SPOUSAL ABUSE

SPOUSAL ABUSE

Goals of Lecture:Assessment & Treatment

Goals of the Class THE STRUCTURE OF ASSESSMENT

• THERAPEUTIC ALLIANCE• RISK ASSEMENT• NEUROBIOLOGY OF VIOLENCE• SYSTEMIC THEORY OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE &

ATTACHMENT THEORY• UNRESOLVED TRAUMA

GOALS OF ASSESSMENT PROCESS

• WORKING TO DEVELOP THE THERAPEUTIC RELATIONSHIP

• ASSESS CLIENT’S SUITABILLITY FOR TREATMENT• CLINCICAL DIAGNOSIS• ASSESS VIOLENCE & SOCIAL HISTORY• ASSESS RISK FOR FURTHER VIOLENCE• PROVIDE INTERVENTION FOR VIOLENCE CONTROL• DEVELOP ASSESSMENT-BASED TREATMENT PLAN

THERAPEUTIC ALLIANCE

• THE CHALLENGE…• TO BUILD A Therapeutic Alliance WITHOUT

COLLUDING WITH DANGEROUS ACTING OUT BEHAVIORS

• Because so many perpetrators and victims have experienced abuse by authority figures, the process is difficult.

OBSTACLES

1. LOW MOTIVATION• INVOLUNTARY CONSUMER• SECONDARY MOTIVATION: IE. KEEP PARTNER FROM

LEAVING OR TESTIFYING MOST Perpetrators. AND Victims HAVE INSECURE

ATTACHMENTS>AFFECTING THE WAY THEY REGULATE ATTACHMENT. BECAUSE OF THESE DEFENSE MECHANISMS>RESULTS IN CREATING MORE EMOTIONAL DISTANCE BETWEEN SELF AND OTHER.

• Perpetrators MAY PULL FOR NEGATIVE REACTIONS IN THEIR THERAPISTS.

OBSTACLES FOR THE THERAPIST

• Balancing client’s needs for privacy with criminal justices needs for information

• Therapists anxiety about exposure to liability working with a high risk population may compromise comfort and availability

THERAPEUTIC ALLIANCE

• Client , on the one hand, elevates the therapist to a position of authority

• On the other hand, client believes power and authority is shared between them

• A deep sense of collaboration and participation occurs in the process

• A positive attachment develops, yet this is rarely true for the perpetrator due to maladaptive defenses

ATTACHMENT

• Attachment is a tie or bond that binds two people and serves a psychological and biological function across a life span.

• The biological function = both physical protection and the development of neurobiological capacities in the developing brain of the infant.

Attachment

• The psychological function = development of the self & an understanding of self in relationship to others.

• For the adult, the biological function can be physical protection but also psychological protection. As emotional caretaking allows the adult the freedom to go out and explore their world.

ATTACHMENT

• For adult partners, each person can be the caregiver and the care receiver.

• Balance of these roles varies from relationship to relationship.

CHARACTERISTICS OF ATTACHMENT RELATIONSHIPS

• PROXIMITY MAINTENANCE

• ONE WANTS TO BE CLOSE IN PROXIMITY

• ONE FEELS LOSS WHEN ONE IS AWAY

• THERE MAY BE ANGER AND FRUSTRATION AT REUNION

IRONIC SAFE HAVEN•

• ONE RETREATS TO ANGER AND FRUSTRATION WHEN FEELING ANXIOUS AND FEARFUL.

• ANGER AND FRUSTRATION OFFER A SECURE BASE TO RETURN “HOME” TO.

ATTACHMENT THEORY

• BOWLBY AND AINSWORTH BELIEVED THAT• SECURE ATTACHMENTS DEVELOP DUE TO• MATERNAL AND PATERNAL SENSITIVITY AND COOPERATION.

SENSITIVITY

• CAREGIVERS ability to accurately interpret the infants ever changing need. To accurately read the infant and to respond accordingly within a timeliness.

