Silverman, Jay G.

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Pace Law ReviewVolume 24Issue 1 Fall 2003 Article 9September 2003When Paradigms Collide: Exploring thePsychology of Family Violence and Implications forLegal ProceedingsJay G. SilvermanFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/plrThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Law at DigitalCommons@Pace. It has been accepted for inclusion in Pace LawReview by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Pace. For more information, please contact cpittson@law.pace.edu.Recommended CitationJay G. Silverman, When Paradigms Collide: Exploring the Psychology of Family Violence and Implicationsfor Legal Proceedings, 24 Pace L. Rev. 231 (2003)Available at: http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/plr/vol24/iss1/9When Paradigms Collide: Exploring thePsychology of Family Violence andImplications for Legal ProceedingsJay G. Silverman, Ph.D.*This is an incredibly important area, and I really appreci-ate what folks have had to say so far this morning on how diffi-cult an area of practice this really is. Some of what we havedone as psychologists, as people trained in child developmentand child protection, is close our eyes to a lot of what is the real-ity of women and children's lives and how to serve them in casesof disputed child custody involving a history of domestic vio-lence. What we have moved towards, very importantly, inthinking about intimate partner violence (IPV), is moving awayfrom incidence-based definitions of the problem (e.g., somethinghappened once, something was thrown, somebody was shovedequaling partner violence). At least this is true in our conceptu-alization of the problem. The research side is still quite depen-dent on such checklist-based definitions, unfortunately. Whatis very important for the practitioners here to understand isthat IPV should be thought of as a pattern of behavior that re-sults in coercive control of other members of the family, whereother people are living in fear based on some history of actual ofcredible threats of violence. And that is something that isn'treally that difficult to assess, when you're speaking to people,but it's not easy to assess when you're using standardizedmeasures.* Jay G. Silverman, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department ofHealth and Social Behavior and Director of Violence Prevention Programs at theDivision of Public Health Practice, has co-authored the first book about the impactof the parenting or men who abuse their female partners, THE BATTERER AS PAR-ENT: ADDRESSING THE IMPACT OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ON FAMILY DYNAMICS (SagePublications Inc., 2002). The Batterer as Parent sets out to debunk the mythsabout the short and long-term impacts of batterers on children.1PACE LAW REVIEWViolence against women is now recognized as a publichealth issue, both in the U.S. and internationally.' When welook at statistics from all large representative studies and na-tional studies conducted across the globe, it is extremely clearthat the brunt of family violence is experienced by women andchildren.2 Women are much more likely to experience this inti-mate violence and much more likely to be injured. 3 They arealso much, much more likely to be killed.4 The majority of per-petrators of child homicides are partners of battered women.5 Avery large percentage of the population is affected by domesticviolence.6 For all of these reasons, we desperately need to moveaway from the individual psychology-based conceptions of thisproblem. This is a broad social, political problem and a hugepublic health threat around the world.Physical violence is what we most commonly focus on. Thephysical is the easiest to measure and it's more convincing. So,that tends to be what we talk about. But, other forms of vio-lence are likely to occur more often. Usually where there isphysical violence or a credible threat of physical violence, otherforms of emotional abuse, economic control, immigration-re-lated abuse or exploitation of other vulnerabilities exist as con-trol tactics. 7 Recent studies are helping us to understand someof the non-injury health consequences of intimate partner vio-1. See WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION, WORLD REPORT ON VIOLENCE ANDHEALTH (Etienne G. Krug et al. eds., 2002).2. See Heise L. Ellsberg & M. Gottmoeller, Ending Violence Against Women,27 Population Reports 1 (Dec. 1999), available at http://www.infoforhealth.org/pr/lll/violence.pdf (last visited Nov. 24, 2003).3. PATRICIA TJADEN & NANCY THOENNES, U.S. DEP'T, OF JUSTICE, EXTENT, NA-TURE, AND CONSEQUENCES OF INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE: FINDINGS FROM THE NA-TIONAL VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN SURVEY 5 (2000), available at