The following is a transcript of
"WomenMatter, Facts and Trade-Offs Domestic Violence – Power Plays: How do I Love Thee?" April 19, 2006



Domestic Violence – Power Plays: How do I Love Thee?

This show is about our most personal relationships with our partners, spouses, lovers, and children. Dr. Nancy Bauer, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of WomenMatter, interviews three experts who agree that the underlying theme is power and control in the continuing problem of relationships that start with love and grow into abuse.

ANNOUNCER: WomenMatter - Facts and Trade-Offs explores issues, asking each of us to decide how much we can or should handle on our own and how much we would be better off dealing with the issue as a community or even as a nation through our government.

This show, carefully titled – “Domestic Violence – Power Plays: HOW Do I Love Thee?” -- is about our most personal relationships with our partners, spouses, lovers, and children.

Dr. Nancy Bauer, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of WomenMatter, interviews three experts who agree that the underlying theme is power and control in the continuing problem of relationships that start with love and grow into abuse.

NANCY BAUER: In most of the work we do at WomenMatter, we examine issues in our personal lives and urge you to examine the facts and the competing policies offered by our legislators -- and take your informed judgment to your legislators – right from our website, www.womenmatter.com.

This show is different because. There are laws that have already been passed – laws against what is called domestic violence. But the issue didn’t go away when the law was passed. People still get themselves into these terrifying situations – generation after generation after generation. So this radio show works backward. Why does domestic violence keep happening? What should we do about it? How and when should individuals use the law that was created to recognize the problem and help ease the pain that it causes.

The state and federal governments have all agreed that when one partner damages another, it is a crime. The federal law is called the Violence Against Women Act – because in so many of these abuses it is the man who hurts a woman. The law, however, offers protection for both male and female victims, in every kind of relationship – married or not, and with same sex partners as well as male/female partners.

WomenMatter first interviews Dr. Michele Berlinerblau, a medical doctor specializing in psychiatry about the development of the personal level of domestic violence – which masquerades as love.

Then we interview Dean Richard Gelles, of the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice who puts these personal relationships into the framework of that old-fashioned social institution – the family and the traditional cookie-cutter roles that society stamps on men and women.

Our third interview is with Judy Yupcavage, Director of Communications, for the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the National Resource Center that provides services to the 50 state organizations who in turn provide services to any and all of us. These are the experts that provide the services voted in by the Violence Against Women Act. These services are free to all of us, paid for by our tax dollars and by a pool of government funds.

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Interview with Dr. Michelle Berlinerblau, psychiatrist, about the causes and development of the personal level of domestic violence – which masquerades as love. Why abuse exists. How abusers and victims view each other, explain it to themselves, and keep the problem going. Why and how the problem behaviors are passed on from generation to generation. What we can do to help ourselves and others

So – let us begin with a close examination of the most personal of our relationships – the people we love. Dr. Michele Berlinerblau, what is the connection between domestic violence (which calls up these horrid images of being physically hurt) and love?

MICHELE BERLINERBLAU: When we define domestic violence we are looking at a relationship that is a joke, a mockery, and an attack on the word love.

To borrow from a famous love sonnet by Elizabeth Browning, “How do I love thee?” Well first let me describe what love is. What I mean by love is a relationship where there is mutuality- mutual respect, concern, appreciation of the other person’s needs, strengths and vulnerabilities, and where two people enter the relationship feeling reasonably empowered. So that the relationship does not need to become the tool or the battleground for emotional or physical power plays to regulate what are oftentimes childhood issues.

BAUER: So that all of this comes along with the passion that we feel when we have that first date? That this time the chemistry is working? This time this is somebody I want to continue to see? This time, this might be someone that I want a permanent relationship with for the rest of my life? This is a special person. When you think about all of those internet organizations that give you a checklist of all the things they do, I don’t know that they ever talk about power and equilibrium the way you’re talking about shared power, but they do talk about everything except chemistry. So what you’re saying is that love is a balanced relationship plus the passion of the chemistry.

BERLINERBLAU: That’s exactly right.

BAUER: So then what happens when the abuser abuses?

BERLINERBLAU: Let me first translate by saying what what the abuser may be saying in this type of relationship. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways that I do not love thee and will mistreat you physically, emotionally and sexually under the guise of love.

BAUER: So you’re saying that every time you’re abused and in whatever way it happens-- verbally, physically, humiliation, a look , whatever—at that moment the person that you’re with does not love thee?

BERLINERBLAU: Does not love thee, but uses love under the guise of hate, hostility, anger, pain.

