Those of us who work with the offenders or the victims of domestic violence, whether from a criminal justice, social work, or mental health perspective, have become convinced that "effective intervention" is a function of the ability of the community to work together to solve a common problem. The more seamless our attention to the problem, the harder it is for people to fall through the cracks. Thus we are collaborating to create a coordinated community response.

Any shared enterprise, especially when it involves people from very different disciplines, is going to be complicated. There are many pieces which must come together. First of all, someone has to see that there is a problem. This person may be a school teacher, a neighbor, a police officer, a medical professional, a family member... someone who knows enough about the family and the relationships to see what the system is trying to hide.

Then that person has to be able to share the knowledge with someone else such that they also see that there is a problem and further that they see the same problem. Then the people who see the problem have to believe they have a responsibility to intervene, to have an agreed upon strategy for intervention and the resources to be able to intervene. It is no wonder that we fail to do this adequately.

A central feature of this or any common enterprise is that we have to share an understanding of the problem. Any discipline will develop a language to talk about what it does. One confounding characteristic of domestic violence intervention is that we are not able to agree on our terms. At a recent conference I observed that the "problem" was variously named domestic violence, family violence, intimate partner violence, intimate partner abuse, abusive relationships, battering relationships, woman abuse, wife battering, and woman battering. While these all mean roughly the same thing, the people who use these terms choose them very deliberately because they mean for them what they are trying to say. There are nuances of meaning which are felt to be important. Unfortunately, we are not clear on the nuances and so we act as though we are talking about the same thing when, at times, we are not.

When working to confront offenders, I have found it necessary to be very precise in the terms which I use. I have had men insist to me that they have never abused their wives for, whenever they hit her, it was with an open hand, whereas abuse is when you use your fist. So a prominent feature of the program is that we attempt to be very specific about our terms and what they mean. For that reason, I am very sensitive to the variations in meaning which we use in our efforts to come together as a community. It seems to me that we are talking about two separate phenomena with the same words. True, these phenomena often exist in the same context; that is, they often overlap. We need a language which acknowledges these different processes so that we can intervene with each of them.

One common frustration we often feel when working with the victim of the problem is that she does not see the risk which she experiences as being as great as it truly is, and thus that it is something from which she should act to protect herself. She sees the relationship as being normal when we who are well acquainted with the dynamics see it as diseased and toxic. A part of the confusion comes from the fact that there are aspects of the problem which are normal, for they are a part of most if not all intimate relationships.

Who among us has never felt hurt by our intimate partner? Only those of us who have never had an intimate partner. We not only feel slighted from time to time, we even experience our partners making choices which we believe they must know will hurt us. Not only do they make such choices in relationship to us, but we make the same sorts of choices with them. We all, from time to time, do things which hurt the ones we love. When this happens to us we feel abused. Thus I am going to suggest we call this phenomenon abuse.

Some people who work as victim advocates strongly resist this naming of abuse as something which everyone does. They argue that this "normalizes" a serious social problem and gives offenders an excuse by saying, "Hey, everybody does it. So why is everybody picking on me." Recognizing that there are some problems with this choice of terminology, let us look at what the word might mean.

There are many definitions for abuse. Often what people say when asked what abuse means to them is to state that it can be physical or emotional or financial or sexual. That is, there are many modes of relating which can be abusive. But that does not really say what the abuse is. Not all emotional behavior is abuse. So what distinguishes abuse from other interactions?

Another prominent way in which people use the term abuse is that it applies to behavior which has "gone too far." In cases of child maltreatment one will often hear speculation about whether the treatment has "risen to the level of abuse." That is, has it gotten to the point at which we have the responsibility and the authority to intervene.

Within the field of offender intervention, a long established definition is that it is "any behavior, regardless of intent, which controls or limits the choices of another." This has some merit when used in the context of adult intimate partner relationships but it runs into trouble especially when applied to parent-child relationships.

Let us suppose for a moment that I have a three year old son. He loves to ride his tricycle up and down the sidewalk. One day I see him ride down the access cut at the corner into the street. I tell him in no uncertain terms that he may not do that. If he rides his tricycle in the street, I will send him to his room for 15 minutes.

Is it abuse for me to threaten my son or to attempt to control his behavior in this way? Some may suggest other ways to intervene, but few will argue that I should not act to control his behavior when he shows an inclination to do things which are life-threatening for him.

