I hope you all had a wonderful spring break if you're in school, and if not I hope you have been enjoying this amazing weather! Today's post is about preventing abusers from ever becoming abusers. Is it possible? Can we prevent abusers from abusing?
I am obviously not an expert of any sort, but I have been starting to do a lot of research on this topic since it really intrigues me. So many people want to immediately point the finger at the victim and ask why it happens to them. We ask 'why THAT person? What qualities do they have that made them more prone to be a victim? What's their family background of abuse; did they grow up in an abusive household?' And so on. We focus on how to protect people from becoming victims, but isn't a huge part of that understanding where the abusers come from? We cannot simply ignore that half of the equation is missing when we solely talk about the victims and the victim perspectives. If we ever want to end domestic abuse, we are going to need to look at all of the aspects of it, including the abusers themselves.
This post is going to be a brief overview of my opinions and generic research since it will obviously take a lot more than one post to comprehend this complex issue! The first steps to ending abuse may be small but they can lead us to creating new possible solutions and better understandings as to why this happens.
So what can we look at first? Well we know that abuse is a calculated, conscious, and repetitive act. If we are assuming the abuser is mentally stable (to say the least), then what causes them to rationalize violent or manipulative/abusive behaviors? Are their brains simply wired differently? Do they not feel empathy? One aspect we can look at is their psychological 'map' so to speak. We can see if there are actually any trends in abusers that can show us whether there is a correlation between their mental constructs and their abusive behaviors. Perhaps we can research studies (or conduct our own eventually!) that can study the psychological health of an abuser. In doing this we can determine whether there is a biological predisposition that abusers possess that could potentially predict their behaviors. This is not to assume that anyone with this biological predisposition would definitely become an abuser, but it may help us narrow down the types of people who do. Once we can figure out how to narrow those people down, we can learn how to intervene.
What if abuse is a learned behavior? A lot of research supports this theory because statistics show that children born into an abusive household are 80% more likely to become abusers themselves. That is a large number, but it is noteworthy to mention that not ALL children born into abusive households become abusers. If a child is born into an abusive home, they may never have been taught what a healthy relationship looks like. If they grow up believing that violence or abuse is love, then who is to tell them to act any differently in their own adult relationships? If abuse is a learned behavior, can it be unlearned? If we study this aspect more as well, then perhaps we can conduct interventions and workshops that redefine love for these abusers and show them that abuse is unacceptable and unhealthy. Some statistics show that children who witness abuse in their homes tend to blame the victim for ruining their family. They don't know any better, and sometimes the abuser will manipulate the children into supporting the abuse in a sense. If this is the case, perhaps the chid aspires to be like their abusive parent when they are an adult. These are all possible scenarios of learned abusive behavior. So if these are more possible explanations to why people become abusers, we can find more efficient ways to prevent someone from becoming an abuser.
Other theories on why abusers abuse has to do with their physical behaviors and expressions themselves. Mainly with physical abuse there is a lot of hostility and anger that comes with the violence. Is it possible that anger management could help the abusers stop themselves from physically abusing their partner? We have to be careful not to excuse their abuse by saying it is merely out of their control, because we cannot excuse abuse in any instance. However, if anger is the true issue, then this may be a great point of access to reach these troubled people. Of course there are a lot of people with anger issues who do not abuse their partners, so we know that could never be the only indicator. But, if it's one piece to the puzzle then it's one piece closer to seeing the whole picture.
Personally I believe these aspects are all important, and I know there are many others that I haven't even touched on. However the best part about being a student is that you never stop learning! I am continuing my research and I love to share it here. I want to stress again that these observations are merely that; they are based off of my experience and research in the field, but I have not tested them myself or seen any proof other than data supporting the theories. If you have information regarding this topic, I would love to hear what you have to share! Please 'like' my Facebook Page Stop The Hurt, and follow @Stop_TheHurt on Twitter! Feel free to post articles or your own blogs there and I will repost them and follow you back!
I apologize for not posting regularly, but I hope you enjoy these posts! Have a wonderful day and do your part and stop the hurt!