http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffilesl/nij/181867.pdf. (last visited Nov. 24, 2003).4. See LAWRENCE GREENFIELD ET AL., U.S. DEP'T OF JUSTICE, VIOLENCE BY IN-TIMATES: ANALYSIS OF DATA ON CRIMES BY CURRENT OR FORMER SPOUSES, BOY-FRIENDS, AND GIRLFRIENDS 11 (1998), available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/vi.pdf (last visited Nov. 24, 2003).5. M.E. Herman-Giddens et al., Underascertainment of Child Abuse Mortalityin the United States, 282 JAMA 463, 463-67 (2000).6. See TJADEN & THOENNES, supra note 3, at 9-11.7. See, e.g., Anita Raj & Jay G. Silverman, Violence Against Immigrant Wo-men: The Roles of Culture, Context, and Legal Immigrant Status on Intimate Part-ner Violence, 8 VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN 367 (2002).232 [Vol. 24:2312http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/plr/vol24/iss1/9WHEN PARADIGMS COLLIDElence.8 They include digestive problems, abdominal pains, uri-nary tract problems, headaches, back pains, etc.9And for children, what we are grappling with in the pastdecade is to find a way to integrate our growing knowledge ofpartner violence against women with our longer term accumu-lated knowledge of child abuse and neglect. Both IPV and childabuse experts are guilty of closing our eyes to the other prob-lem, seeing these as separate issues, as separate ways of think-ing about families, as separate training specialties, and it hasbeen to the tremendous detriment of both fields, and much moreimportantly, to the well being of women and children. But, weare beginning to understand how closely tied child abuse andintimate partner violence really are. There have been a goodnumber of studies that show a tremendous overlap betweenchild maltreatment and woman battering. 10 Whether it's com-ing from studies that are focusing on child abuse neglect, or fo-cusing on intimate partner violence, if you ask the rightquestions, you will find that where there's children involved,there are bad things going on for those children. The samecharacteristics of an individual that lead them to desire or useforce to control their partner, absolutely lead them to desirethat same control and to be likely to perpetrate that same neg-lect or abuse of their children.'1 We would all like to believethat people do their best to be good parents and when there is aproblem in the marriage, that doesn't necessarily mean thattheir not working hard to be the best parents they can. Unfor-tunately, when somebody is battering a partner, my experienceis that they are almost always actively involved in some sort ofchild abuse or neglect. And it's something that we need to payattention to. Even in terms of homicide, this is something thatis very hard to swallow for a lot of people, but the largest groupsthat are responsible for child homicide in the United States are8. See Stephanie A. Eisenstat & Lundy Bancroft, Domestic Violence, 341 NEWENG. J. MED. 886 (1999).9. Id. at 889.10. See, e.g., S.M. Ross, Risk of Physical Abuse to Children of Spouse AbusingParents, 20 CHILD ABUSE & NEGLECT 589 (1996).11. LuNDY BANCROFT & JAY G. SILVERMAN, THE BATTERER AS PARENT: AD-DRESSING THE IMPACT OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ON FAMILY DYNAMICS 29 (Sage Publi-cations Inc., 2002).2003] 2333PACE LAW REVIEWdads and former male partners. 12 We only need to look in thenewspapers-it's there all of the time. Sometimes you have toread between the lines, and they forget to connect the last dotfor you, but it really is there. And this threat to children doesn'tgo away after marital separation. Women and children areprobably experiencing the greatest threat to their safety at thepoint where they are seen by professionals in this room. Whatkeeps very many women from ever taking steps to get awayfrom an abusive male partner is the threat that they will losetheir children or their children will be hurt if they make thatmove. 13 People who have gotten to that point, where they feelthe threat of remaining is greater than the threats associatedwith leaving, know they have a tremendous amount on the line.What tools are left available to the abusive individual who islooking to maintain control are those children. We see a tre-mendous overlap again between highly contested child custodycases and history of intimate partner violence. 14 I think thatthat is absolutely no coincidence. It's the people who are mostlikely to be saying "I'm going to get custody of those kids, I amnot going to work with you as a co-parent" and who are the leastlikely to want to figure out what children really need, to work tounderstand and care for these kids, who are likely to have per-petrated some abuse against their families. Not always, but it'sa huge overlap. Beyond the heath issues, there are major socialconcerns for kids who are exposed to intimate partner vio-lence-anxiety, low self-esteem, low social adjustment, hostili-ties, aggression, and school related issues, both academic andbehavioral. But there is a very broad range in children's re-sponses to exposure to domestic violence. The research demon-strates that effects are most pronounced in younger children. 