4 components of sensitivity

• Awareness of signals

• Accurate interpretations

• Appropriate response

• Prompt response

COOPERATION

• Do interventions break into, cut across, or interrupt the infants ongoing activity or are they geared in both timing & quality to the child’s state, mood, & current interests?

Facilitating secure attachments

• Sensitivity & cooperation are the basis for healthy parent child/child interactions.

• If this process breaks down the child experiences a break in the connection, or feels ignored, or intruded upon

• When there is misattunement which occurs with frequency…the child becomes anxious (escalated) or cut-off (avoidant).

ATTACHMENTS

• Understanding your client’s attachment status is critical to breaking long held beliefs about close relationships or what Bowlby described as the internal working models of self and other”.

DANIEL SIEGEL :PROCESS OF EMOTION

• THE BODY KNOWS WHAT ITS FEELING BEFORE THE MIND KNOWS

• THE MIND PICKS UP THE MESSAGE RELAYING: “PAY ATTENTION, THIS IS IMPORTANT!”

• THE MIND MAKES A DECISION—THIS IS GOOD OR THIS IS BAD(MOOD)

• THIS PROCESS OF AFFECT(MOOD) CAN BE ELABORATED INTO CATEGORIES OF AFFECT:

CATEGORIES OF AFFECT

• ANGER• FEAR• SURPRIZE• DISGUST• JOY• EXCITEMENT• SHAME• SEE NOTES ON SHAME(CLASS SET)

• MOST COMUNICATIONS BETWEEN INFANT and PARENTS OR ADULTS IS PRIMARY AFFECT AS OPPOSES TO CATEGORICAL AFFECT.

• MUCH IS SAID WITHOUT SAYING IT.

PRIMARY AFFECT STATES

POSITIVE PARENTING

• THOSE who grew up in healthy families where primary emotions/positive affect was shared and negative emotions/ primary affects soothed constructively are more sensitive to themselves and others.

LESS POSITIVE PARENTING

• THOSE WITH LESS POSITIVE PARENTING ARE QUITE OUT OF TOUCH WITH OR UNABLE TO ARTICULATE THEIR PRIMARY AFFECTS AND THEIR CATEGORICAL EMOTIONS.

• MUCH OF WHAT THEY ARE FEELING IS COMMUNICATED BEHAVIORALLY RATHER THAN WITH WORDS.

• NOR ARE THEY SENSITIVE TO THE EMOTIONS OF OTHERS

IN THERAPY

• Many clients have not learned the language of primary affect nor the language of categorical emotion

• Many cannot discern primary affect communicated via facial expression, eye gaze, tone of voice, body motion, and timing of responses.

IN THERAPY

THIS CAN BE:

• TAUGHT• REFLECTED• PRACTICED

In therapy

• Clients feel understood because their state of mind is being “felt” by another.

• • discussion & movie excerpt :IN THE

BEDROOM

WHAT CONSTITUTES MOTIVATION FOR CHANGE

• PRECONTEMPATION• CONTEMPLATION• PREPARATION• ACTION• MAINTENANCE• RELAPSE PREVENTION AND RESPONSE

WAYS OF CHANGING

AN INCORRECT MYSTIQUE

• The idea that all individuals are in complete control of their behavior stems from the socio-political perspective that emphasizes

• Power• Control• Self-will• Accountability• discussion

• THE VAST MAJORITY OF BATTERERS NEED MORE THAN JUST THE MESSAGE: “ USE VIOLENCE…GO TO JAIL”.

NEGATIVITY TO CHANGE

• Violence is a function of a complex interaction of biological, psychological, and social processes that require complex interventions.

