Positioning as a tool in working with perpetrators Juha Holma & Helena Päivinen
Psychotherapeutic viewpoint g Systemic therapy Purpose is to increase safety for all the family members. Female partners and children are our clients as well. Things what happens outside sessions affect on outcome for example changes in personal life, social support, community response. Naturalistic study setting. g Psychotherapy research Common factors are essential for good outcome. Methodological/technical issues are in minor role. Interventions are based on case specific micro interactional choices and timing. g Discursive psychology and narrative approach. Dominant cultural discourses effect on our identities and choices in our everyday life as spouses, fathers, and what we think our duties and rights are.
Positioning g Positioning can be described as the discursive process in which people are given parts or are assigned locations in the discourse. g Current discourses are reflecting cultural discourses. Positions constructed in local discourses reflect the positions embedded in cultural discourses. g Positions set the limits of what are considered socially and logically possible actions. g In other words, one s position defines one s rights, duties and obligations and thus the distribution of power between the participants. g Positioning may be explicit or implicit.
Examples of cultural dominant discourses and positioning g Masculine entitlement Dominant cultural discourse positions man superior to woman These discourses can be used as justifications in production of everyday relationships As a man, I have to/ I have a right to As a man, I have to be in control As a woman, you have to obey me..
g Gender differences As a man, I can never understand women/my female partner Women are undependable Men are verbally inferior As a woman, I can never g Gender identity Men do not cry, show my feelings As a woman, you can never be a good driver As a woman, I can never understand math As a man, I can t loose an argumentation
Discursive research on male perpetrators treatment groups (Terhi Partanen) The aim was to study and analyse the treatment process and the therapeutic interaction between the therapists and the clients. A discourse analytic method was used. Different tension arising themes in the conversations between the therapists and the clients were identified. Victim positioning was chosen for closer reading and detailed analysis.
The dilemma of victim positioning The male clients have a strong tendency to position themselves as victims in therapy conversations. They do this positioning spontaneously, without any interactional invitation. There is an obvious temptation for the client: a victim has no responsibility and is entitled to be the object of empathy of others. The strongest possible victim position construction was being a victim of one s own childhood experiences of violence.
The therapists way of dealing with the victim position was to ignore, confront and/or deconstruct the victim position. The therapists navigated between the uses of a psychological and a moral discourse. The challenge for the therapists was to manage a coordinated use of these psychological and moral discourses. This meant that the therapists adopted an active role, held the use of violence as a primary issue, aimed at making the violence psychologically meaningful to each participant.
g The therapist s statement you probably know how a child feels (lines 44-45) changes the focus of the conversation from the client s victimizing childhood experience to the arena of present interactions. g The client s response seems to open up some space for the possibility of negotiating his responsibility for his violent behavior.
Non-acceptance of the victim positioning afforded a conversational construction of the violence as a way of controlling and dominating others and as being an active choice of the client. The therapeutic goal was to offer the client a position based on a more responsible stance without invalidating the client s experiences, and this was achieved through a balanced use of ignoring, confronting, and deconstructing. Partanen, T. & Wahlström, J. (2003). The dilemma of victim positioning in group therapy for male perpetrators of domestic violence. In C. Hall, K. Juhila, N. Parton and T. Pösö (Eds.), Constructing clienthood in social work and human services: Interaction, identities and practices (pp. 129-144). London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Gendered positions constructed for a female therapist in male batterer treatment group When IPV is considered as a gendered issue involving attitudes and power-relations it may be assumed that the gender of the therapist has some affect in a treatment group. Constructing women as different and impossible to understand is one way of justifying violence against women.
The aim of this study was to examine how the gender of the therapist plays a part in batterer group treatment with a female and a male therapist. -> What kinds of gendered positions are constructed in batterer treatment groups? Three categories of gendered positionings were constructed: woman in general; woman as spouse and woman personally as herself. Taking up gendered positions or repositioning herself could be used as a tool by the female therapist.
Woman in general: The female therapist was counted among the class of women by the group participants. Because of her gender she was expected to have a different viewpoint, which was seen as interesting or negative. Women were seen as strange and unpredictable as well as different biologically, mentally and in their needs. Woman as spouse: The female therapist was invited to represent the point of view of the spouses of the men. This position was constructed especially when referring to the fear experienced by the spouses.
