Anger Management vs Batterers' Treatment

Anger Management Treatment (AMT) is designed for those who frequently experience momentary outbursts of anger to intense rage.  The programs are not regulated or certified. They teach participants to pinpoint their triggers and develop ways to control their anger or express it in an appropriate manner (i.e. deep breaths, time-outs, delaying a discussion until one has calmed down). 

Clinical experience and preliminary evaluations by Edward W. Gondolf and David Russell show that anger control does not help end spousal abuse and that the tools taught are likely to be misused by batterers. “[Intimate partner] abuse is not anger-driven but more of a socially impose “need” to control women.”1

AMT does not address the issue of power and control that is at the root of abuse. While it can reduce the outburst, it does not address the perpetrator's faulty beliefs regarding male dominance and entitlement. He may use the “tools” he learned in treatment to abuse. He sees his partner’s behavior as the trigger that provokes his temper—laying the blame squarely on the victim. The assumption is that she needs to change her behavior.2 Time-outs can give the perpetrator time to go to the local bar—fueling his rage, delaying a discussion can mean days of stony silent treatments toward the victim. The abuse continues in a different but equally destructive manner.

Spousal abuse is about maintaining power and control over the other. Anger is only one of the many behaviors perpetrators use to intimidate and terrify their partners into submission. Controlling partners feel entitled to use any means to assert their power. If they believe their authority position is endangered, they take any action they deem necessary to reclaim the upper hand. They are never “out of control” but are continually calculating how to stay in power.

While anger is addressed, batterers’ treatment (BT) is designed to identify the beliefs that support controlling partners’ choices and change them. Perpetrators are held accountable for their past violent behavior and are expected to learn new skills to stop. Treatment teaches perpetrators that violent acts and words are a choice—their choice. They alone are responsible for their coercive and controlling behavior and it is their responsibility to stop it. 

Lasting change can be achieved through specialized treatment programs that help controllers see their partners as people with feelings, needs, and rights. An additional goal of BT is to create a safer environment for the victims and their families.

BT programs are usually state-certified. Support for victims is a crucial part of treatment. Intake from spouses and frequent “check-ins,” to determine any change in their level of fear, is key to their safety. Keeping the spouses in the loop is also an opportunity to verify that new behaviors are in practice at home as well as to update spouses on what they should expect in the future. 

The program provides victims with important data regarding their partner's efforts to end their entitlement beliefs through therapy. This allows victims to make the important decision; should I stay or leave? The safest time for victims to leave is while their partners are in treatment. Though victims often struggle with leaving when the abusers are finally getting help. BT professionals never shame or try to dissuade victims from leaving. 

“The effects of living with long-term abuse interfere with being able to trust yourself.”3 Stopping the abuse or leaving is not the end of the story. Victims also need treatment to heal from violence. After years of being blamed, they need to understand that they are not responsible for their partners’ choices. Rebuilding self-esteem is necessary, as well as self-trust. Seeing a therapist who is trained in working with victims of abuse helps survivors move through the healing process and on to a better, peaceful, and stable life.

(For more information on batterers' treatment and how to find and work with a therapist go to Hazelden's online bookstore at http://www.hazelden.org/OA_HTML/ibeCCtpItmDspRte.jsp?item=15124&sitex=10020:22372:US, scroll down and click on the link "Interviews with Domestic Abuse Experts" for a free download. The first interview is with Darald Hanusa  Ph.D. L.C.S.W. The second interview is with Jennifer Parker, M.S.S.W., L.C.S.W.) 

1. Edward W. Gondolf, EdD, MPH and David Russell. Anger Management vs Perpetrator Intervention Programs: www.scribd.com/document/323169484/Anger-Management-vs-Perpetrator-Intervention-Programs#  
2. I am using “she” as the victim and “he” as the controlling partner for ease of writing. Abusers can be male or female.
3. Jennifer Parker, M.S.S.W., L.C.S.W.

Learned Stress

When we experience an occasional fearful situation, our brain directs the release of the flight or fight stress hormone, cortisol. When the danger subsides and we feel safe again, the flow of cortisol subsides. While this hormone is necessary when we are in imminent danger, a steady flow of it is not healthy.

Living in abusive relationships fight or flight is our constant companion. Every moment of every day we must be hyper-vigilant, trying to avoid the expected next blowup. Even after leaving the relationship, our bodies are not able to readily adjust to the fact that the danger is over and turn off the fight or flight reaction. Feeling unsafe becomes our bodies’ norm. It is learned stress. 