• Change takes time• New opportunities arise for deepening the

work• Learning new coping skills• Refining and personalizing interventions• Securing safety

COMMON PSYCHOLOGICAL DIAGNOSES

• Depression, anxiety or both• Psychoactive substance abuse and

dependency• Posttraumatic stress disorder• Neurobiological disorders• Personality disorders

DUTTON’S TYPOLOGY

DUTTON’S BATTERY TYPOLOGY

• OVER-CONTROLLED: deny rage while experiencing chronic frustration an resentment

• UNDERCONTROLLED: act out frequently• INSTRUMENTAL: use violence “coldly” to obtain

specific objectives• IMPULSIVE:• act out in response to a buiding inner

psychological tension

REACTIONS TO DISSATISFACTION

Conditional model of violence prediction

• Individual biological/psychological factors:• History of violence• Substance abuse• Need for medication• Psychiatric disorders

SOCIAL/ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS

• PEER support for violence(ie. Gangs)• Economic stressors• Occupational stressors

RATIOANAL FOR USING ATTACHMENT THEORY

• Violence occurs in the context of attachment relationships

• Anger and loss associated with maintenance of proximity

• Very high rates amongst batterers with insecure attachment

• High rates of childhood trauma among perpetrators and victims of violence(30-50% among victims).

PARENTS & CHILDREN

PARENTS AND CHILDREN

• Most parents, in their efforts to help their children, focus attention:

• on decoding the child’s behavior yielding an expertise about the child

• but also a blindness to their own contribution.

POWER

• Violence is an ugly form of power in the face of which we all feel threatened.

• 2 forms of violence

• Violence to achieve a goal = coercive• Pleading violence in which the victimizer

perceives himself/herself to be the victim

divorce

• Children of divorce do scary things. • They have seen parents stop loving each

other.• The possibility of abandonment terrifies them• Competition with new members ( step

families) becomes very serious business, it’s survival of the fittest.

Rollo May

Rollo May’s levels of power

These levels of power are seen as potentialities within everyone:

The power to be-neither good nor evil, but NOT neutral.

Power is energy. This energy must be lived out or it results impotently in death, neurosis, psychosis, or violence

Rollo May:Power

• Self affirmation: I am, I matter• Self –assertion: that which emerges against

opposition to self-affirmation• Aggression- as opposed to asserting ones self, “this is

me, this is mine”, moves into positions of power, prestige, the territory of another—a taking possession of some of it for one’s self.

• Violence: ineffectual aggression can lead to a physical explosion with access to reasoning and persuasion being blocked off.

INNOCENCE

• PARADOXICALLY, ONE WAY OF CONFRONTING ONES POWERLESSNESS,

• is by making it a seeming virtue; • by consciously divesting one’s self of ones

power and proclaiming that divestiture as a virtue.

• This is known as pseudoinnocence

2nd KIND OF INNOCENCE

• A quality of imagination, a childlike clarity of freshness in adulthood often carried by the artist or the poet yielding a freshness, a newness, a wonder or a spirituality

• WITHOUT sacrificing the realism of one’s perception of

evil, one’s complicity with evil. Rollo May call this authentic innocence.

Violence Mythos

BARBARA WHITMER: THE VIOLENCE MYTHOS

• Western culture has a fundamental lack of understanding of trauma for the self, the other, the collective yielding:

• The interpretation of violence as innate• A lack of resources to heal from trauma and to

prevent trauma

2 ways of learning violence

• Direct experience

• Vicarious experience (observational).

WHAT ARE WE LEARNING?

Behavior

• Behavior is conditioned by:• Cognitive appraisal• Modes of learned response• Effectiveness of behavior within a matrix of

social relationships• Expectations of social acceptability, tolerance

and cost.

• Whitmer’s lenses is that of the “self” and relational rather than motivated by intrapsychic factors of instinct, brain centers, or aggressive energy.

• She draws upon reports from the Viet Nam War where PTSD resulted from the fear of killing rather than the fear of being killed.

• Whitmer believes that acquired aggression depends on biological factors, where as the habit of aggression depends on previous learning.

THE VIOLENCE MYTHOS

• THE MYTHOLOGICAL and symbolic tradition of violence includes beliefs in:

• Necessary violence in times of famine and war• Necessary violence as innate in instincts• Salvivic violence• The hero archetype and attitudes of domination &

subservience of women, others(non-white), animals and nature

• Institutionalization of war as primary mode of social change i.e.. War on drugs, war on poverty, etc.

