and undereducated communities. This study confirms that abuse can happen all around us and there are no singular demographic categories of men who can be profiled as abusers. For the most part, these men were

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240 Caucasian, came from privileged backgrounds and communities. All were middle class and most were home owners, gainfully employed, well-educated and successful in their business or professional endeavors. All of them, with the exception of one who immigrated to the US from a non-Westem cultural tradition, had either a personal or family history of alcohol or substance abuse. All had children or step-children. Two had previous marriages, five were still in the relationships associated with abuse, two were separated, and six were divorced.

All subjects told stories in which they grew up in families where they were abused, neglected, exposed to violence, or had some form of traumatic experience in their childhood and did not feel that they had anyone to help them make sense of or work through the experience. The dramatic consequence of this absence is that they came to view these experiences as normal, and the implications of this are seen in their current behavior. They felt that the abuse they experienced, their early family life, was normal.

These men were lost as boys and failed as children. Their confusion is presented in the repetition of patterns that are linked to their pasts.

All of the men participated in and felt that they benefited from an anger management/abuser treatment group. Two were self-referrals (without any police involvement or court obligation). One started a group, but dropped out after the charges were dropped and chose to participate in the study because he found that the part of the group he did attend helpful. Two were repeat offenders and participated in a treatment group for the second time. Finally, ten of the men went beyond the standard 26 weeks and either continued in the group or got involved in other support programs or another form of counseling. For the most part, these men had some motivation to change. These

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241 men presented abusive and controlling behavior, but were not psychopathic or sociopathic; their behavior was frightening, but not as scary as some. By and large, these men represented the vast majority of men who are referred to domestic violence treatment programs and did not include any men convicted of felonies.

Each personal story was ideographic, a finding in itself. The findings discussion thickly described two representational stories, mostly using the subjects’ narratives. For example, the subject Everett told a story of loss and the search for self and others.

Gollum’s was a story of thingification. The findings discussion also focused on problems with affect regulation and the failure to mentalize through the stories of Bill Smith, Hank Keller, and Moussad Kahn. Emphasized are the various failures of mentalization— “impaired mentalizing includes not only failures to mentalize (mindblindedness in the sense of obliviousness to mental states), but also distortions in mentalizing (mind misreading or unrestrained imagination” (Fonagy, Allen, 2006, p. 18) and include problems with affect awareness and modulation, boundary transgressions, victim mindset, lack of empathy, and the inability to accurately understand self and others. The fourth finding told an abbreviated story, a snapshot of the each of the subjects. In each of their narratives a unique aspect was highlighted to underscore the complex idiosyncrasies and varied experiences each of these men have had, discerning some of the many and varied ways abuse impacts a life and how people adapt.

These men had childhoods full of troubles. They were hungry to relate and it’s a hunger that needs to be harnessed. I got the subjects who benefited from the experience.

Their arrest was a significant turning point for them. The treatment group and their relationship with the clinician who helped them to think about the abuse, but even more

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242 significantly, their experience of abuse. For many this awareness was a major step forward, and provides a foundation from which they can remember and reflect, and begin to make deeper change. The challenge of change, the process, was one of painstakingly taking small steps forward. These men made monumental changes given their experience and the issues they present. They were no longer so utterly alone and recognized that they needed help with problems that are not “normal.� They’ve needed help to mediate their experiences and to situate themselves in relationships.

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243 Overview and Presentation of Findings Each of the men in this study have troubled relationships and problems that are linked to their troubled childhoods. The subjects who participated in this study were men who benefited from their group treatment experiences. Their experience in treatment was a turning point and underscored the need for a relational context. The challenge of change lies in their awareness and understanding of themselves and others. The beginning of change was one of painstakingly taking small steps forward. They were able to begin to recognize their abuse and victim’s mindset. The victim’s mindset links their present behavior to their past history. As Twemlow points out, “if a child is too frightened, the capacity to think is paralyzed and the victim mindset is adopted.”

(Twemlow, Fonagy, 2006, p. 302) Making this connection is monumental. It’s their turning point. These problems are complex, and embedded in their past history. There is little doubt that recognizing and mentalizing their experience is their most important epiphany.

All the subjects told stories that chronicled familial dysfunctional patterns that are cycles of abuse. Each one of their stories demonstrates the constellation of problems and the many varied pathways towards abuse. Loss, failures, neglect, physical abuse and violence were present in some way, shape, or form in each of their early life experiences.

They had problems adapting to these experiences and still do not quite fully understand the impact upon them. This is a population that has been traumatized in its own special way. Each felt as though they had no one to turn to, and that they were alone. The consequences of having a childhood full of trouble and turbulence without an other to

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244 make much sense o f their social world and mental state is seen in their problems with relationships and in mourning and mentalization.

This population of men had trouble understanding and paying attention to the thoughts and feelings of others and the impact they had on them. They had difficulty with communicating their needs and in understanding their problems. This was most evident in their capacity to see how their experience of abuse and how normal they thought it was and think it is. They tended to repeat and enact patterns without much awareness of the connection to their abuse, their past or generational problems.

These men all had significant histories of loss. They struggled with grief, with managing their mental states, and with affect in general, including impulse control, affect regulation and mentalization. Having been objectified and treated by other human beings, particularly their caretakers, as though they were inanimate objects, as things, these men have come to treat others as things.

Mentalization and thingification are multifaceted explanatory concepts. They are interlinked concepts. Mentalization is both a capacity and a reflective process. Fonagy describes mentalization as “holding minds in mind,” a simplified way of describing the complexities and thinking about problems of emotional regulation, a victim’s mindset, loss, trauma, physical violence and emotional abuse, breakdowns in empathy, and problems with attachment— all areas of difficulty which are evident in each of the subjects’ stories. Fonagy’s notion of apprehending the mind builds upon human relatedness and self-awareness and a way of considering self agency and the “active work of mastery through mentalizing.” (Fonagy, Allen, 2006, p. 4) Mentalization was particularly chosen because of the immediate applicability and the benefit it has in

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245 understanding these subjects, what they have had to say, how they think, how their individual collective stories are told and how they’re held together. Although mentalization was presented as an explanatory concept, this study produced and became a way of engaging, exploring and mentalizing them and their experiences.

In many of their experiences in the treatment groups, the subjects were helped to begin to recognize the abuse and realize they have a problem. This was a major epiphany for them. A turning point for most of them was seeing that they are in a victim’s mindset and need help to make sense of their experiences. They needed help putting their feelings into words and linking their pasts to their present and seeing their abuse. One of the benefits of the group experience was that it helped the men identify the abuse. It is then that they can better use the treatment group to develop skills and strategies around affect regulation, self-soothing and communication.

Thingification is both a process and an experience of dehumanization—of “nobodiness,” a way of treating oneself and others as inanimate objects; as a thing. Lost in this defensive and mechanical process of objectification is the capacity to care, feel, and treat oneself and others as fully human beings. Thingification is a way of talking about failures in object relations and a way of interpreting their stories. Thingification is the result and an example of the failures of mentalization.

The problem these men have is with adequate mentalization. Thingification and good mentalization are closely linked concepts that have an inverse relationship; when one goes up, the other goes down. These are the areas in which they need help in order to navigate a social world and to integrate a mental one. At the root of problems with abuse are “ . . . complete dehumanization, a verdunglischung, a thingification, an

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246 objectification .. . . ” (Tillich, 1972, p. 453) Thingification is a disregard for another human being’s humanity. Tillich applied the concept to the social exploitation in Germany in the early and middle of the twentieth century. It is an apt description that gets right at the core o f relational problems that are entrenched in power dynamics, where other human being are coerced, abused, or stripped of regard for their humanity.

The group experience allowed the men to see their situations from others’ perspectives, which deepened their understanding of their own experiences. They felt less alone, more understood, and more willing to explore and understand their behavior and its impact upon others. The skill sets gave them strategies to work with. Furthermore, they then reported a desire to interrupt the cycle of abuse so that their children would not have to go through what they did and pointed to the possibility of interrupting the intergenerational transmission of abusive patterns.

Seeing and relating to oneself and others as a thing results in confusion and requires a significant degree of “mindblindedness [which] aptly captures failures in mentalizing more generally.” (Fonagy, Allen, 2006, p. 11) The belief that the abuse in their pasts is normal begins to explain how they view their abusive behavior in the present. The absence of an other in their minds, the “holding mind in mind” (p. 3), has resulted in several areas of difficulty. The distortions and failures of mentalization are seen in how they experience and manage their mental state; the meaning of their behavior and how they interpret the behavior of others; and how they mediate a social world and relate to others as real people. As their reflective capacity to monitor and manage their internal state improves, as they make linkages between their past and present experiences, as they

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247 can remember and feel rather than repeat and enact, they begin to see others as separate with minds that think differently from their own.

Visibility was the issue at the heart of this dissertation: humanizing domestically violent men through their voices as they tell their stories, illustrating that they do not fit the stereotypes. This open-ended study is an effort to understand the population of men and their relational experiences with the hope that it will inspire further study and illuminate some o f the areas that need deeper attention.

The literature review provides a broad and ample psychological and theoretical framework that can be used to build upon a dynamic understanding of these men, a historical and sociological context and a narrative approach. The literature review is referenced with the understanding that there are many and multiple perspectives from which our knowledge base and understanding of these men and their problems can be improved. There are many interpretive frameworks found in the theories described in the literature review and these findings could be written from any of these perspectives to enrich the understanding of these men.

Originally, this study grew out of an object relations orientation with the expectation that understanding how the psychological constructs like Klein’s positioning of the paranoid schizoid and depressive positions and (Klein, 1948) Winnicott’s notion of emotional development and object relating (Winnicott, 1989) would be useful in interpreting the stories of these subjects. These were the theories from which I started to engage the subjects as I listened to them and framed the questions that emerged in the interviews. Mentalization (Fonagy, 2006) is the conceptual and theoretical framework that became most useful. Furthermore, thingification (Tillich, 1972) became a way of

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248 talking about object relations. These conceptual frameworks became most relevant in interpreting the findings. Mentalization could be most useful and if integrated within and applied to the current protocols of abuser treatment programs will yield immediate benefits for treating these men.

Listening to the stories of domestically violent men and deeply hearing them is quite painful and disturbing. Their stories are ones of human suffering and impoverished relationships. They are stories of disturbing and horrific experience, unpleasant and disturbing behaviors and affect, and thingification and dehumanization. They are difficult to hear but if they can’t be heard, they can’t be adequately mentalized. If they can’t be heard, the subjects will not be effectively helped. The stories told of failures of relationships and failures of mentalization. The concepts of thingification and mentalization are being used in that they help to explain and interpret what these 13 subjects have had to say about their relationships and experience. They point us in a direction of what can more effectively help us to understand and treat this population.

The following eight findings will be addressed: 1. Every one of the 13 stories is a result in and of itself and a compelling and representational story illustrating that people are abusive for a reason and their experiences are not random—nor is their violence and abuse.

2. Loss and cumulative trauma have had a developmental and relational impact.

Childhood adversities, trauma and loss point to developmental gaps and deficits, but these problems were compounded because they felt utterly alone and grew up thinking their experiences were and are normal.

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249 3. Thingification: the law of the talon. Being routinely treated in a cruel, dehumanizing and thinglike manner—as a non-person, a nobody, an inanimate object—intersects with failures and distortions of mentalization and fuels the compulsion to repeat vicious cycles, patterns of thingification, and transgenerational problems.

4. Failures of mentalization: problems with human relatedness and self-awareness.

Along with thingification and failures of relationships came failures of mentalization as seen in a victim’s mindset, affect dysregulation and alexithymia, mindblindedness and problems with empathy and interpersonal communication and the tendency to repeat and enact, rather than reflect and remember.

5. Alcohol and abuse were interlocking problems. Vulnerability towards alcoholism and addictive and compulsive behaviors were prevalent in most of the stories, a way of mediating tension that was consistently evident and was closely interwoven with generational problems of alcohol abuse and family violence.

6. Defying the stereotypes. This subject pool, although small, was representative of a specific kind of men, a group who defied the stereotype of domestically violent men portrayed by the media and by domestic violence researchers and agencies and pointed to the need for better differentiation of their assessment, intervention and treatment, and for broader and more formal research.

7. Turning points and epiphanies. The turning points and epiphanies of each of these subjects varied in scope, depth and degree, and the recognition that their crises and arrests were a wake-up call, and that the group and relationships mattered and had helped them to see the abuse and that they needed to change.

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250 8. Intergenerational transmission of abuse: acts of reparation, concern for their children.

The process of the intergenerational transmission of abuse was evident in each of their stories and their relationships with and concern for their children have a reparative aspect and points of entry upon which the repetitive patterns and generational cycle of abuse can be interrupted.

Each Story is a Result Finding #1. Every one of the 13 stories is a result in and of itself and a compelling and representational story illustrating that people are abusive for a reason and their experiences are not random—nor is their violence and abuse.

Stories take many forms (Plummer, 1995). There are many aspects to the stories of each of these 13 subjects. There are many dimensions as they weave past and present, thoughts and feelings, memories and desires, and history and generations. There were both an overdetermined and multi-determined aspect in each of these stories, and how applying and then interpreting many of these theories described in the literature review would build upon our knowledge base and understanding of these men and their experiences. It’s my hope that the questions identified for future research will point in those directions.

The story of each of these subjects was a unique finding in and of itself. Each story was ideographic, yet said something collective about them as a group and universal about our humanity and the human condition. In each story, there were experiences of pain, suffering and anguish that showed ample reasons to be distressed and depressed. These stories showed that the subjects’ problems are serious and quite catastrophic. They

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251 showed how experiences can be dealt with in atypical ways. There is a deep structure to what they are doing that is multi-determined and that cannot be oversimplified and explained as power and control. There are deep and vital underlying dynamics beneath each of the stories that need to be understood.

Each of these men has a dynamic story, and consequently, a story that provides an autobiographical sense of what makes them tick. Each provides a window into the problem of understanding domestically violent men. Each subject needed assistance in elaborating their story. Their stories identify complex problems that have a historical discourse. In each of these are key representational stories with scenes that happen repeatedly, where there are dramatic roles and relationships, and where there are hidden wishes, needs, feelings and fantasies.

All the stories show that the subjects lack a clear connection between their pasts and presents, a sense of self and others, an understanding of the impact of violence and abuse on themselves and others, and the links between external events and powerful internal states. For the most part, they did not directly make these connections. Every subject reported sustaining terrible childhood loss and cumulative traumas and did so, at least in their mind, utterly alone. Each of these men needed help telling and in understanding their stories—that relationships matter and how these men, as highly at-risk children, were failed.

At times the stories raised questions as to what social world these people live in: a world of the past where they cannot navigate relationships in the here and now; a world of confusion where abuse is normal and there is little room for others; a barren world of loneliness, volatility, isolation, and detachment. Things and people were not clearly

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252 understood or explained. The stories provided a window into a wide range of human experiences and our human condition. The themes were of loss, violence, dehumanization, boundary transgressions, and repetitions. Freud’s notion of overdetermination (Freud, 1901) and the repetition compulsion (Freud, 1920) gleamed through. They did a lot of repeating without seeing it that way. This idea framed the nature of the enactment and underscored the difficulty these subjects had in linking past and present experiences—to the abuse they incurred and then inflicted in relationships.