When we add current events into the mix we find our health in danger. Our minds are constantly stewing about everything that is difficult in our lives and the world. We exhaust ourselves and feel paralyzed. We stop nurturing ourselves—or never start. Drugs, alcohol, or other addictions can enter the picture as a way to cope. However, they send us into numbness. In a sense, we stop experiencing the trauma but we also miss out on the happiness in our lives.

To heal, the body needs to recognize that the danger has passed and that we are now safe. 

Being gentle with ourselves and practicing self-care/compassion can move us in the right direction. I’ve been working on ways to ease the commotion in my brain and body. There are a lot of suggestions from the foremost minds in mental and physical health. Let me share with you the ones that work best for me.

The popularity of mindfulness is growing. Living in the present moment we can ask ourselves if we feel safe at this moment. When our minds spin off into the future “awfulizing” what could disrupt our peace, we bring it back to “I am safe at this moment.” When our mind spins off into the past, “I thought I was safe then, and look what happened,” again, we remind ourselves, “I am safe at this moment.” Working toward staying in the present can help calm the anxiety.

Part of the mindfulness practice includes taking time to sit quietly and listen to our breath. Deep restful breathing calms the body and mind. When our restless mind allows destructive thoughts to arise, we recognize them and then let them go without berating ourselves. Labeling them can help us step outside the thought and tell ourselves, “That is my fear of ending up in another abusive relationship. Now that I know the danger signs, I will walk away from anyone who doesn’t treat me with respect.” It takes some practice, but following our breath is helpful in times of stress.

I shoot for taking time to sit in the quiet or with some peaceful music every day. It doesn’t have to be a long period of time, just a few minutes to concentrate on my breath. It’s a good time to spend in prayer or meditation, quieting my thoughts. I’m still working on learning to observe any thoughts that arise and not become engaged in them. Some days are easier than others. On the harder days, I use guided meditation. (free meditations are available at www.meditationoasis.com—click on Listen— then Podcasts.)

Coloring books for adults are becoming popular. Coloring is also a mindful activity, that keeps you in the present moment instead of fretting. There are free mandalas available on the internet. Also coloring books from museums. (www.openculture.com/2017/02/free-coloring-books-from-world-class-libraries-museums.html)

When my mind is particularly active, I’ve found that journaling about my concerns is a good segue into the quiet. Spitting everything that is bothering me onto a blank page seems to help me put it to rest, allowing me to better concentrate on my work or go to sleep.

Sleep is way more important than I realized. When working and raising children, sleep is a luxury and the first thing that goes by the wayside while holding the head of a vomiting child or helping with the homework that is due tomorrow and forgotten until this very moment. We learned to exist on little sleep.  

Though there is no set rule, since our bodies are all different, it is suggested that we shoot for 7-8 hours. That meant I had to turn off the news and late-night talk shows and learn to fall asleep earlier than what had been my habit. It took some practice. Once settled, the restless brain syndrome (my made-up name for the problem) sets in. My brain throttles up and ruminates on everything and anything that frustrates or worries me. I swear, it would pick some tiny thing that would be a fluff of lint in the light of day and whip it up into an asteroid about to crash into the earth. Also, it would prod me to take a peek at the news just in case I was missing something really important. If neither of these worked, it would start throwing down odds that I was going to lay away until my “normal” bedtime, anyway. There has been a period of laying awake but I am settling into this new routine. I do feel better the next day which reinforces the change.

The light from our computers also affects our ability to go to sleep. That means shutting down our electronic devices at least an hour before bed. I’m working on turning off my electronics for the night after dinner. I’m not quite comfortable with this, yet. Picking up my phone or other device is a knee-jerk reaction. 

The way the brain constantly collects and processes data is amazing and no small feat now that we are besieged with information through electronics/social media. Something that used to be a catch-up-with-friends social time now inundates us with information that heightens our stress levels. Consider a day without it. Sunday is my day to feed my spirit. OWN's Soul Sunday, a cup of tea, a good book, and a sunny spot makes for a lovely day and does wonders for my harried brain. I didn’t realize how driven I was to keep up with everything. It was exhausting. I’m considering expanding my media fast to 2 days.

Exercise, yoga, and T’ai Chi are also great to help quiet the mind and keep the body supple and healthy. I like the app Yoga Studio. It’s free and has classes for different levels of ability. You can even put together your own class if you’d like. 

Let’s unlearn stress by nurturing our bodies and spirits every day. 