Violence & Theoretical Discourses

Freud

• Freud viewed the aggressive impulse differently from Ricoeur with respect to Western culture which describes life energy as belligerent and overpowering

• How force is determined depends upon the values that have been placed upon the mysterious, the unknown, the uncontrollable by the society .

To look at violence one must first look at desire

• Desire is the strong longings or hopes for something. The achievement of which produces joy, satisfaction.

• Degrees of desire:• Want: felt need or lack• Wish: vague or passing longing• Crave: force of physical appetite or emotional need• Covet: inordinate and envious desire for what

belongs to another

FREUD

FREUD

• Equilibrium of unpleasure yields(>) tension yields(>) pleasure =lowering of tension

• Repression=defense against connecting with a hostile memory image

• For Whitmer, the hostile memory image, not the death instinct, yields the compulsion to repeat destructive acts to self and other.

FREUD

• FOR FREUD: Desire lies within the organism of self undulating between expression and repression creating distortion of unrecognizable expressions of the unconscious

• It (the psyche) lacks a mechanism for recognition of the relational , hence is deterministic.

RICOEUR

For Ricoeur

• Because wishes are a demand on another person, they are psychosocial

• The other is the aim of the demand.• The subject is also the recipient of the response of

the other• The interpretation of the demand can be varied• The demand may or may not be recognized,

fulfilled, accepted, returned with a counter demand

Ricoeur Cont.

• In order for the subject to discern if the demand has been fulfilled, the subject must be able to discern the others response

• The degree of success/failure depends on the degree of trust

Freud & Ricoeur

• Both Feud & Ricouer agree that faulty desire determines human aggression.

• Rollo may believe impotency determines aggression.

• All agree that self-formation is motivated by and attained through conflict and struggle, with an unconscious impulse to aggress in the struggle for self-realization with another.

Erik Ericson

Ericson

• In infancy, the orientation of trust/mistrust is forged via the relationship of infant/caregiver adequately or inadequately meeting the infants needs.

• This early somatic, non-linguistic memory sis reverted to on the shattering of trauma

• Early mistrust is accompanied by an experience of total rage, with fantasies of destruction and domination.

Ericson cont.

• Early trust is accompanied by a sense of hope, faith, and inter-related goodness between inner and outer worlds.

• Trauma shatters the mind’s ability to process new information and update the the inner schemata of self and world.

• Unassimilated traumatic memories are stored in active memory creating an intrinsic tendency to repeat the representation of contents.

Ericson

• Reliving trauma carries the same emotional intensity as the original trauma

• The compulsion to repeat represents spontaneous healing attempts to restore efficacy an power.

• The shattering of the mind’s inner schema of linguistic signification shatters also the mind’s cognitive layer of organization.

LANGUAGE AND TRAUMA

• Linguistic signification requires the literal, • Then the somatic to be signified symbolically• then applied to the new experience. • This creates a pattern of expectation and

response.• This allows the self to learn vicariously and to

cope.

LANGUAGE AND TRAUMA CONT.

• Coping allows one to increase their chances of survival by NOT having to re-experience the life-threatening event Again or itself,

• but to learn from the successful survival experience of another.

• Ericson believes that the inner schema is language oriented.

• However, Daniel Stearn does NOT agree. • He believes that language is but one line of the matrix

within the schema. For him Schema pre-dates language.

Ericson and Language Cont.

• Belief:• Until there is a means to signify the trauma

event( name it, understand it) there is perpetual repetition

• The act of telling the story to a witness in safety can change the abnormal processing of trauma.

• Terror is reversed through words.

• Freud couldn’t account for the stuck, repetition compulsion he called “the death instinct.

• Eventually he looked to the biological working of neurons. His research is followed more closely here today than ever. Ever since the invention of the MRI.