Klein’s (1948) notion of the paranoid schizoid position and their need to work through and switch to the depressive position, Winnicott’s (1989) relational concepts, particularly the idea of object relating as opposed to object usage, provide a dynamic framework that would enrich the understanding of each of these stories and identify the need for further research and the application of dynamic concepts to better understand their needs and interpret their stories.

Their stories were often affectively charged and emotionally intense, but frequently demonstrated a disconnection between external events and powerful internal states.

These subjects, as children, were left alone to deal with traumatic, chaotic, and painful life circumstance that confused them then and still confuse them today. This is the link to their victim’s mindset. It is the basis for their cognitive dissonance. They found unique solutions that often were not good solutions.

The stories provided a way to find the men—the individuals. Each of the subjects had to be considered individually rather than as a group to avoid categorization and stereotyping. The story of each individual has something unique and special to offer. If we take them literally, we miss and lose the point. Each is infinitely complex,

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253 compelling, and varied. They underscore that experiences are not random, that there is logic, good reason, and real dynamics that are not indiscriminate.

The findings chapters were organized according to two master storylines, three subsidiary storylines, and the remaining eight, which capture a unique aspect of each of the subjects’ individual experience and yet identified a dynamic that is representational and can be generalized to the entire group. The heading in each of their stories identifies a dynamic theme.

Everett’s, “Little Lost Boy in Search of Himself,” is his story of loss. Although ideographic, it highlights the theme and that each of these subjects have chaotic, lossridden backgrounds. Freud’s On Mourning and Melancholia (1917) provides a critical way of considering the deep embedded and complicated loss experience each of these men have had and need to understand the melancholic state that shrouds their lives.

Gollum, the “Orphaned Toy,” is an account of thingification. His story threads together a past history of horrific and multiple experiences of cruel, abusive and violent behaviors. He was repeatedly threatened with being thrown away and sent to the orphanage. He witnessed violence and is a victim of multiple forms of abuse. He details experiences that illustrate how he came to feel broken, unwanted and detached from warm, caring relationships and then to repeat this pattern as an adult. As with loss, all of the subjects, to varying degrees, were thingified and repeated patterns of victimization as victims, witnesses, and perpetrators of dehumanization and abuse.

The three subsidiary stories all told of affect dysregulation and failures of mentalization. Bill Smith’s, “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde;” Hank Keller’s, “Matters of the Heart;” and Moussad Kahn’s, “Learning to Speak Another Person’s Language,” told of

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254 problems with affect dysregulation, as seen in alcohol abuse, cumulative trauma and failures of mentalization.

The remaining eight: Carl Rowe, “Positive Manipulation;” Troy Wilson, “Whuppings That Are Deserved;” Donald Quixote, “The Picture of a Duck;” Gus Patton, “Caught in a Domestic War Zone;” Alfredo, “Stuck in No Man’s Land;” Oliver Santini, “The Lost Child;” Paul Maclean, “The Prey in the Venus Fly Trap of Life;” and Diesel, Jr., “Man Up!,” tell of a unique but representational dynamic that is relevant, generalizable, and need further attention. Each of these stories could have been a chapter in this study.

Each is a finding. They highlight and identify issues of power and control dynamics as detailed by Twemlow (2000, 2002) and in the Duluth Model (Pence, Payman, 1990), generational patterns of abuse, as highlighted by Stith, et al. (2000), where whuppings are experienced as normal and deserved, relationships are impoverished and family life is parallel to a battle zone that is transmitted from one generation to the next.

On close examination, each of these stories highlights many significant dynamics like the effects of mental illness, of alcoholism and how interlaced it is with abuse, of paranoid anxieties, primitive defenses (Klein, 1948), poor models of identification (Anna Freud, 1946) and the problems of relationships. These are often the hidden issues that are masked by a focus upon surface and manifest behaviors. There were salient themes and experiences of pain, anguish and suffering in each of their stories. They each reveal hidden experience and point towards a deeper sense of latent meaning.

The act of telling their story moved it towards coherence. As the subjects were engaged in a relationship with a genuine interest in understanding their experience, the stories seemed to become more cohesive. These men do not have clear, coherent

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255 narratives. They have the sense that they have been in trouble, but have little understanding of the links between what kind of trouble they have, how they got there, and why. They don’t understand their underlying dilemma or realize how their past influences bleed through history with each occurrence of abusive behavior: how their past erupts into their present experience, or how their past relationships deeply and profoundly affect their present relationships. These are the areas of shortcomings in their understanding, and the shortcomings in our understanding of these men and their experiences.

The Impact o f Loss and Cumulative Trauma Finding # 2. Loss and cumulative trauma have had a developmental and relational impact. Childhood adversities, trauma and loss point to developmental gaps and deficits, but these problems were compounded because they felt utterly alone and grew up thinking their experiences were and are normal.

These men were lost children and in many ways they are still lost today. They grew up thinking their experiences were normal, and still do so today. Everett’s is the master story that tells of loss. Loss riddles his early life experience, but it is the death of his grandfather and the emotional tailspin and subsequent loss of his grandmother to her alcohol and grief that most noticeably derail his development. In each of the subject’s stories, the idiosyncratic nature of loss stands out and the impact leaves a devastating mark that effects their development and relationships. Each of these subjects has complicated losses that have had a cumulative impact in that they have not been grieved or mourned. Freud’s emphasis on melancholia (1917) aptly describes their difficulties.

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256 Their losses seem to have had an impact upon their development, and would make for another much needed study. Several subjects identified significant gaps in their childhood memories. Everett blocked out several years of memory after his grandfather’s death when he was 10. Carl couldn’t remember much about his adolescence. Hank aptly noted that he was an “emotional retard,” and how his emotional development seemed to stop at the time when he started drinking as an adolescent.

They have childhood and adolescent traumas and losses that point to developmental gaps and deficits, and with each progressive stage of development they seem to stay stuck.

These are developmental gaps related to loss and their childhood maltreatment.

Understanding where these gaps are and how they impacted and interfered with each successive developmental stage is warranted.

As adults with this history of childhood loss and adversity and without having another person to help them through it or to understand their experiences, these men have been at great risk for increased difficulty that has compounded their problems at each stage of development. Once traumatized children, they became at-risk adolescents and then abusive adults, repeating cyclical patterns and ill equipped to realize it or to behave differently.

Each subject grew up thinking that their experiences were normal. It was striking and disturbing how all of these men thought that their experiences of abuse in their childhood were normal and that often their abuse was warranted and deserved. Troy thought his whuppings were deserved. Oliver thought that his life was normal and pretty happy except for the nights his father came home drunk and abusive. For the most part they

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257 often contradicted themselves as they talked about family crisis and trauma as though they were, as Carl put it, “normal life traumatic events.”

Each subject experienced varied and cumulative traumas (psychic and relational) and often, real violence. Understanding the impact and adjustment to cumulative trauma as detailed by Masud Khan (1974) and the effects it has had upon development will help to treat these problem areas. As such, these men have a predisposition towards trauma, and the effects are seen in their relationships. The traumas were broad and diverse. Most involved violence, as they were subjected to violence themselves and witnessed their parents’ battering. Carl’s story was primarily one of emotional neglect. Two of these men were silent witnesses of sexual assault in their families. Donald Quixote and Bill Smith told about these instances, but in a way in which they were detached and removed from the experience. Many had cascades of cumulative traumas and a chronic state of family alcoholism, gang violence, and abandonment. Diesel, Jr. tells a story of being sexually assaulted by a maternal uncle in his early teens and keeping this a secret and hidden from his parents even today. Being alone, confused and misunderstood is a unifying theme in their stories. The cumulative effects of trauma seem to be a prominent factor that also warrants further study of the rippling effects of unresolved trauma upon development. For each, it was compounded by a most profound loss, the absence of helpful supportive others in their lives, particularly their parents. They perceived themselves as being alone. They were all reactive, helpless, confused, and had misperceptions and misunderstandings. Their confusion and misunderstanding is still apparent.

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258 One of the more eloquent statements that captures the deeply scarring and devastating effects of loss, trauma and abuse upon development is described by Oliver Santini. He describes the way in which abuse destroyed him, overwhelmed him and how he hadn’t quite understood the impact or the consequences of the abuse on his development until his recent involvement in treatment. As noted earlier, he states, “we’re lost children . . . when you’re a child and you’re abused, your childhood is taken away from you.” This is the underlying experience, a part of the problem that links to a victim’s mindset and their troubled relationships.

Thingification: The Law o f the Talon Finding # 3. Thingification: the law of the talon. Being routinely treated in a cruel, dehumanizing and thinglike manner—as a non-person, a nobody, an inanimate object— intersects with failures and distortions of mentalization and fuels the compulsion to repeat vicious cycles, patterns of thingification, and transgenerational problems.

A storyline in each one of their stories is horrific experience of emotional pain, anguish, suffering and abuse, and how they were treated like things, without much regard for them as human beings. They all told stories of dehumanization—cruelty, violence, neglect, hatred and both physical and emotional injuries. Without regard or concern for them as individuals or for their feelings, these men were often treated by their caretakers as inanimate objects, like things, and came to treat others as such. Such experiences can easily be described as thingification, a process and experience of dehumanization that left them to struggle with alienation, rejection, egregious boundary violation, and the experience of being treated as if they were a thing.

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259 Thingification, the process and experience of dehumanization, as noted, is a concept first credited to Paul Tillich (1972) and illuminated by Martin Luther King, Jr. (1963), who, as part of his dissertation, wrote extensively about Tillich’s ideas, and framed dehumanization as “nobodiness.” King posited that this was one of the reasons slavery could exist. A variety of other concepts like reification and objectification begin to capture the notion of what it is like to be treated in a thing-like manner and as an inanimate object. In their childhoods, all of these men were treated in inhumane and cruel ways. To varying degrees, they were treated as if they or their humanity did not matter. This is the underpinning of their problems with concern, and the difficulties that they have with warm and intimate relationships.

Patterns of thingification seem to become a characteristic of a family’s dysfunction and are the disruptive consequences of abuse, which are then compounded by the problems that grow out of isolation. In their experiences of family acculturation, these men were poorly socialized. Left alone, they believed their childhood experiences were “normal.” They were socialized early on in chaotic and dysfunctional families where abuse was a norm. They have carried on family traditions unwittingly, without much of an idea that or how deviant they are.

They have problems identifying with others and themselves; they repeat and enact rather than remember. They were caught in repetitive, coercive cycles where the violence was enacted and their deep, psychological wounds have not been addressed. As highly traumatized men, they have had little or no sense of the problems that they have lived. They each developed a victim’s mindset. All of their stories illustrated this problem. Gus Patton’s story, along with Gollum’s, dynamically demonstrated it. Gus

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260 grew up in a family that was a domestic war zone, this quality in his family of origin was replicated in his adult relationships, when cruel, mean and vicious assaults that were rampant. Even years after his divorce, he’s still embattled in a relationship with his exwife.

Gollum’s story was the most poignant example of thingification, yet this dynamic experience is in each of the subjects’ stories. He has a horrific story of beatings, violence and abuse that persists into his adulthood. Gollum has repeated the pattern of his childhood experiences, which formed his adult expectations in very direct and explicit ways. He was alone and detached, lacked an emotional awareness or empathy for himself in his family of origin and then repeats the pattern and the problem with his wife and daughter. Gollum came to think of himself as a “broken, unwanted toy.” He thought his experience was normal and was trapped by those experiences and his feelings. All of the men in this study had the experience of being thingified. All, as children, had no one they identified who could help them think differently or understand their feelings; all found themselves in patterns of repeating rather than remembering. They all felt broken, detached, and wounded. In Gollum’s story, he experienced repeated threats of abandonment and both physical and emotional abuse, whippings with a cat o’nine tails, his parents’ violent fights, his brother’s assaults, and further incidents of abuse in a list that goes on and on. He comes to repeat familiar patterns of thingification with his wife and children.

Winnicott’s (1969) concepts of problems with concern and object relating dynamically illuminates his difficulties. Winnicott’s concepts provide a framework upon which to understand how these subjects projectively relate to others, “pounding them into

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261 a mold,” as one stated, rather than seeing others as separate and whole. Object relating taken to an extreme is another way of thinking about thingification, nobodiness and dehumanization.

Imagine the deep, painful and wounding experience inflicted upon Gollum, whose story represents an experience each of them has had of psychological wounding. The residual effects of their abuse lie in resentments and a deep estrangement from both oneself and others. This is where thingification and the failures of mentalization intersect.

One dynamic complements the other, in that with thingification comes a loss of the attention to one’s humanity and that of others. The patterns continue, fueled by primitive defenses like splits, projective identification (Klein, 1946) and identification with the aggressor (A. Freud, 1946) (Scalia, 2002).

As noted earlier, thingification and good mentalization have an inverse relationship— when one goes up, the other goes down. To be thingified is to be removed from one’s humanity, to be cut off from emotions and from empathy. The vicious cycle becomes entrenched as the damage is done and as it has been done to, it is the law of the talon rather than warm, caring, or loving relationship that governs. Thingification is necessary for the cycle of violence and vicious patterns to develop. As they become firmly rooted, it is the basis for power dynamics. These men get trapped in their victim mindset and came to relate and treat others—and in some ways themselves—as things. Through thingification they continued and repeated the patterns and process of dehumanization.

Thingification links to failures of mentalization. They are complementary concepts. One does not occur without the other.

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262 These subjects were relationally impoverished and have a palpable hunger to relate and for better relationships. The antidote to thingification is empathy and a caring relationship, relationship that humanizes both parties. Relationships that provide support and understanding, but also an open mind and the willingness to address difficult issues, painful feelings, and unpleasant memories. Relationships in which the real issues of violence can be addressed directly are vital. The remembering may be painful and the confrontation delicate, but the repetition and enactments are catastrophic and costly.

Feeling understood and working within their narratives provided the opportunity for these men to get more deeply engaged, allowing them to know something else is going on that they could remember and sort it out. Thinking, holding a “mind in mind,� (Fonagy, 2006, p. 3) and then remembering, feeling, and engaging in a reflective process is a humanizing experiences. This is good mentalization at work.

Fueled by thingification and the collapse, distortion and failure of mentalization (Fonagy, 2006) problems in interpersonal relationships develop. Not only is there an absence of concern and empathy, but also the development and acceleration of power and control dynamics. This is where the field of domestic abuse intervention and counseling is invaluable and would be mostly useful to integrate. The fuel that drives all abusive relationships are the entrenched and circular patterns of power dynamics: the imposition of one’s will upon another. These subjects were often so consumed by their own needs and anxieties that they were unable to clearly understand what they were thinking and feeling or to empathically relate to others. Often they were entrenched in those cycles and patterns. In conflict, just about anything could be and was a power issue. Battles waged on and escalated into wars. When mentalization fails and power dynamics (Twemlow,

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263 2006) spin out of control, circular and vicious cycles evolve, split, escalate, and are repeated. The collateral damage is profound. The repetition and transmission can carry on and then affect the next generations.

Failures o f Mentalization Finding # 4. Failures of mentalization: problems with human relatedness and selfawareness. Along with thingification and failures of relationships came failures of mentalization as seen in a victim’s mindset, affect dysregulation and alexithymia, mindblindedness and problems with empathy and interpersonal communication and the tendency to repeat and enact, rather than reflect and remember.