Now let us suppose that I let his mom know to keep an eye on him because I have to run to the store for a few things and leave him riding up and down the sidewalk. Upon my return, I see him cruise down the ramp into the street and as he turns, he sees me see him. He immediately gets back onto the sidewalk. Now suppose that I decide that, since he is back on the sidewalk and I have groceries to put away, I will just ignore his foray into the street. Is this abuse? Some will say that this is not abuse but neglect, but only a few will fail to recognize that my failure to follow through on the consequences which I promised will be confusing and harmful to him. It is important that he experience me as consistent and so to ignore his transgression is a form of abuse.

Now let us suppose that when I get home from the store he has already put his tricycle away and is in his room playing with his Legos. I put the groceries away and sit in the living room reading the newspaper. He comes bounding into the living room with an object that he has made and he starts to climb up into my lap to show me his prized creation when I stop him saying, "Leave me alone. Go to your room for fifteen minutes." Is this abuse?

Even though we have already established that it is not only alright, but even necessary that I send him to his room for fifteen minutes when he rides his tricycle into the street, everyone recognizes that this is a different circumstance. It is different, not because the power to control his behavior is different, but because the context is different. When I send him to his room for riding into the street he has chosen to violate a limit which he knew existed. He will experience the consequence as related to his wrong choice. When I send him to his room for climbing on my lap, he will not know what it is that he did wrong. In the first instance he gets the boundaries in his world confirmed, in the second instance he gets the boundaries confounded and confused.

From my point of view as the one with the power to send him to his room, the difference between the events is that in the first instance I am using the power which I have over him to meet his needs, in this case for safety. In the second instance I am using the power which I have over him to meet my needs. Not that there is something wrong with meeting my own needs. But, if I need some time alone, I can send myself to my room. It is getting what I need at the expense of another which is at the core of abuse.

So let us return to the concern that we not use a definition of abuse which applies to things which everyone does. Certainly not all abuse is alike. Given this definition, ignoring someone is abuse. That is clearly not in the same league as breaking someone's nose. If abuse is "whenever one uses the power one has over another to meet one's needs at the expense of the other," the amount of power over which is invoked and the degree to which an action is at the expense of another are huge variables. There is a continuum of this type of behavior. At one end there are things like not wanting to talk about a problem in the relationship right now (low power, low harm). At the other end there are things like murder (high power, high harm).

I must point out that some acts which may appear to be insignificant can become highly important in the relationship and in the life of the victim when they;

Thus a six year old boy who was beaten by a neighborhood bully and had his collarbone broken may be less harmed by that event than is a boy whose father repeatedly promises to take him fishing and does not. Similarly, when a current event evokes feelings which resonate with an earlier traumatic event, an action which uses very little power over may do a high level of harm.

So, not all abuse is alike. Some acts are worse than others. We have to draw the line somewhere. We have to have some rules by which to structure our common life. A part of learning to be well socialized is to know what we may do and what we may not. We call behavior which goes beyond the line, crime. The problem of where to draw the line is one which our criminal code is designed to address. The line is drawn with as much precision as 4000 years of the legal profession can muster.

Now, not everything which is a crime is treated as a crime. And because many people, among them the majority of offenders, don't see it as a crime if you don't get convicted, there are problems with naming this "behavior which goes too far" as criminal. We want the focus to be on the offender's choice, not on the response of the community to that choice. So, instead we call it violence. Violence is any behavior which could be considered to be a violation of the law.

Thus, in the long continuum of events which comprise the spectrum of abusive acts there is a point at which the larger society says, "Now you've gone too far. That behavior will not be tolerated. You are making a choice which is a crime." That violation of the law is what I am suggesting we refer to as violence.

In the mid 80's I was privileged to travel to Central America on a couple of occasions to observe the political struggle going on there. On the plane trip back from a visit to El Salvador I wrestled with the images of torture which I had heard first hand from some of the victims. They had vividly described witnessing their loved ones being murdered in ways designed to be as painful and humiliating as possible. Terrorism is about creating terror in others. The question which tormented me was, "How could anyone decide to treat another that way?" What came to me was that this horrific behavior began to make sense when seen through the lens of working with men who batter. My distress was not from being unable to understand what this behavior is about, but from the fact that I do.

One of the things which terrorism and battering have in common is that they are both patterns of behavior which make no sense as isolated events but begin to reveal themselves when seen as a connected whole. When trying to address the phenomenon from the perspective of the individual events, the reality of what is going on slips through our fingers. When I question a man who batters his wife about his choice to curtail the money he gives her and to cut up her credit cards, his response is that he was forced to take such drastic action by her failure to manage the money properly. He is able to point to a stack of bills which necessitated his action. He is only doing what any sane person would do. Am I suggesting that he let her spend them into the poor house? These arguments about the justifiability of his choices are a hallmark of a larger pattern. We must come to be able to see this larger pattern if we are to become able to address it.