Return or Stay Out?

Should I return or stay out? While it sounds like a simple question with an easy answer, those of us who have been in violent relationships know it to be extremely complicated. In my blog (Why Victims Stay or Return to Their Abusers) I address many of the reasons why victims stay or return. In this post, I want to focus on another component that draws us into that vacillation dance, the honeymoon period.

Part of the reason leaving is such a difficult decision is based on the Cycle of Abuse (See tab above). Abusive relationships are filled with emotional highs and lows. As the tension stage builds toward the battering incident, the victim tries desperately to appease her* habitually disgruntled partner. Knowing that she will not be successful, she slides into numbness to avoid the fear of what is to come, and it does. Her partner explodes and brutally terrorizes her. Afterward, the couple moves into the honeymoon period, where the abuser apologizes and promises to change. During the honeymoon period, there is relief from the victim’s pain. She experiences joy, and happiness that he wants and needs her so much. It’s like falling in love all over again. She feels alive and believes battering will never happen again.

Survivors know that it is not a circle, it’s a spiral. It will happen again and again, with the incidents coming more often and the severity of the abuse more dangerous.

A violent incident often becomes the last straw, and we leave the relationship. We are finished. However, our partners move on to do the dance of the honeymoon period, where they attempt to woo us back. They become Mr. Wonderfuls, the guys we first met. They tell us they are sorry and pull out all the old tricks they have used to hook us and hold us in the relationship. We receive letters professing their love. They make promises that they will do whatever is necessary to bring us back. They join AA or a church. They even use our children to intercede on their behalf. They will say or do whatever they need to, to make us return. Though, they have no intention of following through with their promises. They didn't the last time, and they won't this time.

Meanwhile, we slid into numbness. That critical voice in our heads attacks us, saying we can never survive on our own. We can't support our children on our own. He will find a way to take our children away from us. All his threats spin through our minds. Our lives feel like an endless nightmare. We long for relief. That heady feeling from the honeymoon period temps us to return. Maybe this time things will be different.

If victims stop themselves amid the negative chatter and go to that quiet place in their gut, they will hear the truth—if they return things will not change. The abuse will continue and their self-esteem will be decimated.

When victims return, abusers, feel victorious, believing they now have the right to hold the reins of control tighter, demanding more and limiting their partners’ freedoms. They will often punish their partners for making them kowtow to woo them back.  Also, victims must understand that the abuse will escalate and spill over onto their children. The end result may be death for the victims and, in many cases, their children.

When an ex understands that his victim will not be wooed back, he will do whatever it takes to make her life hell. This includes:

• Telling lies to others so the victim looks like the bad partner.
• Creating chaos around her to keep her off-balance and not be able to think clearly, hoping to wear her down so she gives up and returns.
• Coming up with a sob story to lure her back or get a toe in the door. (He wants to stay in the house with her. It’s just until he is back on his feet then he’ll leave or do whatever she wants.)
• Hides their money.
• Criticizes everything she does to make her afraid she cannot make it without him.
• Embarrasses her at her workplace—Antagonizes her employers, hoping she gets fired.
• Stalks her relentlessly, to wear her down so she will return to him.
• Drags her to court for minor and made-up claims to drain her energy and finances.
• Uses the children to hurt her.
• Hurts the children to punish her.
• Murders her and/or her children. (women who leave are 70% more likely to be murdered—often within the first 6 months)

To survive, victims have to face the fact that they cannot change their partners. They have to admit that the heady honeymoon period would never last. Then they must learn how to shore themselves up against their exes' stunts.

What worked for me was to imagine myself standing outside the drama my ex created. I made a mental list of what kind of antics my ex would most likely use, giving them a title (i.e. The Woe Is Me. The You Are a Bad Mother). I watched for these expected behaviors and ticked them off my list when they showed up.  Thinking of it that way, I didn’t engage or succumb to the emotions. I breathed deeply and didn’t react to his attempts to rile me. It took some practice, unfortunately, I had plenty of opportunities to practice.

It helped to develop a set statement to tell myself when the vacillating dance music began playing.

“I’ve been here before too many times. He is doing and saying the same things he always has. He’s made no effort to change. I cannot change him, save him or do the work for him. If he valued our relationship and wanted to change, he would have gone into treatment and followed the program. He has not, so he will not change.”

When I accepted the fact that the only one I could change was me, I started focusing on my future and discovered the highs of achieving my goals.

To those struggling with this decision: If you think you cannot do it, consider all the hard work you have put into this relationship. If you turn your focus on yourself, you will see results because you are a willing participant.