BAUER: If the abuser is deliberately showing ways that he or she does NOT love, then what is the victim saying when these awful words and actions happen?

BERLINERBLAU: The victim in response consciously or unconsciously may be saying, “To show my love for you, for better or for worse, I will stay for you and I will use an arsenal of emotional strategies when you hurt me such as denial.

Let me give you an example Nancy. A woman comes into my office and she’s describing a history of childhood physical, and emotional, and sexual abuse by the father and I ask her, ‘well where was your mother?’ and she says to me, ‘well she wasn’t there.’ And I asked her how long the abuse was ongoing for and she says it was about ten years. So you can see the amount of denial that goes into that because the mother could not have not been present for ten years, while this was going on.

BAUER: So I see, now that takes care of denial, and what other kinds of strategies would the victim use?

BERLINERBLAU: Minimizing the abuse. For example a woman asks her husband for some money and he becomes absolutely explosive. And the way that she minimizes it, she says, you know, ‘he had a bad day, my timing was off, all husbands would react that way, other women could handle it better.”

BAUER: So that takes care of setting it aside, saying ‘this was a bad moment- yes I know it was abuse but it’s not such a big deal.’ So what else?

BERLINERBLAU: Well, then they move on to convincing themselves that they caused this to happen: ‘I should have been able to do this on my own, other women would be able to do this on their own, I’m too needy and there’s something wrong with me.’

BAUER: So it’s the usual ‘I’m sorry and I’m apologizing.’

BERLINERBLAU: Exactly right. And then another interesting strategy to stay in the relationship is that they’ll rationalize the relationship and say ‘well some day it will get better.’ And that’s kind of a fairy-tale ending that we’re going to live happily-ever-after, after we get through this particular incident.

Domestic violence is based on a love hate relationship where the scales are tipped toward excess rage, hate and hostility as a means of maintaining the equilibrium of the relationship.

BAUER: So although the abuse is destructive to both people, it does in some way effectively maintain a fair balance in the relationship?

BERLINERBLAU: Two people engaged in an emotional diet where they each get gratification from power plays, in which one of them is powerful and the other is helpless.

BAUER: How are we defining hostility? Do we really all have hostility?

BERLINERBLAU: We all have anger and hostility, but we are talking about different degrees of anger – think of it as a continuum from a little or not very often to a lot and a lot of the time. In abusive relationships there is a particularly high level of anger and hostility that comes from excess pain, hurt, and helplessness.

So although we all have hostile thoughts, murderous fantasies, and anger; we all do not act on them. As I say to my patients, who are afraid of these thoughts, “Thoughts are not actions.”

BAUER: But in abusive relationships the equation changes somehow?

To those involved in domestic violence, the thoughts do not stay at the level of thoughts, and there is a pull to act them out. Many, who are involved in domestic violence come from childhoods chock full of neglect, deprivation emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. Often times they come to see love as including all the above ingredients. Love in essence includes a physical, sexual or emotional beating. Hostility and love become fused into one word.

This excess has its roots often times in our childhood experience. We got used to it at home – it is what our parents did to each other or to us.

Many of the people involved in these types of relationships honestly believe that domestic violence is love and that they have to tolerate abuse as a way to get love and to not lose love. That the equation needs to include abuse at some level.

BAUER: So, as a psychologist who specializes in fear, when you look at these couples what do you see?

BERLINERBLAU: What I see is a complex interplay of past and present reality with a cast of characters.

To understand and develop compassion for this turbulent and tormented relationship we need to put on a new set of lenses where:

1) we see the victim and aggressors as adults,

2) the victim and aggressors as they were as children, and

3) the victim’s and aggressor’s caretakers, siblings and important other childhood figures.

Then, we need to consider that one of the roots of domestic violence is laid down in childhood where physical, emotional and sexual abuse is a form of attachment. It is helpful to understand a main cause of domestic violence as an intergenerational disease, passed on from parent to child.

So you see Nancy, when I look at the couple involved, the room gets crowded very quickly.

BAUER: Take us into the mindset of the abuser.

BERLINERBLAU: Well, it is important to remember that the abuser did not just wake up one morning and decide to beat up their partner. They have been exposed to and experienced this process many times in the past. As the Roger and Hammerstein song goes, “You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear.”

As a child often times the abuser has been the victim and the seeds of hatred and hostility have been planted in childhood.

BAUER: So how does this affect their behavior as an adult?

BERLINERBLAU: The abusers use a different mindset to deal with the pain, the fear, and the shame of being abused. One of the best ways to illustrate this is the story by Anna Freud. Anna Freud was a child psychoanalyst who was treating a little girl who was afraid of ghosts. One day the little girl came in and told Anna Freud that she was no longer afraid of ghosts. When she asked her why, the little girl said, “I have become the ghost.”