Oppressive systems such as terrorism or battering have features which identify them as examples of a larger pattern. There are many "ism's" which fit this pattern. Racism, sexism, nationalism, sectarianism, ageism, heterosexism, classism, ableism... the list goes on and on. Each of these oppressive systems has certain things in common. They are created by a pattern of abuse which establishes and maintains one person or party in a relationship of dominance over another; this behavior is justified by a social analysis which excuses or requires this dominance; the actions of the oppressor are kept secret; and the conflict which supports the pattern of abuse is internal to the oppressor. Let's look at these one at a time.

We all do things which are abusive and we all tend to do the same things over and over again. I tend to forget to actually tell my wife about things which have happened when I have only had a conversation with her in my head. She tends to talk to me from the other room where I can't hear her. These are patterns of abuse. But they do not create a context in which one of us is dominant over the other.

When people of color have different requirements for registering to vote than do whites, when higher paying jobs with greater responsibility go only to people with less skin pigment, when police are more likely to stop a car with a burned out tail light if the occupants are black; then we have a pattern which establishes and maintains dominance. When a man belittles his wife for being disorganized when dinner is five minutes late, when he routinely questions her about the content of her conversations with her friends, when he reviews the shopping list before he gives her money to go shopping; he has established a pattern which maintains his dominance.

As we have seen in our discussion of the nature of abuse, there are times when we are obligated to assert control over others. If I allow my son to ride his tricycle in the street, then I am failing in my responsibilities as a parent. There are times when we must, for the sake of a healthy society, act decisively in ways which limit the freedom of others. But we must do so in ways which do not meet our needs at the expense of the other.

When one group of people claim that an historic event gives them a right to possess land which is currently occupied by others; when a man states that he has to raise his children the way he was raised in order to honor his own parents; when a man explains that his behavior toward his wife is to gain her submission in compliance with Biblical teaching; then the dominance meets the needs of the oppressor at the expense of the oppressed.

We all do things which we do not want others to know about. We have a right to privacy. But there is a difference between secrecy and privacy. Privacy is keeping from others things which do not affect them or which they have no right to know. Secrecy is keeping from others things which do affect them or which they do have a right to know. Secrecy is silencing others so that they cannot make known to others what is happening to them.

When the first thing the new government does after a successful coup is to take over the radio and TV stations and to shut down the newspaper, when the men ride out to the lynching with hoods over their heads, when the family does not go to church when her bruises show; then this is not privacy but secrecy.

We all experience internal conflicts. Popular culture sometimes depicts this conflicted feeling with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. But often the conflict does not have a clearly good and bad side. For example we may want to tell the boss what we think of him and yet we also want to keep our job. We feel the tension and we don't know where to go with it. Often we will take it to the relationship in which we feel safest or to the people for whom we have the strongest feelings. But when we act out those feelings in such a way as to give them to the other or to make them responsible for our feelings, then we are being oppressive.

When the young men who are worried about being able to support their families get worked up about the "foreigners who are taking all the jobs" and burn down the Korean grocery store, when the woman who has just been fired from her job comes home and screams at the kids, when the man who has just been flirting with the new secretary at work comes home and accuses his wife of having an affair; then they are making others responsible for their own internal conflicts.

These patterns are like the whirlpool in the bathtub drain as the water runs out. It is a stable pattern when viewed from afar but it dissipates when we try to grab hold of it. In order to see it, we have to stand back from it. At a distance, there are some things which stand out when we look for them.

Is this a relationship in which the need for dominance is creating instability? In a healthy relationship there will be times when someone takes charge in order to maintain the stability of the system. When that taking charge makes the system less stable, it is oppressive. The batterer may be genuinely concerned about financial instability, but are the actions he is taking actually building greater financial accountability? Is it working? Or is there some other goal which is driving this need for dominance?

Is this a relationship in which there is a list of should's, ought's and supposed to's which are controlling everyone's behavior? We all have certain guidelines which we set for ourselves to help us know how to behave. But when there is an obedience to the guidelines for their own sake, they become oppressive and are an indication of a system of oppression.

Are there secrets? We can't generally know what the secret is, but we can often discover that there are things which are being hidden. When people are reluctant to talk about things which seem to be in their best interest to disclose, then we can surmise that this is a way in which the system seeks to protect its secrets.