It is a struggle to take back control of our lives after all the years spent being told we were inept and that no one cared about us or would help us. These lies need to be yanked out by the roots. We are not stupid and there is help through local shelters or at the National Domestic Violence Hot Line at 800.799.7233. If you aren’t working with a therapist trained in domestic abuse treatment, find one or a support group. There are also lots of survivors on Facebook, willing to give you emotional support and share what they have learned in public or private groups.

It’s not easy to make the decision to stay out. Don’t beat yourself up if this is the second, fourth, or tenth time you’ve left. Just let this time be the last.



* I use the pronoun “he” as the abuser and “she” as the victim because that was my experience and for ease of clarity in my writing. We know that men can also be victims.

Fear, Sympathy and Anger--A Dysfunctional, Perfect Storm

When intertwined, fear, sympathy, and anger create one chaotic, dysfunctional, perfect storm of an abusive relationship. Its gathering winds start long before the couple meets.

Humans in an attempt to understand their world are apt to create stories to explain situations. Children of critical parents who never say the words “I love you,” tell themselves that they are inept and unloveable. They often become people-pleasers searching for someone who will love them. This is the story I carried into my marriage. I was exactly who a controlling partner wanted.

On the other hand, those who felt betrayed and cheated as children often tell themselves that the people they need will hurt or leave them. They feel entitled to take what they want as payback. The story they tell themselves is that in order to be safe, they must be in control. Sadly, that is usually at the expense of their partner’s safety. 

If you follow the threads of controlling behaviors to the end, you will find the underlying cause is fear. Jealously is the fear of losing a partner to someone else. Hiding all financial information from their partner is fear that their partner will have the resources to leave. Terrorizing, instilling fear of bodily harm, is driven by the fear that a partner may leave.

It didn’t take long for me to see through my partner’s bravado facade to the fear-infested person inside. The sympathy I felt for him held me in the relationship. I spent years trying to save him, assuring him that he was safe with me. All the while, I wasn’t safe with him. My desperation to earn his love was fear-based. I didn’t want to be a failure. The story I told myself was—if I could just hang in the marriage long enough, sacrificing myself, things would change. It took a long time for me to accept that his entitlement and fear-based internal stories created a lack of empathy and didn’t allow for the revelation or awakening that I had hoped to see in him. 

Therapy helped me rewrite my internal stories into healthy ones. My partner’s behavior wasn’t about me. The occurrences from my childhood that started the unhealthy story of who I was, weren’t about me. This knowledge is a blessing, but it can also be dangerous. 

When we understand the underlying fears that caused the bad behavior in our spouse, our sympathy for them can keep us entwined. Hope that things can change may hold or draw us back into the relationship. It’s important for us to disconnect from our emotions and use reason to evaluate the relationship.

In those highly charged moments, I recited the following truths:

• Though I feel sympathy for him, I will not minimize or excuse his bad behavior. It was wrong and should not be repeated. Nothing will change that fact. 
• Abuse is a choice. My partner chooses to abuse me.
• He is the only one who can change his behavior. If he wanted to save this relationship, he would have gone into treatment and followed the program. He did not, so he does not value our relationship. He will not change.

After leaving the relationship we experience a lot of anger and grieving. We mourn the loss of the dreams we had for our lives, and the men we thought our partners were. We are also angry. Our partners’ selfishness made a mess of our children’s and our lives. We feel enraged that we are left to suffer the consequences and clean it up.

Anger is good. It keeps us out of the relationship and gives us valuable energy to fight for a new and better life. As we move along the upward path, we can spend our time hating those who wronged us, but wouldn’t that mean they are still the center of our lives? Our focus is still on them—just where they want it to be. 

I suggest we turn our focus on ourselves and our children. We can stop trying to force our partners to be who they should be. We can stop trying to make up for their bad behavior toward our children and others. Suppose we step out of the drama and accept that the controllers will spin their wheels, rant, rave and tell lies. Suppose we let their words pass through us without sticking to our insides—because we have new stories of who we are. His old lies mean nothing. We can be age-appropriately honest with our children about our inability to change their fathers. We can use this as a teachable moment where our children learn about choices and consequences. We can admit the truth of the situation to them without showing anger or hatred toward their fathers. 

Escaping and staying out of abusive relationships means rewriting our internal stories, accepting the truth of our situations, and balancing our emotions with logic. Let us focus on loving ourselves enough to walk away and build a better life.