Failures of mentalization occur and are evident in each of their problems with human relatedness and self awareness demonstrate that these difficulties are evident in a variety of ways. Along with the failures of relationships come failures of mentalization. The problems were seen in the areas of victims’ mindset and affect regulation, alexithymia (Fonagy, Allen, 2006, p. 13) and problems with empathy, as mindblindedness, problems with self-reflection and with power dynamics. Each subject told a story that had a logic to it, but they each had difficulty in telling the story as a coherent narrative. This was a pervasive problem. They each experienced a distinct set of boundary transgressions that highlighted unique characteristics of their relational problems. They all had difficulty understanding their own experience of hurt and relating to others as whole people. They all had troubles with boundaries. As such failures occurred, power dynamics took hold and often became the defining problem and was seen as the presenting problem.

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264 The foundation of this study as presented in the literature review was built upon dynamic concepts drawn from Freud, Anna Freud, Klein, Winnicott, Bowlby (1988, 1984) and the attachment paradigm (Goldberg, et al, 2000). These, together with research from the field of domestic violence and Interpretive Interactionism (Denzin, 2001) were used to explore and interpret the subject’s stories. Out of this integrated and dynamic approach emerged the application of mentalization. In the research process and then in writing the findings chapter, I realized that this study had become an experience of mentalizing, a holding of “minds in mind,” and an application of mentalization.

Just as the antidote to thingification is a caring relationship and an open mind, “the alternative to reenactments is mentalization.” (Allen and Fonagy, 2006, p. 5) Mentalization became a framework upon which their stories would be interpreted and could yield an immediate benefit. As each of the subjects were treated in dehumanized ways, thingified, and all had failures in relationships that went hand in hand with failures of mentalization, mentalizing humanized and deepened awareness and insights of each of them and their relational troubles.

The failures of mentalization are related to the original failures in childhood relationships which were with abusive, neglectful, and emotionally unavailable caretakers.

These men were alone in their minds and emotionally neglected; consequently, they have had trouble cognitively understanding and developing emotional regulation skills and good interpersonal skills or supportive relationships. Their troubles are apparent today in how they see themselves and the care they have for themselves and others. They have a poorly developed sense of their problems, of what it feels like to be them and to be truly aware of and concerned for others. Their capacities for good mentalization were affected

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265 by the abuse and calamities they endured in childhood. The various traumatic events they endured— and endured alone—in their minds had an impact upon their development and their mastery of social, emotional, and reflective capacities. These are areas of deficits and skills they should have acquired and mastered during their early developmental stages. These subjects have difficulty regulating affect, particularly anger and anxiety, and difficulty with human relatedness and self-awareness.

Problems o f the Victim’s Mindset Related to problems of mentalization is a victim’s mindset. The subjects’ problems with good mentalization relate to the difficulty they have in recognizing their experiences of abuse, both in their past and present. Their inability to see this connection traps them in a victim’s mindset. Their victim’s mindset, as I referenced earlier, used by Fonagy and Twemlow (2006) and applied to this population, is a pivotal concept to understand in that it is a fundamental problem that is at the heart of their troubles. Failures, distortions, collapse and poor mentalization are mentalizing problems that are revealed in the content of stories, and are seen in how the subjects think about themselves and others. Fonagy and Allen present different manifestations of mentalization. Abusive men distort, misuse and have noticeable difficulties with mentalization that are apparent from the moment they are seen for an assessment. Almost always these men feel that they are victims and they are being done to and victimized. The subjects in this study demonstrated this mindset, which became most evident as they talked about their turning points and epiphanies.

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266 One of the benefits many of the subjects had from their experiences in the abuser treatment group was to recognize and identify the abuse. For many, their insights were remarkable in that they saw themselves as abusive and it was as if they were seeing their childhood abuse for the first time. They thought that their childhood abuse had been normal experience and their whippings and abuse were deserved. Everett thought that “all families are dysfunctional.” Carl Rowe thought that “positive manipulation . . . getting people to do what you want them to” is good. Even when their family lives were chronic domestic war zones and their childhoods were filled with constant chaos and adversity, with Gus Patton, like with Bill Smith, who lived with his sister’s molestation for years, and Oliver Santini’s alcoholic father’s abuse and tirades. They thought their family life was normal and happy, as Oliver claims— except for the days when his dad came home drunk. They “grew up in Suburbia USA.” They accepted their victimization and have been trapped in a victim’s mindset. According to a conversation with Stuart Twemlow, he believes that “50% of the battle is that they have no idea that they’re in the mindset and that realizing that they’re in it is what needs to happen to change the problem.” Twemlow further states “once they see that it’s not inevitable and can see it, they recognize the possibility of something else happening and the benefits can be immediate.”

These men are easily wronged, wounded and go into a reactive, repetitive mode where they unleash their anger, externalize their problems, project the blame and then feel as if they are done to. Shifting the mindset is the key to helping them to move further along.

Twemlow believes that there is a “reciprocal relationship between the victim mindset and mentalization, an inverse relationship, where when one goes up, the other goes down and

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267 is related to power dynamics and power differentials.” This concept begins to explain how things in their minds happen to these men and that they don’t seem to have a clue about them and are operating on automatic pilot or in a pretend mode. They have problems with understanding their story as it’s happening since they don’t have a good dynamic understanding of themselves.

The victim mindset existed in each of the subjects’ stories, the difference was in the matter of degree and how little they could manage or understand victimization and the collateral damage that occurs as they then victimize others. In citing Gollum as he was appalled and disgusted by the accounts of abuse by a fellow group member, he recognized that he was doing the same thing—that he was an abuser. In working with this subject pool and relating the experience to well over 1,500 abusive men that I’ve worked with over the past 25 years, I had never met a batterer who wasn’t a bully, nor a bully who didn’t have a victim’s mindset. Helping these subjects realize and recognize their experience of abuse and victimization will interrupt their patterns and cycle of abuse.

They’ve each paid a terrible price in being alone and being alone and in this mindset takes many forms. Each of these men were alone in their own painful and destructive ways— dealt with it in atypical ways and were stuck in a victim’s mindset. Their capacity for mentalization was severely compromised. The “active work of mastery is through mentalizing.” (Fonagy, 2006, p. 4)

Problems with Affect Regulation Another aspect of their failures of mentalization is in affect awareness and modulation.

Each of the subjects had a problem with affect regulation. They had difficulty clearly

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268 identifying, modulating and expressing affect, both outwardly towards others and inwardly tolerating and understanding what they feel. Their internal experiences were not understood, they continued to be confusing and fuel further dysregulation. These are all components of failures of mentalization, unlabeled feeling and maladaptive responses.

These men have all had intense affective experience that relate to their early attachment relationships and are associated with abuse and conflicts in their early relationships.

They lacked others to help them understand what they felt or thought. In many ways, they are still trapped as adults and have had difficulty bearing and understanding painful and unpleasant feelings in their traumatic pasts. Their problems of relating and mastering their difficulty in the area of affect/emotional regulation. The commonality in their vulnerability is the difficulty with identifying, modulating, expressing, and tolerating feelings. They are often flooded with anxieties and exploding with anger. Although one of the subjects, Moussad, internalized his stress and anger and suffered a heart attack, most of the subjects used alcohol in anesthetizing themselves.

All externalized their painful feelings and had trouble reflecting and tolerating them.

The feelings, particularly anger, frequently escalated and they’d blow up. Many of the men, as represented by Everett’s words, expressed the perception of their anger as being like a “volcano,” anger like “magma banks” ready to explode at any moment. Though their anger was seen as problematic by others, these men had little sense of how their present was linked to their past or how destructive they were being. They had trouble identifying the intensity, range, depth, and scope of their feelings. Several used the metaphor of a train and how quickly they are overrun by affect, particularly anger.

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269 It’s the quality of unknowing that clearly stands out even when the feelings can be identified, they weren’t sure what they could or should do, or the deeper meaning they have. This was most evident as Diesel, Jr. told about being an angry man: “waking up angry every day . . . being a pop bottle ready to explode,” yet uncertain about how to express himself or the impact he and his anger have on others. These men had little sense o f where their pool of anger comes from, how they are triggered, what it means, how “emotionally bankrupt” they are, and how all of such failures and difficulty deeply impact them and others.

Problems o f Alexithymia and Empathy Another problem related to mentalization is alexithymia and the difficulty with empathy. To varying degrees all of these men had some difficulty in recognizing the range, depth and scope o f their feelings and putting them into words, alexithymia (Fonagy, Allen, 2006) (McCallum, et al, 1997), and had trouble empathically relating to others. All sustained trauma, terrible loss and painful feelings that still perplex them. To move from a state of grief and melancholia to one of mourning, relationships and symbols like words are needed, and so are relationships. These men have not had such a relationship, and consequently, they miss understanding the impact of the experience within themselves and upon others.

These are deeply emotionally wounded men who were injured as boys and need help with affect intolerance. They have trouble connecting external events to their internal states; things happen and they react, especially when upset or overwhelmed. The failure in being able to clearly identify their own emotional states is linked to their failure to

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270 identify with another’s distress and empathically relate to, understand or care about what they feel or the consequences of their actions upon others and how they feel. If you have trouble putting your own feelings into words, it’s difficult to understand and relate to the feelings of others, especially when upset or in conflict. Empathy involves emotional knowing, matching yet discriminating feeling for and with others. It is a composite view of self and others. Empathy and affect regulation are problem areas for these men. This describes not only a problem with self awareness, but also of the awareness of others and human relatedness.

Problems o f Mindblindedness Another aspect of their problem, that is a failure in mentalization, is mindblindedness.

The subjects in this study were often blind to their troubles and the troubles of others.

Mindblindedness (Fonagy, Allen, 2006) is a concept elaborated upon by Jon Allen. It’s a straightforward idea that captures the cutoff an individual can have from their mental state as well as being able to “accurately read” and see others. It can be seen in black and white, concrete thinking, or when thoughts and feelings are taken as defining external reality. Primitive defenses, as in a massive state of denial, projection and splitting are complementary dynamics and components. They had trouble clearly seeing themselves and others as separate. The subjects related to others as part objects, and all had difficulty with boundaries.

Their boundary violations, the trespassing upon others as Moussad had stated, were transgressions of violent abusive behavior that ranged from physical violence and abusive assaults to violations of space and order of protection, where they could not quite fully

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271 apprehend or respect rules, rights or the needs of others. At times, even when external and explicit expectations were imposed, violations that resulted in legal troubles, as with Paul Maclean and Diesel, Jr., occurred. They all had trouble with interpersonal relationships, separation and closeness, trust and intimacy, communication and conflict.

They had difficulty seeing and sorting out their projections. It affected their ability to see themselves and others as separate, distinct, and intentional agents and how their actions were consequential with impacts upon their relationships.

Problems with Capacity to Reflect Also related to mentalization are problems with the capacity with insight and self­ reflection. Self awareness and the awareness of others is a problem demonstrated in each of the subjects’ stories. Often they conveyed the sense of being absent from their own account. This was evident when they described the presenting problems that lead to their arrests or involvement in treatment. Their behaviors were often impulsive and reactionary. At the time, their judgment was clouded, rather than reflective and insightful.

They would blow up. They reacted, some more violently than others, and were inattentive to and didn’t see the extent or damage of their behavior until after the fact.

They had trouble seeing the hurt and suffering they both incurred and inflicted.

Consequently, understanding their internal experience and then taking responsibility for their actions makes good communication, dealing with conflict and later repair and reparation quite difficult.

Their capacity of mentalization collapsed when under stress and in their close relationships. In these instances, these men have trouble thinking through what they are

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272 about to do. They had trouble recognizing and modulating a wide range of painful affect and unpleasant memories. These problems can be linked to the cognitive process of how they are thinking. Fonagy (2006) describes several linked concepts—psychic equivalency, pretend mode thinking and the teleological stance to mentalization—as modes of functioning and a framework to understand cognitive patterns and processes.

Frequently, these men were entrenched in pretend mode thinking and psychic equivalence. They were often preoccupied with what was going on in their minds, as if their reality was also another’s reality. This is psychic equivalence. They saw things only in their own terms or in a pretend mode where there wasn’t much of a connection between external reality and internal states. Some would liken their experience of a physical event and see it as a mental state, the teleological stance. Each is a cognitively limiting state that adversely affects relationships and can help with understanding not only what but how their patterns of cognitive processing are organized. Helping them to see how they think, and to understand how the narratives of their past have a connection to their problems, will make their understanding clearer and treatment more consciously meaningful to them. In their minds, their past abuse did not make sense and their current behavior was misunderstood.

Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Finding # 5. Alcohol and abuse were interlocking problems. Vulnerability towards alcoholism and addictive and compulsive behaviors were prevalent in most of the stories, a way of mediating tension that was consistently evident and was closely interwoven with generational problems of alcohol abuse and family violence.

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In their childhoods full of trouble, many turned to alcohol and drug use in their adolescence. During the time, alcohol and drug use was used to such a degree that Carl Rowe can’t recall much of his experience and states that he lost the memories of most of his adolescence. He does attribute this to his drug use. The time is “a blur” for him and is a major factor that he attributed to the gaps in his memory and development. Others developed serious physical problems, such as the ulcer that kept Donald Quixote out of the Air Force and complicated his already serious health issues and then led to a full blown drug addiction that still complicates his life. Some of the subjects are still in a state of denial and have not realized the impact or connection of their use. Even though six of the subjects were under the influence of alcohol when the abusive incident occurred, only three are in an AA program and identified themselves as alcoholics. One, Alfredo, stopped using 10 years ago and hasn’t relapsed.

The problems in managing their affective experience were closely linked to the subject’s family of origin experiences. Alcohol or substance abuse was clearly identified as family problems in ten of the 13 subjects’ childhood histories. Alcohol abuse and psychological abuse seem to go hand in hand, both in their history and family of origin experiences and in their current relationships. Some of the men spoke of their fathers in drunken stupors, in rage episodes while intoxicated; a few denied that alcohol was a problem, but later contradicted themselves in their stories.

Everett talks about alcohol and drug use by just about every member of his immediate family and as one of the concerns he had for his grandmother’s alcohol abuse after his grandfather died. Bill Smith and Hank Keller are subsidiary stories of alcohol uses that permeate their histories, but have deeply embedded problems with alcohol addictions.

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274 Only one subject seemed to have no difficulty in this area. Moussad Kahn claimed that alcohol was not an issue in his family or family of origin; his Pakistani cultural background may be a significant consideration.

The significance of the impact of alcoholism was frequently minimized or directly denied. Gollum went so far as claiming that it was not a problem for his father, who himself claims to be an alcoholic, and even though it was a problem that clearly came through in Gollum’s story. Two subjects found their way into recovery through AA and, while in recovery, worked a program and got in touch with their anger and relational problems. As Hank Keller aptly stated, before AA “I was a drunken horse thief; now I’m just a horse thief.” There appears to be a strong link between this problem and generational transmission.

In understanding and treating these men, alcohol and drug use must be more closely examined and assessed. The percentage of subjects in this study exceeded the percentage identified in the domestic violence literature of between 25-80% (Tolman, Bennett, 1990).

Although there are multiple causes for substance abuse and domestic violence, this is an area that should be more closely examined. AA programs and a focus upon the impact of alcohol and substance abuse need to be interwoven with domestic violence intervention.