This illustrates a coping mechanism called identification with the aggressor that is often used by abusers. This time around they are turning the tables, they are making someone else feel the way they did and in that they feel powerful and no longer helpless. A mantra for many abusers is, “Never again will I let myself be vulnerable.” They see intimate relationships as being dependent on someone and that feels dangerous.

BAUER: Okay, so let me get this straight- while the abusive behavior is obviously unacceptable, from the abusers perspective it feels necessary to protect themselves. But what about the other people in the equation? Are abusers able to see the damage that they are doing to their partners and families?

BERLINERBLAU: It is interesting that often there is a total disconnect in the mind of an abuser that what they are doing is an unconscious repetition of what was done to them or what they observed as children. In fact they may even use the same language that was used toward them or toward another such as, a kind of mind play, “You caused this. You made me do it. You are bad.”

Abusers, in their childhood, often did not experience much caring feeling or empathy from authority figures (like parents or teachers) and thus their ability to extend empathy to their victims can range on a continuum from mild empathy to a pretty remarkable complete lack of empathy.

They often see the world in black and white. Those in power and those not in power. They never want to again feel not in power. Any threat to their sense of being in power can send them into a beating frenzy. Their perception of being attacked or rejected in anyway may lead them to an offensive position. “I will beat before being beaten.” For example, their partner questioning them, a baby crying, or a toddler saying “no” to them…may be interpreted as a rejection of them which is intolerable. So that they need to strike out and punish.

Often they tell their victim after the incident that this will never happen again. They thus induce a state of hope and trust in the victim. And when they strike out again, as they invariably do, that hope and trust that they engender and subsequently destroy is another form of abuse toward the victim.

BAUER: Take us into the mind of the victim.

BERLINERBLAU: Victims have often been victims or witnesses of the same childhood scenarios as the aggressors. Consequently, the victims have a fair share of hostility themselves. However, what the victim does with that hostility is different. It is very important to remember here that the victim can easily become the aggressor. A kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde phenomenon. The victims often fear their hostility and that it may become out of control. So it is safer to become the victim than the aggressor.

BAUER: What about the times that one parent stands by and lets the child be abused by the other?

BERLINERBLAU: That is exactly what I am talking about. In this situation, the mother now joins the father and becomes an abuser. Often it is because the mother’s need to be with the abuser surpasses the needs of the child.

BAUER: Why or how do these women or men rationalize their actions?

BERLINERBLAU: Well, first of all, the abuse they hear from their abuser sounds like the tapes already playing in their heads. They’re ready to hear and believe it. For example, BAUER, if someone came up to you or me and said, “You’re a witch.” Unless there is some underlying vulnerability to you or me seeing ourselves in that way, we would consider the statement, but ultimately the insult would emotionally slide off of us like a Teflon surface. Not so for victims of abuse. Their Teflon surface has been worn off by abuse.

When people have been abused, mistreated, neglected or deprived as children they develop needs that are difficult to understand for those of us lucky enough to have the proper emotional nutrition. For example, if being slapped or observing others being slapped physically or emotionally as a child is part of one’s regular emotional diet, that becomes integrated into the child’s way of defining relationships, their self image, and… their self esteem.

BAUER: How do children deal with that and why is it that after all, not all children become abusers?

BERLINERBLAU: In order to emotionally survive an abusive environment, children for the most part cannot say, “Mommy, Daddy, and my grandfather… are acting crazy and I am out of here.” They are trapped and in that lies the development of one of the most painful human emotions, the feeling of helplessness.

Then a question arises, how can this person, whom I love so much and depend on so much, hurt me so badly? Children come up with a variety of explanations. One of the most common ones is to protect and maintain the image of the good parent. So they blame themselves and say, I caused this. I am bad. And if the abuser says to the child, You caused this you made me do this, You are stupid or you are bad, or when one or both of the parents say to the child “this did not happen”, the biggest wound to the child is the challenge to their connection to reality.

The child’s sense of reality is based on the parent’s ability to acknowledge reality. When parents deny reality, imagine this scene. Two parents spend the night attacking each other, hitting each other and screaming. The next morning there is no acknowledgement or there may even be denial of what took place. There is an elephant in the room, but daddy and mommy are not talking about it.

BAUER: So what you’re saying is that abuse can have profound and long-lasting effects even for those that are passive bystanders?

BERLINERBLAU: You can see this 10, 20 or 30 years later in the dysfunctional couple, replaying this scenario; due to the foundation of their experiences.

