Is Abuse About Domination and Control? by Dr. Deb Hirschhorn

Dr. Deb

Is Abuse About Domination and Control?

By Deb Hirschhorn, Ph.D.

In Lundy Bancroft’s book, Why Does He Do That? Inside The Minds Of Angry and Controlling Men, Bancroft goes through all the “myths” that men use as “excuses” for their abusive behavior and uses logic to show why each of these reasons is not accurate.

In every single case, his argument makes sense. Yet, that doesn’t jive with a view of humanity as being “tov meod.”

How do we reconcile the view held by Bancroft that “the abuser’s problem lies above all in his belief that controlling or abusing his female partner is justifiable [italics in original]” with the opposite view, held by Richard Schwartz, creator of IFS (Internal Family Systems), that, as his most recent book is called, there are “No Bad Parts”?

Well, there IS an answer. And it’s elegant. It takes into account every single “explanation” of why the “myths” are wrong – and shows that not only are they correct, but Bancroft simply did not go far enough.

Before I walk you through it, I’d still like to give a shout-out to Bancroft who wanted to protect hurt women and to change their lives by teaching abusers how to change. He meant well, but progress means you build on the ideas of those that came before you and sometimes must stomp them into the ground to make a firm foundation.

One reason, by the way, why Bancroft must be wrong is because his success rate is or was poor. He states in his introduction, “If even one man out of a ten-person group makes substantial and lasting changes, then my time and energy have been invested well” (p. xxi). But the 90% that were not helped represents millions of men, unfortunately.

Compare this to Schwartz’s bold statement in the 2021 book about his work with certain offenders. On the one hand, he’s saying the same exact thing as Bancroft might – that the perpetrator’s behavior was “heinous.” He adds, “The kick in molesting a child came from being able to hurt and have power over someone weak and innocent” (p. 20).

But – and this is a very big but – the heinous behavior did not come from the person’s Self, but from a part of him, a protector part, to be exact. Why would that matter?

It matters because he has been able to cure these people.

Schwartz would hear the same sort of scenario over and over: “While the offender was being abused as a child, one of their protector parts became desperate to protect them and took on the rageful or … violent energy of their perpetrator and used that energy to protect themselves from that abuser” (p. 20).

However, “as we healed their parts stuck in early abuse, their perpetrator parts unloaded their parents’ violent or … energies and, like other parts, quickly transformed and took on valuable roles. During this period, I had the opportunity to work with other kinds of perpetrators (including murderers) with similar findings” (p. 21). Schwartz has earned his stripes, too. He has not only had “thousands of clients” of his own, but has taught “thousands of therapists doing IFS around the world” (p. 16).

The bottom line is that while the evil of the abusive behavior is being accurately described, the reason for it is not. And that makes all the difference in the world.

Why?

Because how you treat someone will be the outgrowth of how you think about them and that will get you entirely different results. (Please check out for yourselves the poor results of batterer’s programs, for example.)

As Schwartz cautions, “Any approach that increases your inner drill sergeant’s impulse to shame you into behavior (and make you feel like a failure if you can’t) will do no better in internal families than in external ones in which parents adopt shaming tactics to control their children” (p.12).

Now, let’s analyze the first of Bancroft’s “myths” from an IFS perspective.

Bancroft’s “Myth #1: He was abused as a child” (p. 24).

Bancroft’s argument: “If abusiveness were the product of childhood emotional injury, abusers could overcome their problem through psychotherapy. But it is virtually unheard of for an abusive man to make substantial and lasting changes in his pattern of abusiveness as a result of therapy” (p. 25).

Well, this, of course, begs the question of what kind of psychotherapy was it? He cites that often the therapy provides more “excuses” to the person without changing his behavior.

Okay, let’s look at the world of therapy out there. I Googled “how to handle your inner critic” and had a sharp intake of breath when I read this by a psychologist:

“Think of your inner critic as if it is a parasite, feeding energy off you” (https://medium.com/science-soul/ how-to-effectively-deal-with-yourinner-critic-20297da6e78f ).

Oh, no!

But your inner critic is part of you.

Next, the author does one thing right and one thing deadly wrong: He advises people to feel separate from the critic; the critic is not You. That’s true. Next, he advises giving the critic a name like “Mr. Know-itall Crusher” to “Miss. Negativity” to “Mrs. Annoying” or “Mr. Loudmouth.”

So we are back to shaming.

And further, the author advises, “Tell it that you are on to this, that you know it is a big, fat liar, and that you want it to go away.”

And here, we are back to rejecting, abandoning, stigmatizing – without ever tracking the childhood origin of this part and understanding the magnitude of the role it has taken on, just to protect you.

Schwartz calls the roles that parts have taken on to protect us “heroic.” Ironically, these parts don’t even like these roles any better than we like hearing them loudly berate us inside. But they feel compelled to

keep up tirelessly with it in order to keep us safe.

How do we use this perspective to help abusers to change?

Step One is teaching the abuser that he is not evil. He has a part that has taken on the legacy of abuse in his family. Just making that separation can give him breathing room to explore further. For a person who has always thought of himself as evil – and therefore acts accordingly – this is refreshing.

Step Two is for the person to discover who he really is. Underneath

all the parts trying to run his life, there is a Self, and according to Schwartz – and Torah – the Self is more than the sum of its parts.

The abuser can – and will – change when he or she starts to identify himself as capable of controlling and channeling this part’s energy. The part will surely be shocked to learn that it does not have to dominate others to avoid being put down; it does not have to strike first in order to not be left bleeding on the ground.

Finally, Step Three is for the Self to take leadership of all the parts inside. When the Self can appreciate the intentions – however misguided – of the hurting and controlling parts and can assure them that he, the Self, can handle the situation, then the part can unburden itself from its extreme role and be a source of inner richness to the person in ways that are both normal and positive.

He has a part that has taken on the legacy of abuse in his family.

Dr. Deb Hirschhorn is a Marriage and Family Therapist. If you want help with your marriage, begin by signing up to watch her Masterclass at https://drdeb. com/myw-masterclass.