Even when it does not seem directly linked, addictive patterns need to be explored and addressed. It was a glaring issue that stood out in both their past and recent experiences.

Assessing for the generational influences of alcohol abuse, addiction and the use by parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles and considering the consequences of codependency are all aspects that can be contributing factors to alcohol and domestic abuse. The vulnerability towards alcoholism and addictive patterns, the recognition that

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275 alcoholism and substance abuse permeated their experiences and those of their families is pervasive, embedded, and plays an underlying yet significant part o f their experiences.

For most, abusing alcohol exacerbated their growing conflicts and melancholia.

Alcohol and other substance use and abuse were another way to forget and react, rather than remember or deal with painful experiences, conflict, and unpleasant memories.

Their alcohol use was a failed attempt to manage affect and to clearly think. For many it was their “great escape.� They were experiencing dysfunctional, alcoholic family systems and generational patterns that are entrenched and repeated. It was a form of affect dysregulation interlaced with failures of mentalization and relationships, another way to isolate and avoid intolerable pain. That alcohol was involved in many of the incidents is not surprising. For many of the men, it was a theme linking their past and present experiences, which is another example of dynamic experience and how each eruptive incident is an occasion of bleeding history. For some, alcohol and substance abuse was an accelerant—part of an all-too-familiar pattern. Once in a more sober and clear state of mind, some were able to begin to think more clearly and be more in touch with what they felt.

Defying the Stereotype Finding # 6. This subject pool, although small, was representative of a specific kind of men, a group who defied the stereotype of domestically violent men portrayed by the media and by domestic violence researchers and agencies and pointed to the need for better differentiation of their assessment, intervention and treatment, and for broader and more formal research.

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276 Gollum articulated the sentiment, we are not the animals or monsters people think we are. Oliver stated “we’re lost children.” Diesel, Jr. said that you can’t pigeonhole or compartmentalize. These subjects defied the conventional stereotypes of abusive men, yet a certain type of subject was drawn to this subject pool. It was not made up of the felons, the hardcore, sociopathic or psychopathic abusers. Many of these men fall into the categories of family-only batterers or dysphoric batterers (Holtzworth-Munroe, Stuart, 1994).

Three had previous incidents and were charged with domestic battery in their past.

Outside of their arrests, none had done jail time for the offense as part of the adjudication or for any other violent or criminal offense. Two were volunteers and had not had any legal difficulties and were encouraged to go to abuser treatment groups by their partners.

These were not the stereotypical chronic batterers who are reported in the media and often identified by agencies and domestic violence researchers. They were men who have problems in their relationships, but cared about their problems and are motivated to change. They were men with relational problems who minimized their difficulties and whose behavior did get the attention of others; however they had enough of a capacity to attach, benefit from their treatment relationship and engage in this study. These men were motivated to change. Although marginalized as abusers, they are not an estranged or marginalized group of people. Although lost and confused and terribly alone, they did not appear that way to others. These are men who could be anyone. Two were atypical subjects who usually do not participate in such treatment programs, as most men are there because of court orders and don’t think they should be. Hank Keller and Moussad Kahn

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277 agreed to treatment because their partners told them they needed help, and they benefited from their involvement in treatment.

This study highlighted the need to address power and control issues more dynamically.

Also, to better understand that abuse occurs along a continuum, and often overlooked is the fact that this continuum frequently starts with emotional abuse and controlling behavior and escalates through power dynamics and violent behavior that can easily spiral out of control. As vicious cycles of abuse (Walker, 1979) develop, it’s essential to consider that the danger of lethality is possible and can occur in abusive relationships of all kinds, even when unintentional, it can happen inadvertently. Recognizing this, but also differentiating between who are the more and most violent can be distinguished by using a theory like that o f violentization. Violentization (Athens, 1992) is a theory developed by Lonnie Athens and cited in the literature review. It is a progressive developmental stage framework and can be used to distinguish, more effectively address, and treat this population and their unique needs.

Turning Points and Epiphanies Finding # 7. The turning points and epiphanies of each of these subjects varied in scope, depth and degree, and the recognition that their crises and arrests were a wake-up call, and that the group and relationships mattered and had helped them to see the abuse and that they needed to change.

For many of the subjects, recognizing their experiences of victimization is their most significant epiphany and a major turning point. At the heart of Interpretive Interactionism (Denzin, 2001), the methodology used in this study, is a focus on personal

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278 troubles, with an emphasis upon the examination of turning points and epiphanies. The turning points and epiphanies of each of these subjects varied in scope, depth, and degree.

They include experiences of death and birth, violent episodes, separation, abandonment, and rejections. Crises provided an opportunity and not just a danger.

Most of these men did not link the significance of their past experiences to their current lives. The epiphanies varied in the depth of their realization and understanding.

Being arrested was a wakeup call for these men. The participation in the group was pivotal for many; they saw themselves in the behavior and eyes of others. They saw themselves as abusive; they felt appalled and disgusted, and then resolved to make good use of the treatment group experience. This was a major realization that began to move them out of their victim’s mindset. For many of these men, they thought their experience was normal and learned about the abuse. They got in touch with feelings they weren’t accustomed to feel. They began to recognize the abuse they experienced as children and now inflicted upon others as adults. It scared some of them and appalled others. The realization for many was a major epiphany and step forward.

They needed help seeing that their abuse behavior has something to do with their feelings and levels of affect and anxiety. They need help recognizing that their abuse has something to do with their past. It has something to do with a past that gets repeated and enacted rather than remembered and understood. They were at various stages of progress towards the recognition of this issue, and along with this, their feelings, their experiences, and of seeing and understanding themselves and others. Being aware of their experience and open to understanding that they could use and needed help was a major turning point and realization. Their problems were not on their radars but now are. Their internal

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279 experiences, their stories, were being met by and with external understanding and support.

This was a path towards understanding their experiences. If the confusion could lessen, they could label their feelings, and then lessen their misunderstandings. This was a move out of the victim’s mindset. Telling the stories made their narratives more coherent.

They were clearly in need of further and more help. Seven of the men had continued on in some form of treatment or intervention after completing the group, four of the seven were still involved with the therapist for periodic support, one was still participating in the group, two were in individual therapy as a result of their group experience.

Intergenerational Transmission Finding # 8. Intergenerational transmission of abuse: acts of reparation, concern for their children. The process of the intergenerational transmission of abuse was evident in each of their stories and relationships with and concern for their children have a reparative aspect and points of entry upon which the repetitive patterns and generational cycle of abuse can be interrupted.

In each of the subjects’ histories, the generational patterns and problems are clearly identified. Every one of their family of origin experiences detail family dysfunction, confusion and several, like Hank’s, describe breakdowns in communication and chaos, both in their past and present. All were either victims of or exposed to neglect, abuse, or family dysfunction. These problems were embedded in their family of origin experience and repeated in their current family. The stories of their past demonstrate a link to their experiences in the present and confirm that as they grew up in violent, confusing and chaotic homes, they subsequently repeat a familiar pattern, confirming the “relationship

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280 between family-of-origin violence and domestic violence.” (Stith, et al., 2000, p. 650) In considering their experience with their parents, particularly their father, who were absent, viewed by them as nonexistent, abusive and poor role models, their hope that their children won’t have to endure what they have is potentially a factor that may begin to interrupt the generational pattern. Their concern for their children appeared as both an act of reparation and hope for something better in the future. The patterns of the intergenerational transmission of abuse were evident in each of their stories.

These men are their children’s role models. They themselves have not had good models, and show how confusing it has been to them to assume and role of father when they never really had a positive one. As they have been taught to be a man (“man up,” as Diesel, Jr. put it), there’s a sense of resentment and confusion that permeates their experiences. Despite their protest and their pain, they became dads. They were highly identified with the things Dad (and in a few instances Mom) did. Anna Freud’s concept (1946) of identification with the aggressor provides a dynamic framework and a focusing explanation about generational exposure, transmission of abuse, and an underlying problem with identification. Their desire and hope may well be a motive for them to break the cycle and pattern.

The problems with identification are linked to problems with attachment and mentalization. As lost and confused little boys, the inability to see adults as dependable and available, and as victims of and witness to abuse and all of its collateral damaging effects have had grave consequences for these men as children and as adults. Their childhood experiences and identification paved the way for their adulthood patterns of expectation. Deep dynamics that are embedded in the history and point towards an

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281 exploration of the pain and anguish they have endured and perhaps why they are prone to repeat and enact rather than remember. These are the underlying dynamics that pattern vicious cycles. These men have come to distort reality, and this comes glaringly across in their description of their experience of self and others. Without help, they and their children are at risk to repeat these patterns.

Underscored in their relationships with and concern for their children is the acknowledgement of elements of reparation. These men want their offspring to have better lives than they have had. Although some of the men who are divorced or separated still view their children as “pawns,” all expressed concern as an act of reparation. The identification with their children and the desire that they should not have to go through the types of problems they had as children and that they should have better lives was uniform among all of the subjects who had children. In some instances, the subjects expressed regret or remorse for the damage they have inflicted. In all, they wanted to be active in their children’s lives and desired something much better than what they each experienced. As Bill Smith aptly said, “I don’t want to wake up 10 years from now and see that my children are alcoholics, repeating the problems I have and making the same mistakes.” This appears to be their attempt at interrupting repetitive patterns and generational cycle of abuse. Their insights fell short of deeply understanding their children’s experience of abuse or the effect it has had upon them. Still, the study subjects conveyed a genuine concern for their future.

Most significantly, as these men discovered the disturbing and painful aspects of their abuse and how they have come to treat others, they were genuinely concerned about the impact their behavior has upon their children. With the exception of one subject who had

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282 stepchildren, all of the men had children and worried about their futures. They spoke of not wanting their children to go through what they had endured. Understanding the impact of their behavior upon their children is still a great need. The realization o f how devastating their behavior was upon their children caused a desire to break their patterns.

This hope and desire may be a distinguishing factor and significant dynamic to consider when assessing motivation and types of intervention. They wanted to be better fathers than the ones they had. The majority of these men recognized some degree of the pain and torment that their children have experienced and want to protect them. Their understanding of what life was like for them seemed to help these men empathize with their children. Being better fathers is an area with which they will need help. As they are more in touch with their concern they need also to be able to access and feel their guilt, sorrow and regret, but they also need help with parenting, communication and relationship skills. This is where some of the other dynamic theories like Klein and Winnicott may be quite useful and helpful in understanding these subjects and helping them further their growth, where communication skills and the work of Marsha Linehan (1993) can be useful. Such integrations are steps towards integrating the treatment field.

Implications: Clinical Practice and Theory, Policy, and Research These men’s stories provided a promising frame in which to understand them. The themes that emerged underscored the importance of social relationships to help mediate experiences. This is a fundamental principle of our social work practice.

Treating

violent clients presents unique challenges to clinicians. Most dynamically informed practitioners anticipate and expect to address primitive anxieties, defenses, and psychic

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283 pain. In working with and treating domestically violent men, the challenge to directly address physical violence and abuse is central and essential. Here it poses real and present dangers. Addressing such issues stirs up many transference and counter­ transference issues. Clinicians must be prepared to address real violence. Safety and fear are pivotal to understanding. The clinician needs to closely attend to their counter­ transference and their experience to help these men address the primitive nature of their behavior and the issues they presents.

Training There is a need for the training of clinicians to be open to directly addressing violence and abuse. At times, there is the discomfort of asking difficult questions. Some of the resistance and problems in some instances relate to the fear of losing the client or engaging them without being patronizing or treating them as a victim. At times, the reluctance to confront violence is because of our own discomfort and the issues of countertransference that are stirred up in us. Abusive men need clinicians who can sit alongside of them and help them to think about their experiences and relationships; link past and experiences; help them to remember rather than repeat the past; and address the painful and intolerable feelings of anger, shame, guilt, and remorse. They need clinicians who are dynamically informed and who can go beyond the simplified explanation that the problems of domestic violence are ones of power and control. Power dynamics are a part of the problem, but the problems that run deeper perpetuate the problems in relationships and mentalization. Just as the psychodynamic field has much to offer the treatment of

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284 these men, so does the domestic violence treatment field, which has much to offer a dynamic framework. There is a need for integration of the two.

Integrating Multiple Theories Jon Allen notes, “The antidote to enactment is mentalization.� This was a step towards understanding the relationships of domestically violent men. Hearing and understanding them not only humanizes them, it mentalizes them. Psychodynamically informed theories shed light on the deep, dynamic, and underlying experiences; domestic violence theories illustrate the issues that need to be confronted, how power dynamics and control issues need to be considered. The psychodynamically informed treatment of domestically violent men would be enhanced by the knowledge acquired through the domestic violence field, and vice versa. Further utilization of CBT, DBT, and mentalization would be a step towards further integrating an approach.

Mentalization, coupled with the use of a narrative approach, would dramatically improve the current state and models of intervention in abuser treatment services (Illinois Protocols, 2000, 2002). The integration of these approaches with what already exists would likely yield immediate results in that it addresses the needs and gaps. These rich concepts would lead to a reconsideration of the core issues. With the focus already upon conflict negotiation, power and control dynamics, and communication and affect regulation skills, this approach would provide a way to reflect upon, address, and link the underlying dynamics. An interpersonal approach drawing upon this rich and diverse field of practice has much to offer in the treatment of domestically violent men.

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285 Cognitive behavior therapy and dialectical behavior therapy, practical and similar theories, provide a framework for intervention. They have offered a skill set that these men can more effectively and immediately use. The men in these treatment groups benefited from developing skills that helped them to think, label, and address emotions; learn about empathy and abuse; and develop strategies that could be used to calm themselves when upset, communicate more effectively, deal with conflict, and understand power and control. The Duluth Model is a prime example. This was a step in defining that direction. As the men became aware of their abuse and took some responsibility and had accountability for the behavior, they took steps towards change.

They needed to go further and deeper.

Broadening and deepening the approach to help them link their past and present experiences, to remember rather than repeat, would add a necessary dimension that will help these men well beyond the time they are in treatment. An integrated approach using mentalization would enhance treatment. Abuser groups get the attention of these men and are a solid beginning. The current models of treatment help, but they are in need of refinement. The models of intervention have to come together in an integrated manner.

They need to integrate dynamic understanding with domestic violence and substance abuse prevention, parenting education, and pro-social skills. A narrative approach offers a way to gather and link these disparate models. Mentalization coupled with a focus on power dynamics would enhance the programs already in place. The stigma, categorization, and stereotypes and the fear, apprehension, and feelings that get stirred up need attention. It was disturbing that providers did not feel they had many successful treatment cases. The men in this study were treatable, they had a positive and beneficial

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286 experience, and that was encouraging. They were engaged and relationships mattered to them. The group had a way of deeply engaging and helping them.

Besides helping these men, clinicians must help the children of domestically violent men. These men were alone as children and grew up thinking their experiences were normal. This becomes the basis of a repetitive pattern and generational cycle. Children in violent families need to not only feel safe and protected, but they also need adults who can help them understand their experiences and process their feelings in a safe relationship. Children of violence are traumatized; they cannot be left in their states of confusion and anguish or failed by adults. All of these men had troubles in childhood.

They aggressively acted out, were involved with alcohol and/or drugs, dealt with gangs and bullying, and generally had serious enough school problems that should have been noticed. There were many red flags, yet few interventions.