• Watch 1st. Movie Segment: In The Bedroom

Next lecture #2

STERNBERG’S TRIANGULAR THEORY OF LOVE

• 8 Types of Love dependant upon combinations of three elements:

• INTIMACY• PASSION• COMMITMENT

STERNBERG

• INTIMACY: How much of your hopes, dreams,, fears, and secrets are shared

• PASSION: level of sexual attraction felt

• COMMITMENT: your willingness to commit to a life together

8 Types of Possible Love

• Non-love: all 3 missing• Liking (intimacy only)• Infatuated Love (Passion only)• Empty Love ( Commitment only)• Romantic Love: (intimacy + passion)• Compassionate Love ( intimacy + commitment)• Fatuous Love (passion + commitment)• Consummate Love (intimacy +

passion+commitment)

DEVELOPMENTAL TASKS FOR GENERATING A GOOD MARRIAGE BY JUDITH WALLERSTEIN

• The couple needs to separate from their family of origin( discuss cultural differences).

• Couple must build togetherness through mutual identification and shared intimacy.

• Couple must nurture a rich and pleasurable sex life.• Couples who choose to have kids must embrace

parenthood yet protect the privacy of their lives.• The couple must confront and master the crises of life• Couple need to create a safe haven for the expression of

differences, anger and conflict.

Wallerstein Cont.

• They should use laughter and humor to keep things in perspective and avoid boredom by sharing fun, interests, and friends

• They must provide nurturance, and comfort for each other

• They must keep alive the early romantic, idealized images of falling in love while facing the sober realities of the change wrought over time.

IN THE BEDROOM

• THE FOLLOWING MOVIE WILL NEED TO BE WATCHED IN ITS ENTIRETY.

• IF YOU MISS A SEGMENT IN CLASS PLEASE RENT TO VIEW FOR YUR PAPER.

IN THE BEDROOM

• SEGMENT TWO:• CLASS DISCUSSION• LOOKING TO THE DEVELOPMENTAL TASKS OF

MARRIAGE, CONSIDER THE MANIFESTATION OF THESE TASKS WITH REGARD TO THE MARRIED COUPLE (SPACEK AND WILKINSON)

DOING COUPLE’S THERAPYby Toby Bobes & Barbara Rothman

• Conviction: “ Healing and growth occur from understanding the health and strength of the relationship rather than examining its pathology

• Discussion

THE SHIFT FROM LINEAR TO CIRCULAR & SYSTEMIC

• SEE NOTES FROM QUANTUM PHYSICS• SEE VIDEO: “SOUL”

BOBES & ROTHMAN ASSUMPTIONS

• The couple & family are the clients• Change in one family member affects entire

system• Transgenerational patterns• Focus is on circular causality not linear• Interactional patterns focused on in here and

now

BOBES & ROTHMAN CONT.

• Family is a system with:• Interdependent parts• Boundaries mark part distinctions• Its an organization that struggles to maintain

equilibrium

Bowen

• The differentiation of the self both intrapsychically and interpersonally is key:

• Hold onto self while remaining in close proximity to significant other

• Use of triangle to relieve anxiety when the dyad is too intense

BOWEN CONT

• Partner with someone of similar level of differentiation and this causes:

• Marital conflict• Spouse dysfunction• Child dysfunction

CONTINUED

• Projection causes undifferentiated parents to focus on the most vulnerable child. Triangulating him/her to stabilize the relationship

• Multigenerational patterns• Cut-off• Birth order• Societal regression

OBJECT RELATIONS THEORY

• All of us internalize our early relational experiences with our primary caretakers. This influences how we perceive objective reality in adulthood with regard to:

• Soothing/accepting• Frustration/rejection

Object Relations Cont.

• Painful experiences that are too much to bear create split-offs or denial

• These elements are then stored in the unconscious until a relationship triggers or activates the old wound.

• The past is alive in the present •

CASE STUDY

• FRANK’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

OBJECT RELATIONS CONTINUED

• Internal family relationships strongly influence:

• Perceptions• Behaviors• interactions

OBJECT RELATIONS

• PEOPLE REPEAT PATTERNS AND BEHAVIORS LEARNED AS CHILDREN

• INTERNAL images or disowned aspects of self are projected onto another person The other person unconsciously accepts the projection and behaves as if it were his/her own

• The work of therapy is to separate individual internal worlds for actual relationships today

OBJECT RELATIONS CONT.