So we see the evolution of how helplessness and the power play between utter helplessness and total control becomes a dynamic. Both members of the couple are reacting to earlier experiences, but how they choose to deal with it and play out the scene may be different. Victims may rationalize that a morsel of love amid all of the hatred is a full meal and is better than being alone. Sometimes victims try to establish control and mitigate their sense of helplessness by provoking the abuse, so at least they feel that they have some control in the situation.

BAUER: You mentioned earlier that there are “someday, if only fantasies” in the victims. What are those?

BERLINERBLAU: We all have fantasies that in our adult relationships there will be repair of some of the things that we lacked in our childhoods. Those in abusive relationships engage in excess or pathological hope that the abuser will change. Telling themselves again and again that next time it will be better.

In order to do this the victim has to use some complex emotional strategies such as denial of reality, minimization of reality and rationalization. For example, their memory says “he or she did this”. Another internal voice says, “He or she could not have done this.” “I caused it to happen.” In essence, the victim occupies two separate mental homes, with the greater occupancy in the house that says, 1) He or she could not have done this. 2) It was not that bad. 3) I provoked it. 4) He or she knows what I need. 5) How dare I question him or her?

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Interview with Dean Richard Gelles of the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice. The difference between Domestic Terrorism and the Common Couple Violence that couples (male/female and same sex partners) inflict on each other, especially emotional abuse. Power as a zero sum game – how it works to hurt. Why it can only be stopped at the beginning of a relationship. What is a reciprocal relationship? What about the male and female stereotypes in personal relationships? What the law and public policy can and cannot do.

BAUER: WomenMatter is pleased and proud to present to our audience for Facts and Tradeoffs Dean Richard Gelles. He holds the Joanne and Raymond Welsh Chair of Child Welfare and Family Violence, in the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. He’s director of the Center for Research on Youth and Social Policy, and co-director of the field center for children’s policy and practice.

In his career, he develops theory, does research, and has also influenced policy. He’s an actual internationally known expert in domestic violence and child welfare, and he was influential when they passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997. So he knows when what happens in families gets to the point where the public wants government to do something about it, and he knows what the pros and cons are when it becomes public policy. Welcome to you, Dean Gelles, from WomenMatter: Facts and Tradeoffs.

RICHARD GELLES: Thank you.

BAUER: Many of us think of violence as only physical, when somebody says “domestic violence,” that means somebody whomps somebody. And yet we hear from a lot of people that it may take years for an abuser to get to the point where he, particularly he, even she, would use physical violence against their domestic partner. How many kinds of domestic violence are there?

GELLES: Well there are clearly multiple types. Physical violence actually differs in intensity and impact. There are some households where, it’s not a good term, but where the research community and policy community refers to it as “common couple” violence, where the partners slap, push, shove, throw things at one another. And that’s about as serious as it gets. There are other households where the violence can be deadly or near deadly, where choking, scalding, shooting, stabbing, beatings take place.

And that’s simply the variations of physical violence. There’s also sexual violence, sexual intimidation. Emotional violence is a very difficult phenomenon to define because you define it in terms of what it really is, the intentional infliction of emotional pain on the other person. The extent of it can be quite numerous. It can get up to 60 percent of households.

And then there is a form of emotional violence, which is to inflict fear in the partner. Most commonly that would be stalking, but I did interview a woman whose husband, every night, would put a .38 revolver on his nightstand, or under his pillow, and he put the bullets on his wife’s nightstand. Now he never shot her and he never threatened to shoot her, but he clearly was sending a very hostile, threatening message every evening.

BAUER: That’s stalking from a very close distance.

GELLES: Yeah, that’s different type of stalking. And stalking and his behavior are really a form of domestic terrorism designed to inflict fear into the target of that aggression.

BAUER: So we really have to pay attention to the results which you’ve described. But the intent to hurt could be the same for each one of those various kinds. Some people intend to hurt by using emotional abuse, others by throwing something. And somebody else takes the gun. So it’s the same phenomenon that we’re witnessing, it’s abusive behavior?

GELLES: Well it’s not all the same, it’s something of a slippery slope. Many of the guys I’ve interviewed claim they never intended to hurt their partner, but this is for her own good. That’s not dissimilar from parents who spank and hurt their children, because they think corporal punishment is for the child’s own good. So I’m not comfortable letting the person doing the hitting define whether, what the intent is.

BAUER: That’s really interesting, because the issue of definitions – so often when we get the legislation, we’re up to the wazoo in definitions. Having to describe precisely what it is we’re talking about, rather than the verbs, which show what’s happening, we end up with the nouns that maybe either oversimplify or overgeneralize about what we’re talking about.