Family abuse and dysfunction loomed large in their experiences, yet there were few interventions. No one asked about domestic violence and several got into dating relationships that were violent and abusive. The patterns were enacted and the cycle began again. As adults, the patterns were also repeated. The experiences of their childhood abusive relationships, serious alcohol and drug programs, controlling behavior, chaotic households, and ugly divorces are all examples of repetition. Breaking the cycle requires early intervention that addresses the difficult issues of family violence. It means that in treating these child victims, we must help them to understand their experiences.

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287 Need fo r More Focused Research

A glaring need exists for more focused research. There is a need to study the impact that violence has on development over time, the impact on development particularly where, when and how it has been derailed. The developmental progression of these men was disrupted by their childhood experiences of abuse and trauma (Terr, 1991). Its impact is most noticeable in the social and emotional domains, as well as in their cognitive capacities to mentalize in intense attachment relationships. The hope that lies in this realization is the possibility of using the concept of mentalization, seeing how they acquire an understanding of their abuse, how they develop a victim mindset, how the links they make in remembering their pasts can occur and not just be repeated.

Remembering and connecting their experiences through a narrative approach with the supportive relationship can interrupt the vicious cycles and repetitive patterns of abuse.

We need to understand how we can better help these children.

Freud’s works (1914-1958) on melancholia, the repetition compulsion, over- or multi­ determined behavior has significant relevance that enhances our understanding. Loss and the difficulty with mourning, reenactments, and repetition of childhood trauma were all dynamically represented in each of their stories. Anna Freud’s concept of identification with the aggressor (1946) and Klein’s paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions (1948) inform us of the underlying identifications and constellations of primitive anxieties and defenses like splitting and projective identification. All of these concepts are dynamically embedded in the experiences of this study’s subjects and could be studies in themselves.

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288 Winnicott’s (1965) notion of ruth, the stage of concern, object usage and object relating, Kahn’s (1974) cumulative trauma, Bowlby’s (1988) attachment theory, and Bion’s (1961) notion of containment all lay a conceptual groundwork upon which these men can be dynamically understood and upon which some of the contemporary theories can be used. Mentalization is one that seems most relevant and quite useable in the treatment of domestically violent men. It was the dynamic orientation that emerged and I found to be most useful and immediately applicable to helping this population.

Bridging There is an emerging bridge between the psychodynamic and domestic violence field as evidenced by Dutton (1998) and others. There needs to be more. Mentalization departs from CBT and DBT, both of which promote skill-based training. While they are rooted in social learning theory, mentalization is anchored in attachment theory and dynamic theory. It emphasizes thinking about thinking and what goes on in the mind of the self and others. Mentalization coupled with an understanding of power dynamics (Twemlow, 2006) would alter and likely be a much more effective way of providing treatment to abusive men. It builds upon the focus of power and control that is at the heart of most abuser treatment programs while expanding upon skill sets. Programs need to address not only coping and communication skills, but also alcohol and substance abuse. These issues, like violence, are rarely confronted. An effective approach allows for the opportunity to find the individual in their experiences and help them develop skills and link past and present experiences. Making this connection in the context of an engaged and supportive relationship is a missing component in abuser treatment

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289 programs. Mentalization coupled with a narrative approach may be a key component and step towards interrupting vicious cycles and generational patterns.

The work of Stuart Twemlow and Lonnie Athens points to another leading edge for clinical practice and theory. Twemlow has developed an integrated approach towards understanding power dynamics and the role of bully, victim, and bystander. Athens has developed a theory of violentization that can be diagnostically useful in understanding the process of violentization and what may be distinguishing characteristics of hardened and dangerous criminals. These theories need to be considered and applied, highlighting the need not only for a dynamic understanding of the complex issues, but also the need for an integrated approach that can draw from various knowledge and be applied to help these men and their children.

Policy Abuser treatment groups vary in length, although most are organized according to protocols that seem to fall short of being acclaimed as effective strategies or interventions.

Most programs range from 26 weeks to one year. Most programs are effective while the men are in treatment. This is common sense: the abuse is less likely to happen when people are watching. Without effective intervention, the patterns are likely to reoccur as men ease back into old behaviors. It may not be only the length of time in treatment, but also the focus of treatment, that will likely make a difference in interrupting cycles of abuse. We need to go further in integrating a social response to this issue and towards treating this population. The arrest helped get their attention. Treating them as criminals did not solve the problem. Understanding, differentiating, and humanizing them will

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290 help. As noted, integrating a disciplinary approach will help the field. Using theories like Athens’ theory of violentization would help to differentiate and distinguish higher atrisk populations and intervention strategies.

A most significant shift is needed for early intervention and prevention programs.

Some are beginning to emerge in educational programs in schools that address pro-social skills, emotional learning, and social issues like dating violence. They have not gone far enough. Many schools and communities still struggle with the challenge to address domestic violence. It remains a stigmatized issue. There are needs for prevention programs focused upon children and their need for pro-social skills, awareness programs that address and insure physical safety, and intervention programs that provide services to identify children at risk and then treat them, to understand their confusing and painful experiences. Each of these subjects in this study was alone in the efforts to understand what their childhood experiences. None of them could identify anyone they would or could turn to. Part of the problem lies in clinical mindblindedness; another part lies in the reluctance to ask the difficult questions and to invest the time and resources desperately needed to help child victims of family violence. It left them confused and contributed to the repetitive nature of the cycle. Without intervention generational patterns are easily transmitted. There is a glaring need for policies that promote early intervention, prevention, treatment, and remediation.

Limitations The size of the sample of this study was small. The purpose was to yield deep and thick narratives, and the findings are suggestive. It was an exploratory and open-ended

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291 study. It was not designed to be conclusive. The strength of the study was its suggestibility. The study suggested more questions than it answered. The subjects of the study were not criminal felons or the most violent perpetrators. They were not antisocial, sociopathic, or psychopathic. They were deviant, but they cared about being deviant.

They were all individuals who complied with the system. They all benefited from the intervention and felt that it made a difference. This study dealt with the more objectrelated people, individuals who could see they had a problem and that things have meaning. They were motivated to change. They were those who felt that they had something to lose. This study did not address those men who are more criminally violent.

The men in this study cut across a middle-class socioeconomic strata, yet this narrowly defined group broke the stereotype of poor, marginalized, uneducated men.

An additional limitation was that these were men who used the group experience and who benefited from it. They were people who could make somewhat of “enough� of an attachment to volunteer to participate when asked by their counselors. The goodwill in the group carried over to me. It was a group of subjects who may under-represent the full range of men in abuser treatment programs, especially those who are more entrenched in the cycle of abuse and more violent.

Research This exploratory study was designed to bring forth the voice and illuminate the relational experiences of domestically violent men. Few studies have specifically focused upon how these men think about and describe their relationships. It also focused upon their perspective in an effort to dispel stigma and, through thick descriptions,

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292 increase the possibility of identifying and understanding something more about the authentic experience at the heart of this population. The results that it has yielded indicated the need for additional qualitative studies. A broader range of men needs to be studied in order to get a more comprehensive and comparative view. In concluding this study, I have identified questions and pointed to other areas that are in need of study: (1)

What more can we learn from the first hand accounts of domestically violent men through “experience-near,� qualitative research that considers thick descriptions of their personal troubles?

(2)

How can psychodynamically informed theories be better utilized and applied to further explore, explain, and understand the experience of domestically violent men? For example, projective identification, enactments, and repetition?

What does it mean to be stuck in a victim’s mindset?

(3)

How can a biographical, narrative approach that connects their violence to their historical antecedents be utilized to better understand their experience?

(4)

What can be learned from these men about their patterns of relational experiences when applied to the cycle of abuse? Generational patterns and transmissions? Role analysis and identifications? The complementary nature of the dynamics in their interpersonal relationships?

(5)

How has abuse affected their development over time? How can the concepts of trauma and loss be further considered from a developmental framework in order to better understand deficits and capabilities? What are the developmental derailments and the impact on future developmental tasks, achievements, and progression?

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293 (6)

What kept these men so utterly alone as children? Preventing them from seeing or having one person whom they felt connected to, understood by, or had as a confidant they could turn to?

(7)

What can be done to understand the child victims of domestically violent homes? What should intervention target when working with children? What can be done to more effectively help these invisible victims and silent witnesses of domestic violence? How can we measure successful interventions?

(8)

How can a more focused study of loss deepen our understanding of domestic violence? How can the concepts of melancholia, loss, and cumulative trauma be used to more deeply and dynamically understand these men when put into the context of mourning and their complicated states of grieving?

(9)

How is successful treatment defined in working with abusive men? How do treatment programs define and measure success psychologically?

(10)

What’s missing from current abuser treatment groups? What would be the

essential components of a more effective and integrated intervention program to treat domestically violent men?

(11)

How do clinicians with different theoretical orientations view domestic

violence and treat domestically violent men? What are their clinical dilemmas?

What makes it so difficult to treat and deal with these men without treating them as victims, and/or patronizing and rejecting them? How do they confront violence and address safety issues?

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294 (12)

How do treatment providers deal with their counter-transference

experiences in treating domestically violent men? How do they deal with treatment failures? How do treatment providers and programs define success?

(13)

Will a treatment model that integrates the focus of the current domestic

violence protocols with a framework that incorporates mentalization strategies and the use of a narrative approach be effective in treating this population?

(14)

What are the barriers to integrating the domestic violence research field

and psychodynamic practice? Where do these fields intersect and how can they be better integrated? How can we better understand the tensions and dilemmas often seen in splits and conflicts in different theoretical frameworks? What can be learned when theories about power dynamics and violentization are applied to the experience of domestically violent men and their relational problems? What would make these groups more effective? What can be learned when a narrative approach, coupled with a dynamic theory like mentalization, is incorporated into the current abuser treatment groups?

(15)

If concern for their children is a distinguishing issue for these men, is this

a characteristic that warrants further study? If so, what is the deeper meaning that it has to these men? How can the study of reparation be extended?

(16)

What can be learned from these men and their stories in order to better

understand addiction, mental illness, and their intersection with domestic abuse?

(17)

What can be learned from brain research when applied to attachment and

domestically violent men? How can the current research on the brain and attachment theory be considered and used in understanding this population? How

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295 can neuropsychological perspectives for organic impairments on top of social deficits be used to understand their needs?

(18)

What is the role of culture in understanding the unique aspects and the

impact it has on gender relationships?

(19)

How does gender factor into the experience of domestic violence? What

is the experience of female perpetrators and how would their stories compare to those of men?

(20)

What are the challenging and pervading attitudes and beliefs that

stigmatize, thingify and dehumanize these men? Why are they so marginalized?

(21)

What will the study of stories from a broader range of men, both those

whose violence may be more severe as well as those who have tremendously benefited from treatment, tell us? What can be learned from comparative and longitudinal studies?

(22)

What is needed in clinical training programs to better prepare clinicians to

treat domestic violence? What are the issues, theories, and attitudes that need to be explored and addressed?

(23)

What would effective early intervention, education and prevention

programs address?

There is much to gain in furthering the study of domestically violent men and in hearing their firsthand stories. This is a population at risk. The needs are glaring. These were men who were failed as children and now have continued the pattern. The problems are disturbing. The costs are astounding and staggering.

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296

Coda

When you are harried by day and haunted by n ig h t. . . plagued with inner fears and outer resentments, when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness . . — Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail

This study both humanized these men and provided a glimpse of their inhumanity. To listen and deeply hear the voice of domestically violent men, and to understand them and their experiences, requires empathy. It is through empathic understanding and supportive social relationships that they become humanized. By identifying with and hearing them, we see and understand others in the fullest sense of their humanity. This is the void in the experiences of these subjects, a humanizing experience with others, the feeling of being engaged and understood. In seeing and hearing these stories, we cannot help but see and hear ourselves. As they felt engaged in a relationship, they were less of a thing, increasing their capacity for attachment, mentalization and self-regulation. Nonmentalizing occurs when we do not give the other person status. Non-mentalizing is concrete and egocentric; distorted mentalizing is fraught with projections. This study identified some aspects of why these subjects are vulnerable to failures and distortions in mentalization and how they can be helped. We must begin with understanding them and their problems of childhood, being alone and being misunderstood. We must begin with

empathy.

In each o f our lives, we all have had experiences of loss, thingification, and failures of mentalization. Loss is the great equalizer in our humanity, and we all experience it. We

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297 all have been bullies, victims, bystanders, and allies. We have all used power dynamics at one time or another and have treated ourselves or another as things. At one time or another, we have all been mindblinded and have had failures of mentalization. At times, not recognizing these problems within ourselves can be a road block to understanding this population. Addressing countertransference is essential in order to effectively treat them.

Thingification and dehumanization occur in degrees. These issues capture a part of the complexity of and in each of our lives and give us a framework for understanding them and the roots of their difficulties. The relational problems that these men have had relate to loss, trauma, and abuse. The problems were compounded because they did not have protective relationships and secure attachments. They were alone and failed as children; as adults, they repeat patterns that they cannot reflect upon or remember as part of their histories. Their narratives mattered. They tell us what and why they think, do and believe the way they do. It’s a framework that anchors their experience. Their misunderstanding and misperceptions point to gaps in linking and fully understanding their stories of relationships and their histories. This is the underpinning of the victim’s mindset, where what continues to be enacted instead of remembered is still part of the problem and is at the source of their confusion, the basis upon which they came to believe about their experiences and that the experiences of abuse were and are normal.

This is where they and their children need help and where coercive cycles, power dynamics and dysfunctional generational patterns can be disrupted, understood, and transformed. Hope lies within the understanding of the person: their unique history and the origins of their troubles, the understanding of their deep psychological dynamics.

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298 Advancing and adapting a new therapeutic strategy in the design of our current abuser treatment protocols and programs is necessary. Abuser treatment programs need to be redesigned and in some ways overhauled in order to be more effective. A more integrated approach that draws upon theories and other perspectives beyond those that are currently employed will yield beneficial results. The theories developed by Lonnie Athens as “violentization,” when diagnostically applied to domestically violent men, will help differentiate the level of violence and distinguish a dangerous violent criminal from someone who is not. Twemlow’s work on a multi-perspective theoretical orientation will provide a more integrative approach to confronting violence, and with an expanded focus upon roles and power dynamics will enhance and enrich the work that is done in abuser treatment programs. Building and expanding upon the dynamic concepts of power and control and the cycle of violence will refine the strategies that are already being used.

Adopting the use o f mentalization (MBT), coupled with the use of a narrative approach that addresses and links the experience of violence in the past history to the subject’s present life, and then integrated with the guidelines that already exist in abuser treatment programs, would likely yield immediate results and benefits. These are areas that need further study and immediate attention. It would positively enhance the treatment models that already exist. This is where these men, their families, and their children can benefit and be immediately helped. Developing a more integrated approach would positively change lives. Turning points can be more than moments of temporary shifts and short-term gains. The crises they face can be an opportunity for transformation and their epiphanies can alter the coercive patterns and power dynamics that underlie their problems. This is where not only men with these types of problems can be helped,

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299 but so can their children. This is where we may find hope in the throes of despair and desperation.