Woman personally as herself: The female therapist was positioned as a possibly weak person or a potential man-hater because of her gender. She was also invited to give her personal opinion in the group meetings. Also, the female therapist was positioned as a possible dating partner or an object.
Extract 9 (group II) Pasi ((to FT)): I should ask you, since we ve been here, that if we were a little younger and handsome, would you dare to start dating any of us? FT: Well that s a good question. Kalle: But we are still handsome, right. FT: It s a good question really. Sometimes when one listens to those stories of yours, one can understand why for example Kaija ((Pasi s spouse)) has been afraid or, Kalle, your ex girlfriend. I would think about whether I would dare. Kalle: Fairly well said. MT: So it s not so sure at all that you would dare? FT: I m not sure, I would surely think that. Kalle: But you have education, right. You could train the man. (Laughing) FT: Is that what you think? Kalle: Yeah but it s a good question really. FT: I would think about whether I d dare.
Here the female therapist is positioned as a possible dating partner. She responds by taking up the spouses position and raises the issue of fear and then falls back on her personal position by saying that she would be afraid. The male therapist highlights the issue of fear in his comment. Kalle s solution is that he offers the female therapist a position different from that occupied by the kind of women who would be afraid because of her education. This positioning enables him subsequently to position the female therapist as a possible dating partner. The female therapist challenges this construction by again raising up the issue of fear.
Offered positions of a woman were often based on a constructed difference between men and women. The female therapist had to balance between different expectations and variable positionings that she was invited to take up, BUT She could also position and reposition herself to gendered or other (e.g. professional) positions.
Repositioning was used as a tool by the female therapist in seeking to challenge and change the batterers discourses and attitudes towards women to narrow the constructed difference between genders to make the fear of the spouses visible Päivinen, H. & Holma, J. (2012). Positions constructed for a female therapist in male batterers treatment group. Journal of Feminist Family Therapy, 24, 52-74. doi:10.1080/08952833.2012.629132
Discussions of fatherhood in male batterer treatment group g In several studies, the parenting style of men who have perpetrated violence towards their partners has been noted to be of the type known as traditional, i.e. authoritarian and controlling. g Råkil (2006) found that men in group treatment have difficulties integrating their own violent behavior and their position as a father. g IPV men s utterances about fatherhood reflected both beliefs learned from past generations, i.e. traditional fatherhood, and modern cultural views, i.e. the new fatherhood (Lahti, 2001; Ruckenstein, 2004)
g The aim of this study was to investigate how men who have perpetrated violence towards their partners talk about fatherhood and how they perceive their position as fathers. g Fatherhood talk occurred in all the groups of intimately violent men, in some form, in almost every session and was even brought up spontaneously by the men. g The intimately violent men in this study, like most fathers do, were drawing on both the traditional and new father discourses.
Traditional fatherhood g When talking about acts of disobedience by their children, some of the men constructed an authoritarian and disciplinary position. g Independence as men, or male entitlement, was considered more important, even heavily emphasized, compared to their duties as a father. g The men were able to reflect upon their emotional connection with their children, partly as a result of comparing their own position with their spouse s position. This comparison forced the men to admit they had been emotionally distant from their children.
New fatherhood was constructed g The men described fatherhood as a positive, delightful and active part of life. g They had also evaluated their earlier fatherhood, and were now actively searching for ways to improve and achieve their new fatherhood ideals which were in contradiction with their ideas of manhood, fatherhood and masculinity. This gave rise to uncomfortable feelings.
g Learning also occurred when the men compared their fathers and their own positions: They were not going to repeat their fathers mistakes and were making efforts to be better than their fathers. g Through seeing themselves as a child with a violent father, they were sometimes able to gain a better understanding of their own children s situation and experiences.
g Becoming a father may also trigger a change away from violent behavior or the children may act as motivators in the process of becoming a better (non-violent) father, spouse or, even, person. Extract 26: Session 10 T2: What is it then that motivates you to join this ((therapy)) group, the marital relationship maybe cannot be saved M2: It is that, at least my own children wouldn t turn away from me, and that the relationship (I have) with my children would normalize, and this way, through my own children. g Veteläinen, A., Grönholm, H., & Holma, J. (2013). Discussions of Fatherhood in Male Batterer Treatment Group. SAGE Open, 3 (1-10). doi:10.1177/2158244013492083