• Change occurs when unconscious processes become conscious & people become empowered to make new choices

• discussion

POSTMODERN COSTRUCTIVISM

• The way we see the world is a personally peculiar way of looking that has been shaped by language

• The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, give meaning to our lives.

• Therefore language creates meaning around events and thereby creates reality

POSTMODERNISM CONT

• The focus of therapy need to be the stories the clients tell and the collaborative conversations NOT the interactive repetitive patterns

• The spirit of therapy is collaborative NOT one of expertise

POSTMODERNISM CONT.

• The linguistic separation of the person from the problem creates a person’s story, which has become their problemed identity.

• This can be rewritten, first by externalizing the problem

Developmental family life-stages

• Developmental stages of the individual, couple& family must be viewed simultaneously

• The navigation through developmental stages creates the opportunity to address issues of grief and loss re: endings and new beginnings

Erikson’s 8 stages of development

• Infancy: trust vs. distrust• Early childhood: autonomy vs. shame/doubt• Play age: initiate vs. guilt• School age: industry vs. inferiority• Adolescence: identity vs. identity confusion• Young adulthood: intimacy vs. isolation• Middle adulthood: generativity vs. self-absorption• Senescence: integrity vs. despair

NEXT LECTURE;CLASS THREE

Attachment theory meets systems theory

• The most robust predictors of a child’s attachment capabilities is the state of mind re: attachment of the caregiver vis a vis their own parents.

ATTACHMENT

• Attachment & the brain from birth to 2(and beyond)

• Attachment relationships help the immature brain to develop important capacities related to interpersonal functioning

• In the prefrontal cortex:

Attachment & the Brain Cont.

• In the prefrontal cortex:• Societal cognition• Response flexibility• Emotion regulation• Reflective functioning• Autonoetic functioning

Attachment categories

• Secure• Anxious-avoidant• Anxious-ambivalent• Disorganized(afraid of caregiver) = fear

without solution

BEQUEATHED ATTACHMENT STYLES

• Secure adults engender secure children• Dismissing adults engender avoidant relationships with

their kids• Pre-occupied adults engender ambivalent attachment

in their children• Adults with unresolved trauma or disorganized

attachments may act frighteningly or chaotically with their kids engendering disorganized attachment in their kids

•

SECURE ATTACHMENT PATTERNSby Hazan & Shaver

• Highly invested in relationships• Tend to have long, stable relationships• Characterized by trust and friendship• Seek support under stress and are responsive

to support• Empathic & supportive to others• Flexible when in conflict• High-self esteem( not shame based)

PRE-OCCUPIED STYLE OF ATTACHMENT

• Attempts to keep track of and hold onto partners> backfire>hurt feelings, anger, insecurity

• Obsessed with romantic partners• Extreme jealousy• Break up --reunite• Worry about rejection• Intrusive and controlling• Assert own needs• History of being victimized by bullies

Dismissing attachment style

• Grows out of a relationship with a caregiver who does not provide: contact, comfort, soothing> defensive self-reliance/ cool distant relationships with partners/ cool or hostile relationships with peers

DISMISSING CONT.

• UN-INVESTED IN ROMANTIC PARTNERS• HIGH BREAKUP RATE• LOW LEVEL OF GRIEVING• WITHDRAWS UNDER EMOTIONAL STRESS• IGNORES OR DENIES PROBLEMS• CRITICAL OF PARTNERS NEEDS• HISTORY OF BULLYING

DISORGANIZED STYLE

• A result of conflicted, disorganized, disoriented behavior of a frightening caregiver > desperate, ineffective attempts to regulate attachment anxiety through approach and avoidance

Disorganized patterns of behavior

• Introverted• Unassertive• Feels exploited• Lacks both self-confidence and is self-conscious• Feels negative about self• Anxious, depressed, hostile, violent• Self-defeating• Reports physical illness(somatic)• Fluctuates between neediness and withholding

THE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE DANCE

• TENSION

• EXPLOSION

• HONEYMOON

• THE DYSFUNCTIONAL MODULATION OF CLOSENESS AND DISTANCING

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

• All of the energy tied up in the dance of violence interferes with the confrontation of the necessary realities of loss