In this exploratory study the subjects’ voices were heard, but these men have so much more to say. This study raised many more questions than it answered. It points in a uncharted direction where there is so much more that needs to be understood. Many emotions are stirred up when addressing experiences of violence. Most often the feelings are unpleasant and disturbing. At many times during the interviews and the analysis phase, the sustaining and compelling affect that was both a desire and motive was hope.

Erik Erikson (1985) frames hope as expectable desire. Wordsworth describes it as such: And somewhat of a sad perplexity The picture of the mind revives again . ..

And so I dare to hope, Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first I came among these hills, when like a roe I bounded o’er the mountains, by the sides Of the deep rivers, and the lovely stream Wherever nature led: more like a man Flying from something that he dreads than one Who sought the thing he loved.

— Wordsworth, “Tintem Abbey”

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300

APPENDIX A

INSTITUTE FOR CLINICAL SOCIAL WORK INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD RESEARCH PROJECT APPROVAL FORM

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Institute for Clinical Social Work Institutional Review Board Research Project Approval Form

Investigator: Thomas J. Golebiewski, MSW, LCSW Title: Exploring the Relational Experience of Domestically Violent Men

IRB Committee 1. Daniel B. Rosenfeld, M.A. Chair 2. Linda Freedman, PhD. 3. Kathleen Murphy, PhD. 4. Steven Batten, PhD. 5.

Cynthia Stone, PhD.

Approval: Indicate for each area with signature and date 1. Value of research proj ect 7/1/05 Approved 2. Credentials of researcher or supervision plan for student 7/1/05 Approved 3. Risk/benefit 7/1/05

Approved

4. Selection of subjects 7/1/05 Approved 5. Informed consent/assent 7/1/05 Approved 6. Use of data 7/1/05

Approved

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302 I. Value of the Research Project The subjects of this study will be adult men who have been violent towards their intimate adult partners. Domestic violence is “a pattern of assaultive and coercive behaviors, often including physical, sexual and psychological attack, as well as economic coercion, that adults and adolescents use against their intimate partners.� (Schaechter and Edleson, p. 9) Domestic violence, also referred to as Intimate Partner Violence, is a social problem that crosses many socially constructed lines, categories and all populations. The intent of this study is to cast a broad research net in order to capture the perspectives of domestically violent men about their relationships. The subjects of this study will be adult men, 18 years of age or older, who have evidenced the pattern referenced above. The majority of reports of victims of domestic violence are from heterosexual women and according to the American Bar Association, (http://www.abanet.org/) domestic violence occurs within same-sex relationships with the same frequency as in heterosexual relationships. With this in mind, I hope to cast a broad research net that is not limited by the categories of sexual orientation or preference, but will be an opportunity to learn more from domestically violent men about their experience and relationships. Although it is recognized that children often suffer victimization in families that evidence domestic violence as the direct recipients of violence or as the witnesses to it, I will not include child abuse as the primary focus. I will attempt to recruit men who have been abusive toward their intimate adult partners.

These are distinctions that I will be making in this study and perhaps this study will lay the foundation for further investigation of these issues at another time.

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303 There are many preconceived attitudes, generalized stereotypes and conventionally held beliefs about domestically violent men. Their relational struggles are frequently oversimplified as ones of “power and control,� terms that are relevant, but which oversimplify a complex phenomena and are used as an effective distancing response to understanding and dealing with men who are domestically violent. The value of this project is in looking at an elusive kind of phenomena that underlie the relational problems of domestically violent men. This study will address a significant gap that exists in the domestic violent field. Missing from this field of study is the authentic voice that describes the subjective accounts of domestically violent men about their relationships.

This study will use the qualitative methodology of Interpretive Interactionism. This approach is an optimal design to cast a broad research net and gather thick descriptions that provide for thick interpretations, about the personal stories of deeply troubled relational experience. It is a process-oriented approach that captures the subject’s authentic, lived experience, and their past and current relational troubles, turning points and epiphanies. The narrative accounts of domestically violent men will be made accessible to others in order to add to the literature, and provide a deeper and dynamic understanding of their relationships and how they think about their experience.

Research from the fields of domestic violence, classical and contemporary analytic psychology and narrative theory will be used to see and understand the relational world of the subjects and to anchor the stories they tell. Using an open-ended approach asking carefully crafted questions will be key to exploring and understanding the experience of domestically violent men. Through a case study approach these questions will provide a

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304 deeper, more dynamic and an experience-near account that allows for learning from domestically violent men about their relationships.

Domestically violent men have relational problems that have not been detailed and described from their perspective. This will be one of but a few studies that have focused upon the authentic, subjective account (the voice) of the perpetrator. It is the only known study that compiles narrative data from domestically violent men about how they see, describe, and think about their relationships. In addition to capturing and detailing their perspectives and experience, this study intends to illustrate how the developmental experiences and early relationships of domestically violent men affect their present life and current relationships, how they mediate their experience and their epiphanies.

II. Credentials of Investigator or Supervision Plan for Student The investigator, Thomas J. Golebiewski, MSW, LCSW, BCD, is an Advanced Student at the Institute for Clinical Social Work, Chicago, IL. He holds a professional license in the state of Illinois, Licensed Clinical Social Worker, and a Type 73 School Social Work Certificate with a Supervisory Endorsement. He has been a practicing Clinical Social Worker for the past 28 years, having worked in public schools, private practice and as a consultant for a domestic violence crisis center. He has worked with domestically violence men for the past 25 years. He has treated domestically violent men in short and long-term individual, couples and group therapy. For 17 years, he co­ facilitated a batterer intervention group treatment program through A Safe Place, Lake County, IL, and the County Intervention Program for Domestic Abuse and Violence (IPDAV). He is currently a court-approved provider, authorized to evaluate and treat domestically violent offenders for Lake County, IL. He is a member of the Family

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305 Violence Coordinating Council for the Second Municipal District Circuit Court of Cook County, IL. Under their auspices, he was one of the co-editors of the Guidelines for Mental Health Practitioners Responding to Domestic Violence and authored the section on Treatment Issues in Working with Batterers. In his work in public secondary schools, he has developed protocols and prevention programs that address bullying, and dating and family violence. He is the Chair of the Social Work Department at New Trier High School, and co-chairs the school’s Bullying and Harassment School Climate SubCommittee.

The investigator will be supervised by the dissertation committee, which is chaired by Thayer Lindner, PhD. Other committee members include Harriett Meek, PhD, and Dennis McCaughan, PhD. Readers will be Dennis Shelby, PhD and Amy Eldridge, PhD.

III. Risk and Benefit Risk: Men who are domestically violent seldom refer themselves for treatment. Most often, they are court-ordered into a program, and they often feel resentful, victimized and coerced. This will be a voluntary study. Only subjects who are under no obligation to the court or legal system will be able to participate. Domestically violent men do represent a vulnerable population, in that there is evidence of violence in their relationships. The subjects in this study will be individuals whose past aggressive and abusive behaviors have resulted in an injury, a threat of danger to another, and in legal consequences, but who are currently under no legal restraints or conditions. In addressing domestic violence, real danger and harm are a consideration. With this in mind, safety will be a primary concern. Based upon the Illinois Mental Health Confidentiality Act, all records and communication will be kept confidential; however, it

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306 will be clear that any breach of confidence will be based on the duty to warn. The parameters of safety will be addressed clearly, directly and in writing with each subject, and the duty to warn when either the subject or another is in physical danger will be clearly and explicitly stated.

Domestically violent men are a vulnerable population. Most of these men find there way into treatment through involvement with the legal system. In having worked with these men for 25 years, I have an appreciation for the emotional struggles they experience and will be sensitive to the stress that they may undergo. Although the exploration may cause some distress, there will not be a stress interview. I will be vigilant about insuring that the subjects are not triggered. The goals of this study are to get their stories and to understand their turning points and epiphanies from their point of view, rather than to challenge their denial systems. If the subject is in treatment, and if there is a need to speak with the therapist, a signed consent form to do so will be obtained. No direct contact between the researcher and therapist will occur unless authorized by the subject.

Again, as noted, the intent of this study is to gather the authentic, narrative experience of the subject and then, if offered and with their permission, I will gather collateral information, documentation or verification. As noted, the only exception to confidentiality is that of the duty to warn.

In addition, the stories that domestically violent men are likely to describe are as difficult and painful to tell, as they are to hear. The exploration of the subject’s relational experiences is likely to be stirring and disturbing, and may evoke painful experiences and memories that are troubling. As the subjects reveal personal material that they experience as traumatic, or if they report significant psychological distress,

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307 provisions will be made to provide support, to decompress or to debrief after interviews.

The investigator will offer up to three debriefing sessions that will occur with either the investigator himself, a domestic violence, mental health agency or service provider. As noted above, if they are already in treatment, permission will be obtained from the subject to speak with the therapist. These provisions will be determined with the consultation, and under the supervision of the committee Chair, Thayer Lindner, PhD. There will be no financial risk or compensation for the subject’s participation in this study.

Benefit: Telling their story will give domestically violent men a chance to reflect upon their experience and may help them to consolidate any potential growth. This could be an opportunity to express their own voice, while feeling supported, heard and reflective, which can both benefit them and be a contribution to others and the understanding of this problem. The benefits of this reflective process may provide them with the opportunity to understand their experiences more clearly and deeply, and to make personal connections that may provide clarity and possibly be an act or form of repair (reparation).

They may also find that they are making a contribution to a body of knowledge in the domestic violence and psychological fields. An additional benefit to the field may be that of understanding the relational experience of domestically violent men and their epiphanies more deeply and dynamically, services in the treatment of these individuals could be improved.

IV. Selection o f Subjects

Subjects will not be drawn from my clinical practice. Most subjects are likely to be recruited through service providers, practitioners, and agencies that serve domestically violent men and address domestic violence. Both the subjects and referring agent will be

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308 informed and asked whether there is any current legal obligation or restrictions, and if the subject has completed any court-ordered counseling. It will be clearly prescribed that subjects may not be currently involved in or under any obligation to the legal system.

The subject will be asked to substantiate this by signing the Informed Consent/Assent form.

The subject’s participation will be voluntary and they may withdraw from the project at any time. The referral sources will clearly state the voluntary nature of this study and there will be no pressure to participate. The participants must currently report that they are non-violent and be open to exploring and telling their stories. If more than just the local networks are needed to recruit enough subjects for this story, national programs such as the Silent Witness Program, renowned clinicians and men’s programs that address domestic violence will be contacted.

Two-three interviews per subject will be conducted with 10-12 subjects, or a sample in which the data is saturated.

V. Informed Consent The subjects will be asked to sign a letter of consent before any interviews take place.

The subjects will be made aware of the purpose and use of the data, procedures and credentials of the investigator, and the parameters under which the study will be conducted. No coercion will be involved. The subjects will not be placed in a compromised position, pressured in any way to participate and will be free to withdraw at any time from the interview process. The anonymity and confidentiality of each participant will be insured and protected. Their anonymity and confidentiality will be protected. Their name and identity will be disguised. They will be clearly informed that

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309 any breach of confidentiality will occur only if there is a duty to warn another, i.e. indications of suicide, homicide or threats of violence. Although this is a research study, the Illinois Mental Health Code warrants such action and will be applied. The interviews will be audio taped and the tapes and field notes will be locked in a file cabinet. Their identity will be disguised to protect their anonymity, and the tapes will be destroyed five years after the dissertation is completed. A signed letter of consent will be obtained from each individual.

Letter to the Participants Dear Participant, This project is being conducted by Thomas Golebiewski, an advanced Doctoral student at the Institute for Clinical Social Work in Chicago, Illinois, and is being supervised by the dissertation chair, Thayer Lindner, PhD. The purpose of this study is to explore your relational experiences from your point of view. The goal of this study is to explore your story and understand your experience, major turning points and realizations. Your contribution will be used to inform the clinical and research fields.

By signing this consent form, you will have agreed to voluntarily take part in this study. Please be advised that: 1. You will not have given up any of your rights or have released the Researcher or the Institute for Clinical Social Work from professional responsibilities.

2. You are free to choose to cancel this consent and refuse to continue to participate in this study at any time without penalty or loss of benefits, and without inducement, any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress or other kinds of constraints or coercion. You are encouraged to ask questions and if at any time during the interviews you are feeling uncomfortable, you are encouraged to inform the interviewer.

3. You are currently under no legal obligation, duty or restraint and must be in

compliance with any previous legal obligations related to domestic violence.

Please initial_________ .

4. You ascribe to a non-violent lifestyle and assert that you are not currently physically abusive or violent, and affirm that you presently maintain nonabusive relationships. Please initial__________ .

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310 5. You will be asked to explore your current and past relationships which may include acts of violence, crises, trauma and loss. Exploring these experiences may be emotionally straining and although you may experiences some distress this will not be a stress interview. You will be asked to participate in 2-3 interviews.

6. You will be offered an opportunity to debrief or decompress if you are feeling distressed, overwhelmed, or strained by participating in this study. The researcher, in consultation with the Dissertation Chair, will arrange for a counseling session with another mental health clinical and/or a referral to a social service agency. If you are in therapy, you will be expected to give written permission to speak with your therapist if the interviewer feels it is needed. Please initial__________ .

7. Your identity and confidentiality will be protected. Your name and identity will be disguised. The only breach of confidentiality will occur if there is a duty to warn another, i.e. indications of suicide, homicide or threats of violence. In such circumstances, the Illinois Mental Health Code warrants such action.

8. If you feel assaultive or suicidal during the course of this study, you agree to call a Crisis Hotline number, such as the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE. Please initial__________ .

9. You will be audio taped and agree that the purpose of the transcribed document will be to gather your impressions and explore your experience.

This statement will preference any transcribed recording. The audiotapes and field notes will be locked in a file cabinet. Your identity will be disguised to protect your anonymity and the tapes will be destroyed five years after the dissertation is completed.

10. You will have an opportunity to review the findings of the study.

11. You will have the right to request a copy of this consent form and a summary of the findings.

12. You may address any questions about research methods to Thomas Golebiewski (Principle Researcher) at 847-251-5506 or Thayer Lindner (Dissertation Committee Chair) at 773-493-4329. If you have any questions about your rights as a research subject, you may call Daniel Rosenfield, MA, Chair of the Institutional Review Board, Institute for Clinical Social Work, 180 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 1605, Chicago, IL 60601, (312) 726-8480.

I have read this consent form and I agree to take part in this study as it is explained in this form.

Signature of Participant

Date

I certify that I have explained the research t o ___________________________ and believe that they understand and that they have agreed to participate freely. I

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311 agree to answer any additional questions when they arise during the research or afterwards.

Signature o f Researcher

Date

In regards to the possibility of a subpoena, I have consulted with an attorney. He believed that by making the statement below, any of the subject’s narratives or data would be rendered unusable in court. The recommendation he made was to state at the beginning of the transcription that: the following notes summarize and/or transcribe narratives and stories, which may include composites and be based on impressions.

Neither the author nor subjects agree to testify in any proceeding. This statement will be made at the beginning of all transcribed interviews.

VI. Use of Data The data gathered from these interviews will be used to complete the requirements for a dissertation study. The study will have potential for the publication of a dissertation and perhaps be adopted for journal publication. The interviews will be audio taped.

The research data, that is, audiotapes, transcriptions and field notes will be stored in a secure location, which will be a locked file cabinet, and kept for five years after the dissertation is completed and will then be destroyed. The statistical data will be coded and w ell protected, together with the IRB approval forms, and will be maintained

indefinitely.