15That's very important. Often, we will hear arguments that"they are only three, they are fine." Even if they've heard somethings, we're often not so worried about that. But it's really im-portant that we don't do that, because those kids are most af-12. See Herman-Giddens et al., supra note 5, at 463.13. See BANCROFT & SILVERMAN, supra note 11, at 13.14. See Catherine C. Ayoub et al., Emotional Distress in Children of High-Conflict Divorce: The Impact of Marital Conflict and Violence, 37 FAM. & CONCILIA-TION CTS. REV. 297 (1999).15. H.M. Hughes, Psychological and Behavioral Correlates of Family Violencein Child Witnesses and Victims, 58 AM. J. ORTHOPSYCHIATRY 77 (1988).234 [Vol. 24:2314http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/plr/vol24/iss1/9WHEN PARADIGMS COLLIDEfected by this kind of exposure. They will heal when there isdistance and safety from the abuse. This is very important.What decisions we make regarding safety we provide throughour reports and orders in terms of safe settings for supervisionand custody must consider whether there is safety from some-one who has perpetrated abuse or neglect. We are deciding howlikely these individuals are going to begin to heal from what hashappened to them.Parenting behaviors and roles in the family continue afterthis divorce and separation. What are the parenting character-istics of batterers? Beyond the obvious perpetration of physicalviolence against children, we often overlook sexual abuse, i.e.,incest perpetration. There is a high overlap statistically-menwho perpetrate partner violence are much more likely thanother men to be incest perpetrators against their daughters. 16We are often faced with allegations of sexual abuse and ourlives would be easier if we could assume they are for the mostpart false. False allegations of sexual abuse have also beenstudied and have found to be actually over-estimated-mostoften these allegations are found to have some basis and notmade maliciously.17 They are based on true belief of the motherbased on a child's behavior. Such allegations need to be investi-gated. I am not certainly sitting up here saying that any allega-tion should be blindly believed, but investigation of this issue iscritical. Too often, these are ignored in a court setting based onwhat the particular emotional state of the parties is or someother factor.Other important parenting characteristics that requirecareful investigation and time with all parties are neglectful au-thoritarianism, undermining of mother's role as a parent, androle reversal. Role reversal is where the parenting dynamic isbased on the parent's needs rather than the child's.' 8 Examplesare unwillingness to be drawn into activities that are the child'schoosing, but demanding participation of the child in activitiesthat are interesting to him. Undermining the mother's role16. See BANCROFT & SILVERMAN, supra note 11, at 84.17. Nancy Thoennes & Patricia Tjaden, The Extent, Nature, and Validity ofSexual Abuse Allegations in Custody/ Visitation Disputes, 14 CHILD ABUSE & NEG-LECT 151 (1990).18. See BANCROFT & SILVERMAN, supra note 11, at 35.2003] 2355PACE LAW REVIEWoften involves characterizing her to the child as unfit, unintelli-gent, not able to provide for needs, etc.19 This can lead to behav-ior evident in interviews with children-mom will be blamed forwhat's gone on, with one or more of the children treating hervery disrespectfully. This can lead an investigator to blame themom, thinking these kids are treating her this way and sheseems to be letting it happen, this women is obviously in verytough shape, look at the way they are acting. Divisions in thefamily are also often a product of batterers' behavior with theirchildren.20Post separation risks are very important to consider. Menwho batter are often inconsistent in their demands and follow-through regarding visitation. 