GELLES: That’s the nature of policy. Policy is designed to build a boundary, which on one side is unacceptable behavior and on the other side is acceptable, or at least legal behavior. I remember a long, heated discussion about emotional abuse and its definition, as part of a National Research Council committee meeting. We were writing a long report on domestic violence. And the guy sitting next to me was the attorney general of the state of Massachusetts, and I noticed that he was not paying attention to this discussion. And I elbowed him and I said, “You’re not paying any attention at all,” and he says, “Look, it’s not illegal. When they get to part that’s illegal, I’ll pay attention.”

BAUER: [laughter] I see, so this is very important for WomenMatter to understand, because as we ask people to take a look at their personal lives and then decide when and how they wish to make a political difference, we need to be looking from the verbs to the nouns, and to watch the legal language.

GELLES: There’s a lot of things you can do to hurt your partner, whether it’s a woman or a man, that are not illegal. So the resolution is not going to found in the law. The resolution is going to be found in conflict resolution, in marriage counseling, in how do you separate yourself from that relationship, how do you protect your children in that relationship. But the police are not the appropriate solution for that.

There are other behaviors where they so offend the conscience, and are so outside of the boundaries of acceptable behavior, the police and the criminal justice system are, in fact, the best and the preferred way of getting resolved. And that gives you some idea of just how diffuse and different the forms of family violence, and violence towards women, can be.

BAUER: So what are the actual causes of this intimate violence? When you talk about, in one of your books, I guess your new book is going to be intimate violence and abuse in families. What kinds, and how does it show up, and what causes it?

GELLES: Well, what causes it depends on what the “it” is.

BAUER: Yeah.

GELLES: But the cause of the most extreme forms of violence tends to be found in the psyche of the individual offending. Although they may be disproportionately low income, the causes are psychological in nature and a real profound feeling of abandonment, or a profound feeling of being unable to soothe oneself in the midst of stress or crisis. In the non-domestic, terrorist households, with the common couple in violent households, that tends to be a tussle, discord violence over who wins and who loses in that particular argument or discussion. Unfortunately lots of family matters are what I call zero-sum.

BAUER: You mean nobody wins?

GELLES: Well, winning comes at the expense of the other person losing.

BAUER: I see, so there’s only so much power, and whoever wins that argument gets it all.

GELLES: Couples that are not good at reciprocity, allowing one person to win and then deferring their gratification, that individual’s gratification for the next decision – their arguments tend to escalate to violence because they’re unable to come to a compromise to let person A win this particular decision and then person B gets preference in the next decision. When you’re not able to do that, for whatever reason, the tendency to escalate to hitting and emotional abuse is great. The tendency to escalate to killing or maiming or really viciously hurting the other person, that’s not always there.

BAUER: So that this, we see the subject on the covers of all the women’s magazines, it’s about children, it’s about money, it’s about sex, when it’s not about food and diet, that is. Which is also, food and diet is probably also about sex. But it is, but those issues, these are the things that couples in common discuss all the time.

GELLES: Those are the instigators. When we interviewed people in the high-conflict families, are the families with more violence. And… for the common-couple violence it’s almost always about sex or money or children. For the domestic terrorists, the really dangerous people, and they’re more male, there are more male domestic terrorists than there are female domestic terrorists, it’s about control.

BAUER: So let’s talk then about male and female, even in the common-couple discussions. Are there real power patterns between men and women?

GELLES: Well there are. Men, to over-generalize, unfortunately, men are somewhat more physically- have more physical prowess and less verbal prowess, and women generally have more verbal prowess than physical prowess. But at the common-couple violence level, surprisingly, and it’s been a surprise for 30 years, there’s a lot of bi-directional and mutual violence. It’s almost impossible sometimes to figure out who started it and who ended it.

BAUER: But are there sort of expectations of what a boy is supposed to do in a marriage or a relationship, but since we have relationships these days we’re not always talking about marriage. But what, from the very first date on, are there some expectations of, this is what the man’s supposed to do, and this is what the woman is supposed to do?

GELLES: Well, I’m probably the wrong age to answer that question. There was. Certainly until the last 10 or 15 years, men were viewed as the instrumental leader of the family, the bill-payers, the wage-earners, the bread-winners, and women were viewed as the family nurturer, the expressive leader of the family, the child-rearers.

