Truth about domestic violence

THE EDITOR: I am writing on behalf of the Trinidad and Tobago Association of Psychologists (TTAP). The recent spate of murders/suicides has brought domestic violence onto our front pages and even onto a popular morning radio programme. While it is important to have public discussion on these issues, we feel that it is crucial for the public to have correct information so that discussion is based on facts and not solely on opinions. Everyone has opinions on domestic violence and unfortunately these often pass for facts and promote collective ignorance in our society.

Women, children and men are all victims of domestic violence. This article focuses on women since women are the ones who are most often battered and killed in domestic violence situations. Everyone has a point at which they may react violently perhaps once or twice in their life.  Here we are referring to the habitual abuser who often inflicts violence on his wife and children as a way of expressing his own internal emotional conflicts. We are not referring to this type of misbehaviour in this article.
Here are some popular opinions and the facts that disprove them:
Opinion:
• The victim provokes the abuser to become violent by nagging, taunting, constantly quarrelling or being unfaithful to him. Totally untrue — Simply a convenient excuse propagated by the abuser.
• If women would stop provoking men in their different ways then they would not get beaten by men — A common myth.

Fact:
• Research and empirical evidence show that abusers are not triggered off by external events, but by their own feelings and beliefs. The abuser is driven by his own needs, fears and frustrations. Whenever these emotions overwhelm him, he breaks out in an act of violence. So the violence is unpredictable. It is certainly not under the victim’s control. So if all is going well with the abuser, he may be quite happy with the chicken meal that his wife serves him one day. However, if things are frustrating him at work, he may react violently and release his anger by battering his wife because he perceives that she is taunting him by serving him a chicken meal. So no matter how hard the victim tries, she is generally unable to keep the abuser pacified.

Opinion:
• The victim can stand up for her rights by fighting back. She must like the abuse if she takes it.

Fact:
• The victim often feels helpless and hopeless. If she fights back, the beatings become worse and more severe. The abuser wants and expects total control. As the abuser’s need for control increases, so does the violence. He becomes more and more intolerant of any challenges to his authority, ie, whenever something does not go exactly as he wants. All difficulties are taken personally and his rage is turned on the most available person, ie, his partner, the victim. Any resistance on the victim’s part will be met with increased rage and violence.

Opinion:
• The victim could always get a member of the family, a friend, a priest or even the police to “talk” to the abuser so that he would stop the violence. Fatal mistake.

Fact:
• This intervention by anyone without any specialised knowledge of domestic violence or mental health issues will result in the abuser retaliating in a more vicious manner towards the victim.
• Most often the victim’s story is discounted and her credibility is undermined. This fulfils a common prediction that abuser’s make: No one will take the victim’s story seriously. So the victim is talked to and advised to stay and to keep trying because the abuser may be a good provider and has a good public image.

Opinion:
• Domestic violence is a private matter for the abuser and the victim to work out among themselves. In other words, it is a personal matter concerning the husband and wife and nobody else should get involved.

Fact:
• Domestic violence is a family, social and public health crisis of the gravest kind. In the USA it accounts for more deaths annually among women than heart disease and breast cancer combined. In Trinidad, domestic violence is increasing and claiming more and more women’s lives every year.
• Church leaders, mental health professionals, medical professionals, and educators must all take responsibility to curb domestic violence by seeking more facts about domestic violence and becoming trained to deal with the situation in an effective manner. This can be done with a planned approach by the government and the social welfare institutions in the society. TTAP’s membership includes many psychologists who work in the field of family violence and have the necessary expertise to advise and train other members of our society who are called upon to deal with domestic violence.

Women must not die any longer because of the collective ignorance about domestic violence in our society. When a woman approaches someone for help in a situation of domestic violence, she must be supported and encouraged to find a safe place. Under no circumstances should the abuser be informed that she has sought help because this may provoke a literally murderous rage within him. Women, children and men cannot be safe from domestic violence until we as a society are willing to admit that it exists, to acknowledge its true extent and to condemn it as completely unacceptable behaviour for any reasons whatsoever.

DR KAREN MOORE
Clinical Psychologist
Public Statements Committee,
Trinidad and Tobago Association of Psychologists (TTAP)