The names of the subjects will not be used and will be disguised in order to protect their confidentiality and their identities. Confidentiality will be maintained, and the duty to

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312 warn will be clearly defined. The study will include the sharing of data with the subjects for their feedback, and a final interview will be offered to the subjects upon completion of the project.

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APPENDIX B

THEORETICAL AND OPERATIONAL CONCEPTS DEFINITION OF CONCEPTS/GLOSSARY

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314 Abuse: “The first form of family violence that was uncovered and recognized as a problem was child abuse or the battered child syndrome. The first widely disseminated article defined the battered child syndrome as a clinical condition (with diagnosable physical and medical symptoms) having to do with those children who have been injured deliberately by physical assault by a parent or caretaker. (Kempe et al., 1962) The term battered child syndrome quickly gave way to terms such as child abuse, child abuse and neglect, and child maltreatment. The term abuse was not only applied to physical assault, but also to malnutrition, failure to thrive, sexual exploitation, educational neglect, medical neglect, and emotional abuse. The official federal definition of child abuse, stated in the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974 (PL 93-237) was, ‘the physical or mental injury, negligent treatment, or maltreatment of a child under the age of eighteen by a person who is responsible for the child’s welfare under circumstances which would indicate that the child’s health or welfare is harmed or threatened thereby.’ . . . the same definitional problems that have plagued the study of child abuse and violence toward children have been part of the development of research on violence toward women. Initial definitions of wife abuse focused on acts of damaging physical violence directed toward women by their spouses or partners (see for example Gelles, 1974; Martin, 1976). As wife abuse became recognized as a social problem, the definition of abuse was broadened to include sexual abuse, marital rape, and even pornography (London, 1978).” (Straus and Gelles, p. 19) Agency: “ .. .agency, that is, the capacity to initiate action for a purpose (Allen, 2006; Allen, Munich & Rogan, 2004).” (Allen and Fonagy, p. 16) Alexithymia: “.. .the inability to put feelings into words. Mentalization from this perspective is the antithesis of pensee operatoire or, as Lecours and Boundard (1997) put it, disruptive impulsion (that is, acting out). It encapsulates the capacity to transform drives into feelings, and to represent, symbolize, sublimate, abstract, reflect on and make meaning out of them. Without mentalizing, repeating (acting out) is inevitable; with reminiscence goes freedom.” (Allen and Fonagy, p. 38) Depression (Concern, Guilt): “[Winnicott] never liked the word ‘depression’— still less ‘depressive position’— and preferred to use ‘concern,’ which was then not the poor hackneyed word we hear bandied about nowadays. It is, of course, easy to use a technical language once you’ve learned it, but Winnicott had this extraordinary talent—a way he cherished— for being able to say what is deep in a—deceptively—simple way.

Concern refers to the fact that the individual cares or minds and both feels and accepts responsibility.

[From] ‘The Depressive Position in Normal Emotional Development’ (TPTP ch. 21)

To summarise: The depressive position, which may be well on the way under favourable circumstances at six to nine months is quite commonly not reached until the subject comes into analysis. With regard to the more schizoid people and the whole mental hospital population of persons who have never reached a true self-life, or self-expression, the depressive position is not the thing that matters; it must remain for these like colour to the colour-blind. [This is a very

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315 vivid image; some people have never learnt to be depressed.] By contrast for the whole manic-depressive group that comprises the majority of so-called normal people, the subject of the depressed position in normal development is one that cannot be left aside; it is, and it remains the problem o f life except in so far as it is reached. With quite healthy people it becomes taken for granted and incorporated in active living in society. The child, healthy in having reached the depressive position can get on with the problem of the triangle in interpersonal relationships, the classical Oedipus complex.

Elsewhere he says: Working along Kleinian lines, one came to an understanding of the complex stage of development that Klein called ‘the depressive position’. I think this is a bad name, but it is true that clinically in psychoanalytic treatments arrival at this position involves the patient in being depressed. Here, being depressed is an achievement, and implies a high degree of personal integration and an acceptance of responsibility for all the destructiveness that is bound up with one’s living, with the instinctual life, and with anger at frustration. This is Klein’s most important contribution... What is the so-called depressive position about, or better, what is it? The helpful approach perhaps to this problem starts with the word ruthless.

Ruthlessness, or course, has to come into our lives constantly, if we are to be alive and clear. At first the infant from our point of view is ruthless. There is no concern yet as to the result of instinctual loving. This love is originally a form of impulse, gesture, contact relationship, and it affords the infant the satisfaction of self-expression, and release from instinct tension. Furthermore, it places the object outside the self, that begins to be separation.” (Newman, pp. 142-143, 145, 146, 151) Depressive Position (Klein): “The confluence of hatred and love towards the object gives rise to a particularly poignant sadness that Klein called depressive anxiety (or ‘pining’).

This expresses the earliest and most anguished form of guilt due to ambivalent feelings towards an object. The infant, at some stage (normally at four to six months), is physically and emotionally mature enough to integrate his or her fragmented perceptions of mother, bringing together the separately good and bad versions (imagos) that he or she has previously experienced. When such part-objects are brought together as a whole they threaten to form a contaminated, damaged or dead whole object.

Depressive anxiety is the crucial element of mature relationships, the source of generous and altruistic feelings that are devoted to the well being of the object. In the depressive position efforts to maximize the loving aspect of the ambivalent relationship with the damaged ‘whole object’ are mobilized (reparation). But so also are the defence mechanisms. These comprise the constellation of paranoid defences (originally called by Klein the ‘paranoid position’, but later dropped) and the manic defences.” (Hinshelwood,

p. 138) Domestic Violence: “A pattern of assaultive and coercive behaviors, often including physical, sexual and psychological attacks, as well as economic coercion, that adults and adolescents use against their intimate partners.” (Schechter and Edleson, p. 9)

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316 Dynamic Mindblindedness: . .we might think of dynamic mindblindedness in relation to transient or partial failures of mentalizing, for example, as they arise in conjunction with intense emotional conflicts in attachment relationships. Thus, to a greater or lesser extent, all of us behave mindblindedly at times to varying degrees; those with psychopathology are liable to be mindblind more often and to greater degrees.” (Allen, Fonagy, p. 12) Emotional Contagion: “A precursor to empathy is emotional contagion, wherein subjectobject emotional matching occurs without self-other differentiation.” (Allen and Fonagy, p. 12) Emotional Intelligence: “Mayer, Salovey, and their colleagues (Mayer & Salovey, 1997; Mayer, Salovey & Caruso, 2000) characterize emotional intelligence as the ability to reason with emotions, and they carve out four broad domains: 1. perceiving and expressing emotion includes identifying emotions in oneself in relation to physical sensations, thoughts, and feelings as well as identifying emotion in other persons and cultural products; 2. accessing and assimilating emotion in thought entails using emotions to prioritize thinking, judgment and memory; 3. understanding and analyzing emotion includes labeling emotions, including complex amalgams of emotion and shifts in emotional states; and 4. regulating emotion includes being able to stay open to feelings as well as monitoring and regulating emotions reflectively and adaptively.” (Allen and Fonagy, p. 13) Empathy: “Empathy proper also entails subject-object emotional matching but additionally requires self-other differentiation and emotion regulation, a combination of self-awareness and other-awareness...” (Allen and Fonagy, p. 12) Epiphany: “Moment of problematic experience that illuminates personal character and often signifies a turning point in a person’s life. Types: minor, major, illuminative, relived.” (Denzin, p. 158) Ethnography: “The study of lived experiences, involving description and interpretation.

(Denzin, p. 158) A particular kind of qualitative inquiry distinguishable from case study research, descriptive studies, naturalistic inquiry, and so forth by the fact that it is the process and product of describing and interpreting cultural behavior. It has in common with these other kinds of qualitative inquiries its emphasis on firsthand field study.. .both anthropological and sociological definitions of ethnography stress the centrality of culture as the analytic concept that informs the doing of ethnography.” (Schwandt, p. 44) Family: “Weis (1989) notes another conceptual concern in the study of family violence.

Not only are there difficulties in defining abuse and violence, but as Weis notes, there is a need for conceptual clarity in determining who are the participants in acts referred to as family violence (see also Straus and Lincoln, 1985). Weis identified three possible relationships that could come under the heading of family or domestic violence. First, there are instances when victims and offenders share kin relationships—they are related

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317 through birth or marriage. Kin relationship violence refers to the classic forms of violence toward wives or children, sibling, violence, and violence toward parents. A second category is intimate relationships. These include relationships where the participants know each other in a close and personal way—such as dating partners.

Finally, violence can occur between those who share a domestic relationship by virtue of sharing the same household.” (Straus and Gelles, pp. 21-22) Hermeneutic Circle: “ .. .all researchers take sides, or are partisans for one points of view or another. Value-free interpretive research is impossible. This is the case because every researcher brings his or her own preconceptions and interpretations to the problem being studied (Gadamer, 1975; Heidegger, 1927/1962).” (Denzin, 2001, p. 43) Inner World: “Winnicott addresses this concept: Some like to think superficially in terms of behavior, but many get tired of limiting ourselves to what is external and want to take what’s unconscious seriously: and that’s pretty well everything. At the opposite end there are those who only see ‘inner life’ and deny economics and starvation. Infinity is at the centre of the self. What is in between? (PR ch. 8)” (Newman, p. 234) Internal Object: “An unconscious experience or phantasy of a concrete object physically located internal to the ego (body), which has its own motives and intentions towards the ego and to other objects. It exists within the ego, and in a greater or lesser extent of identification with the ego (a phantasy of absorption, or assimilation, to the ego). The experience of the internal object is deeply dependent on the experiencing of the external object— and internal objects are, as it were, mirrors of reality. But they also contribute significantly, through projection, to the way the external objects are themselves perceived and experienced.” (Hinshelwood, p. 68) Interpretation: “The act of interpreting. Creates the conditions for understanding; may be emotional, cognitive, spurious, or authentic. Interpretation is a temporal process and is always symbolic. Types: thin, thick, native, observer, analytic, monologic, dialogic, polyphonic, descriptive-contextual, relational-interactional. All interpretations should be relational, interactional, contextual, dialogic, and polyphonic.” (Denzin, p. 159) Interpretive Biographical Method: “A method that utilizes personal experience narratives, self-stories and personal histories.” (Denzin, p. 159) Interpretive Interactionism: “The point of view that illuminates and confers meaning on problematic symbolic interaction. Seeks to use a concept-free mode of discourse, based on first-order concepts from lived experience.” (Denzin, p. 159) Interpretive Process: “Involves six steps, or phases: framing the research question, deconstructing the phenomenon, capturing the phenomenon, bracketing the phenomenon, constructing the phenomenon, and contextualizing the phenomenon.” (Denzin, p. 159) Lived Experience: “The world of actual experience.” (Denzin, p. 160)

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318

Meaning: “What an experience means to a person, defined in terms of intentions and consequences. Meaning is always triadic, involving interactions among a person, an object, and action taken toward the object. Meaning is interactional, interpretive, openended, often ambiguous, inconclusive and conflictual.” (Denzin, p. 160) Mentalization: . .the idea of attending to states of mind in oneself and others - in Peter Fonagy’s apt phrase, holding mind in mind.” (Allen and Fonagy, p. 3) Mentalizing: “Mentalizing pertains to a vast array of mental states: desires, needs, feelings, thoughts, beliefs, reasons, hallucinations, and dreams, to name just a few.

Mentalizing pertains to such states not only in oneself but also in other persons - as well as nonhuman animals, for that matter. And, as a mental activity, mentalizing includes a wide range o f cognitive operations pertaining to mental states, including attending, perceiving, recognizing, describing, interpreting, inferring, imagining, simulating, remembering, reflecting, and anticipating....we can define mentalizing as imaginatively perceiving and interpreting behavior as conjoined with intentional mental states.” (Allen and Fonagy, pp. 6-7) Mentalizing Mode (or reflective mode): “.. .the mentalizing mode implicitly or explicitly entails awareness of the mind’s intentionality or aboutness: a mental state - a thought with feeling - is a particular perspective or take on a given reality. In short, being imaginative, mind is decoupled from reality while remaining anchored to it (Leslie, 1987).” (Allen and Fonagy, p. 17) Mindblindedness: “.. .mindblindedness, a term that Baron-Cohen (1995) introduced as follows: Imagine what your world would be like if you were aware of physical things but were blind to the existence of mental things. I mean, of course, blind to things like thoughts, beliefs, knowledge, desires, and intentions, which for most of us selfevidently underlie behavior. Stretch your imagination to consider what sense you could make of human action (or, for that matter, any animate action whatsoever) if, as for a behaviorist, a mentalistic explanation was forever beyond your limits, (p. 1)” (Allen and Fonagy, p. 11) Narrative: “A story that has a plot and a beginning, middle and end.” (Denzin, p. 160) Nonmentalizing Mode: “In the nonmentalizing mode, we can dehumanize and treat each other as objects, becoming coercive and controlling.” (Allen and Fonagy, p. 7) Object relations theory: “Includes a number of different theoretical points of view, and generally indicates those British analysts who focus primarily on the state and character of the objects. It is to be contrasted with the Classical or Ego-Psychology School, which focuses more on the instinctual impulses that make up the energy of the interest.”

(Hinshelwood, p. 367)

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319 Paranoid-Schizoid Position: “In the earliest state of mind, persecutory anxiety is met by processes, which threaten to (and do) fragment the mind. Its severity affects the move onwards into the depressive position because the integrity of the mind is severely disrupted. The splitting processes typically lead to projection of parts of the self or ego (projective identification) into objects, with a depleting effect on the self. The depleted self then has difficulties with introjection and with introjective identification. This position was described in 1946, and was a profound modification of Klein’s previous descriptions of paranoid and persecutory states. These descriptions in 1946 led on to major developments (especially of projective identification) by her contemporary colleagues and by her students.” (Hinshelwood, p. 156) Pretend Mode: “The pretend mode cuts loose from reality; no longer tethered, the pretender is in an imaginary world. By contrast, the mentalizing mode implicitly or explicitly entails awareness of the mind’s intentionality or aboutness: a mental state - a thought with feeling - is a particular perspective or take on a given reality.. ..The pretend mode is a developmental complement to psychic equivalence. Not yet able to conceive of internal experience as mental, the child’s fantasies are dramatically divided off from the external world.” (Allen and Fonagy, pp. 17, 84) Primitive Defense Mechanism: “The primitive (or psychotic) defence mechanisms are ranged against anxieties that derive from the activity of the death instinct; they are to be contrasted with the neurotic defences, notably repression, against libido. They make up the character of they psychotic (depressive and paranoid-schizoid) positions and comprise denial, splitting, excessive forms of projection and introjection, related identifications, and idealization. Mostly these mechanisms were described by classical psychoanalysts but are given special significance by Klein as characterizing the earliest phases of development, filling in the period otherwise regarded as the objectless phase of primary narcissism.” (Hinshelwood, p. 122) Problematic Experience: “Epiphanies or moments of crisis in a person’s life.” (Denzin, p.