The whole notion of dating, I think, has been turned upside down, and I’m not sure that many of my college students actually date. They go out, they hang around, they hook up – there is a reasonable, reasonable being the wrong word, but there’s a lot of hitting between couples that, in the old fashioned term, date one another. But the expectations, I think, are much more confused in 2006, as to who pays, who’s the instrumental leader, who’s the expressive leader. And so it’s a lot more confused. But what isn’t confused is the power nature of the relationship, and the fact that lots of decisions, even among couples that are not yet married, are going to be zero-sum and constrained by the nature of intimate relationships.

BAUER: So if we want to probably prevent things from getting worse, is there any advice that you would give then, to how do you stop this on the first date? Whichever one is the power person, what can be done when somebody turns around and tries to control you?

GELLES: Well the advice I give, and it’s a little bit simple-minded, is if violence occurs on the first date, that’s the last date. Someone who hits on the first date is not someone you’re going to go back and want to spend time with in an intimate relationship. And that goes for both sexes. I don’t advise women to hit back, because that has a tendency to escalate matters, and it builds in a certain acceptability of hitting in the relationship. So first and foremost, any hitting, any emotional abuse, any overtly controlling behavior that makes you uncomfortable, that’s the last date.

BAUER: So if he tells you what to do, if he tells you how to dress, if he tells you to shut up, don’t expect it to get better?

GELLES: It’s not likely to get better. Not without a, not unless you want to invest a lot of time in counseling, and it’s not clear whether that’s a good way to begin a relationship.

BAUER: So then when we see in families, the idea of who’s got the job and who’s taking care of the children, and all of these things that we hear about, even in sort of modern families today, middle aged families perhaps, people still seem to worry about what’s reciprocal. I like your word reciprocal, that is, doesn’t have to be doing the same. You play golf and she goes to her quilting thing, or she plays tennis and you want to work in your wood shop. But the idea that – what is the vision of responsibility within a relationship? You still see a lot of people sort of worry. They’re assuming the other’s role.

GELLES: Well, what we found, it just stood out in every study we did, the more shared decision-making there is among intimate partners, the less violence there is.

BAUER: Thank you very much Dean Richard Gelles of the University of Pennsylvania. We’ll take this message right to WomenMatter across the country. Thanks a lot.

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Interview with Judy Yupcavage, Director of Communications for the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the National Resource Center. The services that are provided to any and all of us for free as a result of the Violence Against Women Act. How we can get counseling over any kind of abuse with a single phone call anywhere in the country. What if the abuser won’t get help?

BAUER: WomenMatter Facts and Trade-offs welcomes to our show on domestic violence, Power Play, subtitled “How Do I Love Thee?” Judy Yupcavage, who is director of communications for the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, which is run from the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence. And she is the director of communications, both nationally and in Pennsylvania. Welcome to you Judy, and let me ask you right off the start, when does somebody call your agency for help? Do you have to wait until you’ve been battered and bruised, or is there some other behavior one can think about sooner?

JUDY YUPCAVAGE: Well I appreciate the opportunity to talk about this, and I would say to anyone, we take calls from anyone at any time, 24 hours a day. And any time you have a question, you don’t have to be battered, you don’t have to be bruised. If you’re not sure of the direction your relationship is going in, pick up the phone, give us a call, help is a phone call away. We can talk about what to look for, how violence often escalates from just simple possessiveness and jealousy to injury and isolation terrorism, and ultimately, unfortunately and tragically, lethality.

BAUER: You mean to tell me that the jealous husband or the jealous boyfriend is the beginning of a problem?

YUPCAVAGE: Often the prelude to the problem, absolutely. We tell folks, there’s a fine line between passion and possession. And when it crosses that line, it becomes dangerous and it endangers many of those individuals in that relationship. And our domestic violence programs, we have one in every county of Pennsylvania, with free hotlines. Help is available; they can help you sort it through. And you try to figure it out, what’s normal, what’s not? How do I know if it’s getting more dangerous? Or what signs to look for, we can help.

BAUER: Maybe we should be teaching kids before they get to be in serious, formal relationships, about what’s normal.

YUPCAVAGE: Oh my heavens… that is such a key, I think, to preventing the next generation of violence. Every incident a child witnesses at home has an impact on that child. On their own relationships as teenagers, and into adult life. And getting to children young, talking about how to have a healthy relationship, talking to people about how to be gentle. We don’t know how to be gentle in this society. How to avoid conflict without violence. Those are things that should be part of every curriculum in every level in school in this country. It’s not, unfortunately.

BAUER: Maybe your organization ought to be called the Coalition for Healthy Relationships instead of just against domestic violence.

YUPCAVAGE: It’s true, yes. Because that’s the key to keeping us all safe and helping us walk through life free from fear and free from violence. How we do that is a tough road.