Is this a relationship in which it is one person's job to fix the feelings of the other? We all want to have people around us who will be sensitive to what is going on with us and will be willing to make adjustments in their wishes to accommodate our needs. But when it is one person's responsibility to be there for the other such that the distress of one becomes the fault of the other, then this is an oppressive system.

So we have two distinct phenomena which often coexist in the same relationship. There are events which are abusive and even violent in which one person acts to meet his own needs at the expense of the other, at times in ways which are criminal. And there are relationships in which there are patterns of events which characterize them as oppressive, that is, in which one is being battered by the other.

Since they commonly exist in the same relationship we may not recognize that they are separate and it may seem to some as though this is a distinction without a difference. What value is there in naming them separately?

If we are looking at the problem primarily from a criminal justice point of view, we are looking for violations of the criminal code. If there is no crime, there is no problem. Thus if the battering exists in a climate of coercive control which is so artful and refined that criminal behavior is not necessary, it flies beneath the radar of the criminal justice system. This doesn't mean that it is not seriously harmful and worthy of intervention. It just means that criminal interventions are not going to be possible.

If we are looking at the problem from the point of view of the battering relationship and the systematic oppression which supports it, we are going to see every relationship in which there is violence as being battering. Yet there is such a thing as mutual violence and there are times when the one who crosses the line and commits a crime is the one who is the victim of the oppression. There is such a thing a reactive violence in which the one who has been oppressed can't take it any more and lashes out. We have an obligation to deal with the crime, but we must also hear it as a cry for help and be able to offer that help if we are to deal with the situation in an enduring manner. Justice is not simply punishing the criminal, it is creating a system in which the needs of all are met.

Further there are mechanisms of intervention which are highly effective in some situations and counter-productive or dangerous in others. Most particularly, many couples will seek marital therapy when there are problems in the marriage. If the problem is that their abuse of each other has become so extreme that they are doing serious damage to the relationship and to the family, then marital therapy can be very effective. But, if the problem is that the woman is becoming less and less tolerant of the domination of her husband and he is escalating the tactics which he is using to control her, then any contact between them which does not fully take into account this dynamic will very likely be used by him to reinforce that "she is to blame for the crazy things she is doing which are ruining the marriage." Without an understanding of the problem which we are trying to address, we run the risk of choosing a tool for intervention which will only make matters worse or we will abandon a tool which may be very effective.

There are a pair of beliefs which seem to be a feature of the human condition. They are, "I have a right to get what I need," and "some of what I need I can only get from others." We come to these beliefs honestly. Our society has a notion of the existence of universal human rights. There are certain things which everyone deserves. And some of the things which we need come from others, particularly when we are infants.

Though in their purest expression these beliefs are true, there is a slippery slope which leads down to, "I have a right to get what I want," and "I can only get it by getting others to change." It is these beliefs which under gird our choice to abuse each other. When strung together in a pattern of choices which mesh with the choices of others which we identify as being like-minded, we create systems of oppression.

We all resist the acknowledgement that we do things which are abusive because that would make us abusers. We all resist the acknowledgment that we have the secret belief that we are entitled to have others be the way which would meet our needs because that would make us racist, sexist, classist... batterers.

We would like to live in a simple world where there is a clear distinction between the good guys and the bad guys, provided that we are the good guys and they are the bad guys. We are the advocates and the interveners and they are the victims and the perpetrators. This is a way of defining the problem which makes things clean and simple. The problem with this is that it is also a way of defining the problem which makes it impossible to solve. I cannot solve a problem which is not my problem. If I am trying to solve someone else's problem, then I am trying to make them change. When I am trying to make them change to satisfy what I need, I am abusing them. We will not teach abusers not to abuse by abusing them. We will not empower battered women to act on their own behalf by telling them what to do and belittling their choices when they don't do what we want. We will only solve the problem by entering into relationships with others in which we are acting to create what we need without expecting them to change in any way. We will only solve the problem by being alert to the ways in which we dominate others, to observe how we justify our own entitlement, to identify the secrets which we keep and not allow our internal conflicts to spill out into our relationships with others.

The author is the founder of the Abuse Prevention Program which is a project of the Center for Creative Conflict Resolution. The Abuse Prevention Program does counseling and education around the issues of family violence. You may contact the author by various means:

Rev. Dr. Mark Lee Robinson

Center for Creative Conflict Resolution

6454 Alamo Ave., Suite 2E

St. Louis, MO 63105-3155

314-863-2363

314-727-4068 fax

mark-app@charter.net

(C) May, 2001