160) Problematic Interaction: “Interactional experiences that give primary meaning to a person’s life.” (Denzin, p. 160) Projective Identification: “The prototype of the aggressive object-relationship, representing an anal attack on an object by means of forcing parts of the ego into it in order to take over its contents or to control it and occurring in the paranoid-schizoid position from birth. It is a ‘phantasy remote from consciousness’ that entails a belief in certain aspects of the self being located elsewhere, with a consequent depletion and weakened sense o f self and identity, to the extent of depersonalization; profound feelings of being lost or a sense of imprisonment may result.” (Hinshelwood, p. 179) Projective Identification (Ogden): “Odgen describes Projective Identification as “. . . a psychological process that is simultaneously a type of defense, a mode of communication, a primitive form of object relationship, and a pathway for psychological change. As a

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320 defense, projective identification serves to create a sense of psychological distance from unwanted (often frightening) aspects of the self. As a mode of communication, projective identifications is a process by which feelings congruent with one’s own are induced in another person, thereby creating a sense of being understood or being at one with the other person. As a type of object relationship, projective identification constitutes a way of being with and relating to a partially separate object; projective identification is a process by which feelings like those that one is struggling with, are psychologically processed by another person and made available for reintemalization in an altered form.” (Notes on Thomas Ogden, p. 362) Psychic Equivalence: “The psychic equivalence mode collapses the differentiation between inner and outer, fantasy and reality, symbol and symbolized: mind = world.. ..the very young child equates the internal world with the external. What exists in the mind must exist out there and what exists out there must also exist in the m ind.. ..Aspects of psychic equivalence overlap with descriptions of paranoid-schizoid forms of thinking...”

(Allen and Fonagy, pp. 17, 79, 84) Psychological Mindedness: ‘“ A person’s ability to see relationships among thoughts, feelings, and actions, with the goal of learning the meanings and causes of his experiences and behavior (Applebaum, 1973, p. 36).’” (Allen and Fonagy, p. 14) Rationality/Capacity: “Fully rational action is based on attending to an appropriate range o f considerations, deliberating among alternatives, and making optimal choices.

Clinically, we aspire to promote rationality whenever we urge our patients to think before they act.” (Allen and Fonagy, p. 16) Reparation: “Reparation is the strongest element of the constructive and creative urges.

Right from the beginning Klein noticed children’s distress at their own aggressiveness: ‘. . . he showed in phantasy as well as in his games a shrinking from, an alarm at, his own aggressiveness’ (Klein, 1920, p. 58n). The capacity for pity and the wish to restore everything was clear to Klein all the way through her work—in describing an opera which represented remarkably the typical infantile anxiety-situation, she wrote: ‘. . . when the boy feels pity for the wounded squirrel and comes to its aid, the hostile world changes into a friendly one.’ (Klein, 1929, p. 214).” (Hinshelwood, p. 412) Reparation and Development: “Reparation, though it is concerned primarily with the state of the internal world and the good object that forms the core of the personality, is usually expressed in action towards objects in the external world which represent the damaged internal object, or which can be introjected in phantasy to support the internal world. It is thus a force for constructive action in the external world. It supplements or supplants the positive attitudes of a simple love relationship, since it is concerned with the troubles or difficulties of the loved object, and it is so in a way, which approaches more realism than the simple love relationship with an idealized uncontaminated loved one.” (Hinshelwood, pp. 415-16)

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321 Ruth/Stage of Concern: “At some time or other in the history of the development of every normal human being, there comes the change over from pre-ruth to ruth. . . The only thing is, when does this happen, how does it happen, and under what conditions does it happen? The concept of the depressive position is an attempt to answer these three questions, and, according to this concept, the change from ruthlessness to ruth occurs gradually under certain conditions of mothering during the period of around five to twelve months. And its establishment is not necessarily final until a much later date, and it may be found in analysis that it has never occurred at all.

And indeed I do know people who have never reached it in a way that is satisfactory for them, and who go to their graves thus. . . ] The depressive position then is a complex matter, an inherent element in a non-controversial phenomenon.

That of the emergence of every human individual from pre-ruth to ruth.

Or what Winnicott calls concern. Elsewhere (TPTP ch. 21) Winnicott says: The infant, being a whole person, is able to identify with the mother, but there is no clear distinction yet for the baby between what is intended and what really happens. Functions and their imaginative elaborations are not yet clearly distinguished as fact and fantasy. It is astonishing what the baby has to accomplish at just about this time.” (Newman, pp. 151-52) Ruthlessness: “In Hebrew Ruth means ‘the Beloved’. Winnicott approaches his preliminary discussion regarding what he calls ‘the problem of life’ for ‘the whole manicdepressive group that comprises the majority of so-called normal people’, in his preoccupation with the capacity for concern.

What do we want? We want to be eaten, not magically introjected. There is no masochism in this. To be eaten is the wish and indeed the need of a mother at a very early stage in the care of an infant. (TPTP ch. 21) This means that whoever is not cannibalistically attacked tends to feel outside the range of people’s capacity for concern.

If, and only if we have been eaten, worn down, stolen from, can we stand in a minor degree being also magically introjected, and being placed in the presence department in someone’s inner world. (Op.cit.)

Winnicott begins with the word ‘ruthless’. The baby, from the adult’s point of view, is.. .ruthless. He doesn’t mind the results of passionate instincts. He wants release from tension and must have the mother there to attack. He does not feel ruthless—but is ruthless. (This is one of the many places where Winnicott draws our attention—quite against the current jargonization o f ‘feeling good about something’—to the difference between how we are and how we feel. We might be making a right decision and feeling awful and we might be bombing Nicaragua and ‘feeling good about it.’ How we feel is usually no index o f how we are.) We might look back and say ‘I was ruthless then.’ The

stage is one that is what he calls ‘pre-ruth’.

There comes a stage, normally, in the development of the human animal from pre­ ruth to ruth.” (Newman, p. 368) Symbolic Equation: “Segal (1950, 1957) working within the Kleinian tradition, used elegant clinical examples to make an important distinction between two phenomena:

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322 (i) Symbolic representation, in which a true symbol is substituted in the place where the original had been; its special feature is that the symbol is recognized as having its own characteristics separate from that which it symbolizes; and (ii) Symbolic equation, involving an unrealistic form of projection into an innocent object (the symbol). In the symbolic equation the symbol becomes the original, and attracts the same conflicts and inhibitions as the original because of the fusion of the self and the object that comes about with pathological projective identification.

As omnipotent identifications diminish with progress towards the depressive position and towards recognizing a whole object, objects are experienced as having their own qualities and recognized as standing fo r some other object with quite different properties and attributes. Movement away from symbolic equations towards symbolic representation takes place with the depressive position and the increasing awareness of the difference between the internal and external worlds. It is a process of giving up the external objects and therefore of mourning their loss.” (Hinshelwood, pp. 447-48) Symbolic Interaction: “A social psychological and sociological theory with roots in American pragmatism. Like all frameworks informing qualitative studies, this theory comes in a variety of forms and thus is difficult to summarize briefly.. .Many of the shared assumptions of this school of thought derive from the work of Herbert Blumer (Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method, Prentice Hall, 1969), who, in turn, was influenced by the philosopher and social theorist George Herbert Mead (1863-1931).

The Blumer-Mead version of symbolic interactionism rests on three premises: (1) Humans act toward the objects and people in their environment on the basis of the meanings these objects and people have for them. (2) These meanings derive from the social interaction (communication, broadly understood) between and among individuals.

Communication is symbolic because we communicate through language and other symbols and in communicating create significant symbols. (3) Meanings are established and modified through an interpretive process undertaken by the individual actor. The influence of pragmatism on symbolic interactionism is evident in the latter’s claim that humans are purposive agents who confront a world that must be interpreted rather than a world composed of a set of stimuli to which the individual must react. The meanings an actor forms in interpreting the world are instruments for guiding and forming action.

Symbolic Interactionism is thus characterized by its rejection of associationist or behaviorist psychologies. The inquirer can understand human action only by first actively entering the setting or situation of the people being studied to see if their particular definition of the situation, what they take into account, and how they interpret this information.” (Schwandt, pp. 148-49) Thick Description: “Description that captures the meanings and experiences that have occurred in a problematic situation. Reports meanings, intentions, history, biography,

and relevant relational, interactional, and situational processes in a rich, dense, detailed manner. Creates the conditions for interpretation and understanding. Contrasted to thin description, which is only factual. Types: micro, macrohistorical, biographical, situational, relational, interactional, intrusive, incomplete, glossed, purely descriptive, descriptive, and interpretive.” (Denzin, p. 162)

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323 Thick Interpretation: “Builds on thick description; attempts to take the reader to the heart of the experience being studied.” (Denzin, p. 162) Thingification: “A complete dehumanization, a Verdinglischung, a thingification, an objectification of the masses of people. They were transformed from being persons into being objects of working power which could be bought. They had to sell themselves in order to survive. The quarters in which they lived were not slums in the modem sense, but they were bare of anything human. I remember my horror when I went into the living quarters .. . and saw the kind of dehumanized existence these people endured.” (Tillich, 1972) Triangulation: “This is a procedure used to establish the fact that the criterion of validity has been met. The fieldworker makes inferences from data, claiming that a particular set of data supports a particular definition, theme, assertion, hypothesis, claim, etc.

Triangulation is a means of checking the integrity of the inferences one draws. It can involve the use of multiple data sources, multiple investigators, multiple theoretical perspectives, multiple methods, or all of these. The central point of the procedure is to examine a single social phenomenon from more than one vantage point. For example, to understand the nature of communication between geriatric patients and internists in an outpatient clinic, the fieldworker might compare data from early and late phases of fieldwork, from different patient-physician pairs, from different times in the temporal cycle of the encounter (taking the medical history-testing-diagnosis-prescribing a treatment plan-follow-up) and so forth. Or data from observations of patient-physician interactions may be compared with data from interviews with each party, and so on. The often unwarranted assumption about use of triangulation is that data from different sources or methods must necessarily converge on or be aggregated to reveal the truth.”

(Schwandt, p. 163) Unconscious Phantasy: “The mental representation of those somatic events in the body which comprise the instincts, and are physical sensations interpreted as relationships with objects that cause those sensations. Erupting from their biological instigation, unconscious phantasies are slowly converted in two ways: (i) by change through the development of the organs for distance perceptions of external reality; and (ii) by emergence into the symbolic world of culture from the primary world of the body.

Phantasies can be elaborated for the alleviation of internal states of mind by either manipulation of the body and its sensations (masturbation phantasies), or direct phantasizing. Phantasy is the mental expression of the instinctual impulses and also of defence mechanisms against instinctual impulses.” (Hinshelwood, p. 32) Understanding: “Comprehension or grasping o f the meaning of an interpreted

phenomenon; may be emotional, or cognitive, or both. Understanding is an interactional, emotional process, involving shared experiences; the process may produce spurious or authentic understanding. The goal of interpretation is to build authentic, shareable understandings of the phenomenon under investigation. Also called verisimilitude.”

(Denzin, p. 162)

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324 Verisimilitude: “The term originates in Karl Popper’s (1902-1994) philosophy of science.

Popper held that the goal of science is increasing verisimilitude; where verisimilitude meant an approximation towards or closeness to the truth about the way the world really is. He argued that we could compare scientific theories by looking at the relative amounts of truth or falsity contained within each theory. This proved to be an indefensible position, although the notion of verisimilitude has been salvaged in modified form by the philosophers of science W.H. Newton-Smith in The Rationality o f Science (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968)... Three overlapping definitions of the term include: (1) Verisimilitude as a criterion (others include plausibility, internal coherence, and correspondence to readers’ own experience) sometimes cited as important forjudging narrative quality. A narrative account (referring either to the narratives generated from or by respondents or to the narrative report produced by the inquirer) is said to exhibit the quality of verisimilitude when it has the appearance of truth or reality. (Note: what Popper meant by approximation to the truth is quite different from appearance of truth.)

(2) Verisimilitude as a criterion forjudging the evocative power or sense of authenticity of a textual portrayal: A style of writing that draws readers into the experiences of respondents in such a way that those experiences can be felt. (3) Verisimilitude as the relationship of a particular text to some agreed on opinions or standards of a particular interpretive community. A particular text... has verisimilitude to the extent that it conforms to the conventions of its genre. A related word in poetics is vraisemblance, which refers broadly to the plausibility of any text and encompasses the three sense of verisimilitude noted above.” (Schwandt, pp. 170-171) Violence: “Violence has also proven to be a concept that is not easily defined. First, violence has frequently been used interchangeable with the term aggression. While violence refers to a physical act, aggression refers to any malevolent act that is intended to hurt another person. The hurt may not be only physical, but may be emotional injury or material deprivation. Second, because of the negative connotation of the term violence, some investigators have tried to differentiate between hurtful violence and more legitimate acts. Thus Goode (1971) tried to distinguish between legitimate acts of force and illegitimate acts of violence. Spanking a child who runs into the street might be considered force, while beating the same child would be violence. Attempts to clarify the concept of violence have demonstrated the difficulty of distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate acts. Offenders, victims, bystanders, and agents of social control often accept and tolerate many acts between family members that would be considered illegitimate if committed by strangers (Gelles, 1974; Gelles and Straus, 1979; Straus and Lincoln, 1985). Additional theoretical and ideological concerns influence the ways in which the concept of violence is defined. Violence is frequently a political concept used to attract attention to undesirable behaviors or situations. Thus some members of the political left define various federal programs, such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children, as violent. The far left defines the entire capitalistic system as violent.

Members of the political right likewise claim that abortion is a violent act. One frequently used nominal definition of violence, proposed by Gelles and Straus (1979), defines violence as “an act carried out with the intention or perceived intention of physically hurting another person.” The “hurt” can range from the slight pain cause by a

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325 slap or a spanking to harm that results in severe injury or even death.” (Straus and Gelles, p. 21) Violentization Process: “An experiential process consisting of four separate stages: (1) brutalization, (2) belligerency, (3) violent performances, and (4) virulency. These four stages explain how people go progressively from being non-violent persons to becoming dangerous violent criminals capable of committing heinous violent crimes.” (Athens, p.

25) Whole Object: “The experience of part-objects is in contrast to whole objects, whose characteristics are markedly different. The infant, with his limited capacity to see, hear and perceive, has minimal recognition of the actual source of his sensations. That capacity develops with maturation of the nervous system and the distance receptor organs (eyes and ears), as well as the presentation by the personal environment of the social meanings of what we apprehend. With the increased capacity to recognize the external world, the objects that appear to the infant become modified, a modification whose success depends on the emotional capacity to tolerate ambivalence. .. There is no longer the ‘bad’ mother who is believed to cause the hunger, nor exactly the simplistically ‘good’ mother who satisfies hunger. Something of each is present in the same object.

The object comes to be seen more as a whole, becomes two-toned, having a complexity of motives and attracting mixed feelings from the ego. This constellation is known as the depressive position. The development of the capacity to perceive whole objects is not just dependent on the greater sophistication of perception. It is largely determined by the capacity to tolerate these states of anxiety introduced by encountering a mixed (or contaminated) object. This emotional development is crucial and if this step is not secured the individual easily retreats to the paranoid-schizoid position and to a distorted perception of a world of starkly ‘good’ and ‘bad’ objects. Kleinian analysts conceive of the relation to whole objects as one of the therapeutic targets of psychoanalysis.”

(Hinshelwood, pp. 363-64)

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326

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