BAUER: Give me some examples of the kinds of, or the forms that violence… that you’ve had phone calls about.

YUPCAVAGE: OK, he monitors every call that you make. He takes the phone, unplugs the phones and takes them with him to work, so you’re home alone. Isolation is key, it’s really key. The dinner’s cold, you get slapped. The kids are too loud, they get slapped, you get slapped. You’re spending too much time with your friends. They check the mileage on your odometer to see how far you’ve gone if you just went to work and back. They control your assets; you turn over your paychecks to them. Or maybe you’re not to work. Maybe you’re not allowed to advance your job skills, not allowed to contact your family. Only when they’re in the presence of the family. So there are all kinds of things like that.

And then it’s so much worse. They’ve kicked your pets. They’ve hurt your kids. They’ve broken your bones. They’ve battered your body. And sometimes they batter your body in places that only they can see, so that to the public eye, you look as healthy as can be.

BAUER: Well we hear about people standing by and watching the children being abused. Then we have a double problem, of course, because then the mother is not calling. So the idea is that people have to be aware of the range of things that can happen, all the way from jealousy to serious physical injury. And to have the courage to pick up the phone and call a stranger.

YUPCAVAGE: It does take courage, because you know, acknowledging what’s going on in your life is scary. And finding out that it’s actually violence is even scarier. And then knowing what to do and how to do it, and having the wherewithal and the resources to do it, it’s overwhelming. And we find that often at the point- that many women seek our services at the point that violence spills onto the children.

BAUER: I see, so at that point they’re going to protect the children --

YUPCAVAGE: Yes, absolutely. They do whatever they can. And often the only way to stay, or that they have to stay sometimes, is to protect the children, because it’s the threat. You know, if you leave I’ll take the kids, I’ll kill the kids, you’ll never see them again. And that’s a very real threat in this state, in this country.

I mean, we keep clippings of all the domestic violence homicides, and many of these involve children who are caught up in custody dispute. And at the point where maybe there’s a custody transfer the children are killed by the perpetrator, the father might kill himself too, in the presence of the mother. It’s the ultimate act of violence against the mother, to kill her children.

But you know, it’s scary and it’s dangerous, and having someone to help you go through that is essential. And that’s why we tell people, call the domestic violence program. It’s free, it’s confidential, you don’t even have to give your name, but you can just talk about what’s going on, and we can help you strategize, make a safety plan. Figure it all out. Help you figure out your financial assets. Can you, what can you do, where can you go? And if you want to stay in that relationship, what you can do to stay safe. And maybe where you can send your partner to get some help, if that partner wants to get help.

BAUER: Aha. So the partner has to want to get help. Is it better, can they go together? And what if the partner doesn’t want to get help?

YUPCAVAGE: Well if the partner doesn’t want to get help, you know, there’s probably not much of a future for that family, if the violence is just the way, and the control is what’s going on in that family and in that relationship. But if the partner wants to get help, probably not going together is the best idea from the beginning, because there’s an imbalance, particularly at the beginning, between the victim and the abuser. But there certainly is, with batterers intervention services, there is always a link back to the victim to make sure that what the batterer is saying is going on in the home during the counseling sessions is indeed what’s happening, to make sure that it’s not just all lip service. And that there is some progress, some improvement in the relationship.

BAUER: So earlier on maybe you go together. Later on they have to go separately, but it’s about power and control, you’re saying. That if it really is in an equal relationship, the ideal relationship has some kind of equity.

YUPCAVAGE: Absolutely. And it’s never about love. You know, it’s power and control, but you know, what’s love got to do with it? And not much, when it comes to violent relationships.

BAUER: And that’s where we want to talk more and more, about how much is our individual understanding, and then when do we take, become part of a larger community that can help with this. And with help from the government, which funds you. Our taxpayer dollars are going so that people who, perhaps don’t have personal therapy that they can pay for, but they can, all of us, can come to this National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, and your statewide coalition on domestic, and recognizing that it doesn’t start with physical violence, it starts slow. And the sooner, women of WomenMatter, that we all recognize it and help each other, the better off we’re all going to be. Thank you so much, Judy Yupcavage, and we’ll post your 800 numbers on our website.

YUPCAVAGE: Well thank you, I appreciate the opportunity, and thank you for doing this.

* * * * * *

CONCLUSION:

Dr. Bauer reviews with Dr. Berlinerblau key learnings about the power play that pretends to be love. Women need to see themselves as equal and not be afraid to be alone. How to prevent the spread of abuse from generation to generation. How both private and public agency counseling and therapy work. The seriously difficult requirement to hear ourselves and our partners.