21 There may be great contentionover his needs to have access to particular weekends or holi-days, and then when it comes time for the visit, he doesn't fol-low through. Too often, we don't follow-up and ask ourselveswhat does this tell us. Another important red flag is interfer-ence in services for children. In many situations, abusive menwill view any type of therapy as a threat to their control. An-other more obvious concern is the use of visits and exchanges tocontinue abuse of mom, at least emotionally. These threatsneed to be guarded against. He may behave abusively towardchildren in unsupervised visitations, or in supervised visitationwhere the supervisor is not a professional. Supervision reallyneeds to be professional. In many cases we'll find the supervi-sor is his mom or new partner. That's not supervision. Inap-propriate behavior in visitation may include portraying orpromoting disrespectful behavior to the mother, blaming thesituation on the mother, and trying to have a child take care oftheir needs as a victim of the situation (e.g., "I'm so depressed. Imiss you so much. I don't know if I can go on. I'm afraid Imight hurt myself. Help me."). This is not only incredibly inap-propriate; it is incredibly detrimental.There are also common behaviors seen in the courts in suchcases. Use of his professional relationships or status to disputethe abuse is an example. Many abusive men are able to con-form and be quite upstanding citizens in other realms. These19. Id. at 33.20. Id. at 77.21. Id. at 106.236 [Vol. 24:2316http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/plr/vol24/iss1/9WHEN PARADIGMS COLLIDEare not people who have any generalized anti-social behavior.You see over and over again the TV cameras on the bewilderedneighbors saying "but he was such a nice guy." This is not datato rely on. Using the victim's anger to discredit her is also acommon tactic. Making false defensive allegations (e.g., "she'sthe one who has actually abused the kids.") is often seen. Thiscan make for an extremely confusing situation for court person-nel and may lead to conclusions that these are just two vindic-tive people in a divorce and that none of the allegations shouldbe taken seriously.Mediation is not appropriate when there have been allega-tions of abuse. Over and over again we've heard from batteredwomen that they felt coerced by probation officers into agreeingto things that they do not want. Because of the history of abuse,the fear, an abuser's threatening body language, etc. they mayenter into agreements that they would not have otherwise.With regard to the healing environment, physical and emo-tional safety is paramount. Structure, limits, predictability,these are obvious things that are very, very important. Astrong bond to the non-battering parent. This bond with thenon-abusive caretaker of the children has to be protected. Wehave to understand that this may be under attack post-separa-tion from the abusive parent. We must help children maintainthat bond. We must make sure that children are protected fromfeeling responsible for what is happening between the adults.Children do, most often, want to have contact with a parent,even when there is acknowledged, documented abuse. But, ithas to be safe. Again, professional supervision has to be availa-ble. Bonds with siblings must also be protected. We've seenmany cases where teenage boys are inappropriately awarded tothe father while the younger children remain with the motherbased on beliefs regarding the importance of a father at thispoint in their lives or mom's difficulty in managing a teenager'sbehavior. This is a huge mistake. There is no basis for thesekinds of decisions. Almost every battered mother we haveworked with has experienced discrediting of her concerns forher children. Over and over again, a mother's desperate con-cern that the children are continually being exposed to thethings that she knows they were exposed to in the marriage isused to characterize her as hysterical and alienating the chil-2003] 2377PACE LAW REVIEWdren from their father. Because these pleas are often very emo-tional, they are often discredited. It's very difficult for us tostand back, we don't have very much time, and this person justseems to be a problem-they won't sit down, they won't be "ra-tional." We have to work harder to consider the perspective of aresponsible parent. They have a tremendous amount at risk.They and their children may have been severely traumatized atthe hands of the man on the other side of the aisle. Althoughit's very difficult to work through these cases, we have to workmuch harder to reconsider paradigms that may be appropriatein divorce cases where domestic violence is not an issue. I'mgoing to end here. I'm not going to talk about the BatteredMothers' Testimony Project. The full report on this project isavailable from Wellesley College online. 22 I do appreciate yourtime.22. WELLESLEY CENTERS FOR WOMEN, THE BATTERED MOTHERS' TESTIMONYPROJECT: A HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT ON CHILD CUSTODY & DOMESTIC VIOLENCE INMASSACHUSETTS, available at http://www.wcwonline.org/wrn/projects.html (lastvisited Nov. 18, 2003).[Vol. 24:2312388http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/plr/vol24/iss1/9

When Paradigms Collide: Exploring the Psychology of Family Violence and Implications for Legal Proceedings

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When Paradigms Collide: Exploring the Psychology of Family Violence and Implications for Legal Proceedings

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