BAUER: We have learned in this show ABOUT THE POWER PLAY THAT PRETENDS TO BE LOVE. We have learned that we need to break the cycle of abuse at the personal level, for both the abuser and the victim Let’s review what we have learned about the root causes of domestic trouble and what we need to do about it:

We need to learn how to judge our personal relationships

It is clear that we all have to be aware of power plays in our own relationships – and stop them as soon as they start. We need to learn to talk about what is wrong and respect our right and our ability to correct a bad situation.

If women in particular see themselves as equal and are not afraid of being alone, then they can say on the first date – “don’t talk to me like that. Don’t tell me what to do. “

We need to work at prevention of the spread of abuse from generation to generation: We need to be honest with our children about our own relationships and then teach our children to demand fairness and shared power in their relationships.

We need to recognize and help ourselves and others to know that balanced relationships without power plays are possible – when two people understand themselves and each other and talk out their differences at the beginning of the relationship.

But when there is trouble, Dr. Michele Berlinerblau, how does counseling and therapy, private or through our public agencies work?

BERLINERBLAU: When we look at domestic violence we look at a story that started long before the present time. We can only change the ending of that story… if we understand the beginning of the story.

BAUER: Before the interviews you described domestic violence as an “intergenerational disease…”

BERLINERBLAU: Yes, and in order to break the cycle we need to identify the victims before they become perpetrators or re-victimized. We function in a world where many people are not conscious of how present behavior and the level and nature of intimacy that we seek, is in part determined by our past.

Both the abused and the victim have a story to tell about how they got there. The question is how we get them to tell their story…to verbalize their pain and anger, their helplessness, and the shame that they feel. How do we mobilize them to speak the unspeakable, what happens behind closed doors… the family secret? And are we available and ready to listen?

BAUER: So how do we start that process to help others?

Ultimately, understanding the psychology of those involved and hearing their story will evoke rescue fantasies in some of us, while others will shake their heads in disbelief and wonder why these people stay in their relationship.

However, in order for us to be able to rescue these victims, the victims and perpetrators themselves need to be ready to receive our assistance.

BAUER: How do you and others deal with that in your work as therapists?

BERLINERBLAU: In treatment, we as therapists and the agencies available in every state, try to create what we call a “holding environment”, a safe place, where people can verbalize their fears and emotions without repercussions. Where we can support and empower the individual. Where we help the patient to verbalize and question their past and present. And where we try to undo the toxic effects of abuse. It is important to understand that the ability to verbalize what one has experienced is empowering in and of itself. It is the empowerment of the individual that enables them to enter into a relationship where power plays between helplessness and control are not the main dynamics in the relationship.

BAUER: What can we as citizens do to combat domestic violence in our society? Clearly, there should be ongoing pressure from the public for greater allocation of funds for mental health.

BERLINERBLAU: All of this can be accomplished in a society that uses its resources including the media to educate its general public in addition to the victims and perpetuators.

1) Expand a media campaign redefining what love is and is not. Love is not abuse.

2) Zero tolerance for abuse.

3) A focus on empowering the victim and abuser to tell their stories.

4) Helping the victim to identify that they are indeed a victim, and not allow them to remain in that role. Being identified as a victim means that they now need to take responsibility and face their past ghosts.

5) Helping abusers understand where their hostility comes from and helping them work on forgiving, but not forgetting their past. Many fear that letting go of their anger invalidates the past.

6) Provoking questions in the abuser such as, When I hit this person or emotionally slander this person, who does this person symbolize for me?

7) Provoke questions in the victim. When I let him or her abuse me or question my sense of reality who does this person symbolize from my past?

8) Support groups that validate the feelings of the victims and perpetrators.

We need to be able to support these people through their emotional journeys to the past where they question their plight and develop insight and coping strategies to move forward in their lives.

BAUER: Thank you Dr. Michele Berlinerblau.

Domestic violence involves more than just the victim and perpetrator of abuse. It is passed on from person to person like a contagious disease. When we as the public are not outraged and moved to action by domestic violence we in essence become abusers and perpetuators in our own right.

ANNOUNCER: WomenMatter will continue to provide a place where we women can learn about our relationships, help others, and teach the next generation. We can help remove the stereotypes about male and female power and work to promote fair and reciprocal relationships.

Our blog provides a safe place for us to talk to each other.

Our website, www.womenmatter.com keeps us up to date on the actual funding of the services the law requires. With knowledge we can mobilize public opinion about both the law and the media.

For WomenMatter, Facts and Trade-Offs, this is Victoria Jones.