• Interferes with assimilation: the re-identifying of the self in the world which necessitates secondary losses in ones roles

• Interferes with reinvesting the self in the world in a different way

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

• INETERFERES WITH TRANSFORMATION• Exposes children to the impact , trauma, and

chaos of violence and interferes with their observation of “healthy loss” coping skills and modeling of transformation

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

• AMBIVALENT REPONSE TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE MINIMIZES THE VIOLENCE

• DISCUSSION

BEHAVIORALIST ‘ VIEW

• Behavioralists view symptoms as learned responses

• They concentrate on the symptoms themselves and look for responses that reinforce problem behavior

Behavioral Cont

• Intermittent reinforcement is the most resistant to change

• discussion

Behavioral cont

• Reciprocal reinforcement• Aversive control: nagging, crying, withdrawing• Poor problems solving skills• Lack of reinforcement for adaptive strivings

Working behaviorally with domestic violence

• Teaching how to communicate about a problem• Teaching how to change the topic, not to sidetrack• Teaching how to phrase wishes, complaints clearly, specifically,

concretely• Teaching how not to respond to complains with counter

complaints, i.e. : cross-complaining, name calling

• Teaching breathing• Teaching listening( with out interior responding)• Teaching how to tolerate open space for energy of tension• Teaching how to hold reactivity

Working behaviorally

• Recognizing schemas:• Beliefs, myths, roles, “shoulds” are the basis of

:• Self-fulfilling prophesies• Mind reading• Jealousy• bad faith

Working behaviorally cont.

• Cognitive distortions:• Arbitrary inference=Conclusions drawn with out

supporting evidence• Selective abstraction= certain details are highlighted and

others are not• Overgeneralizations+ isolated incident is taken ,

interpreted, felt as always, never.• Exaggeration or minimization• Personalization• Dichotonomous thinking—black and white

Behavioralism continued

• Labeling• Mind reading

THE HOPE AND ACT OF FORGIVENESS

Forgiveness

• To forgive is to will the well-being of victim and violator in the fullest knowledge of the violation

• Forgiveness is the exercise of transcendence through memory, empathy, & imagination

forgiveness

• It is the hope of our humanity—since it wields the power to break the cycle of violence

• The event off forgiveness is a lifetime investment in naming ourselves as we are

• And as we can be in the continuing evolution of our humanity

• see excerpt from film: Dead Man Walking

Forgiveness

• Well-being for the violator may include:• Coping with rage and hatred within• Learning how to forgive (which is a difficult

process) her/his abusers• Learning how to name one’s guilt• Learning how to forgive the self and others• Learning how to reach out in caring

Forgiveness

• Recognizes:• That for good or ill, there is an intertwining of

victim and violator• There is the well-being of one affecting the

well-being of the other

Forgiveness

• Entwining:• Entwining occurs well-after the violation.• Violence does not end with the act of violation.• It insinuates itself into the ongoing experience

of the victim.• Violation therefore robs time, the future by

forcing new experiences to conform to the contours of the old.

Forgiveness Continued

• The victim is joined to the violator thru the interior repetition of the violation.

• From a process point of view: the psychic continuation of a violation of the past into the present involves the victim, who, in some small way, maintains THE VITALITY OF THE VIOLATION, UNWILLINGLY.

FORGIVNESS CONT.

• Hence the victim comes to loath the self insofar as it experiences itself as psychically joined to the violator.

• This is NOT to blame the victim, but to grasp the process, the power by which violence ensnares the psyche of the victim.

• DISCUSSION

FORGIVENESS

• VIOLENCE MAY HAPPEN IN AN INSTANT BUT IT SEEKS A LIFETIME LEASE

VIOLENCE CONT.

• To will ones own well-being is to:• 1. will that the violence be relegated to the

past as objective memory.• 2. to no longer have the violence be continued

in the subjective experience of the present.

DIFFICULTIES WITH FORGIVENESS

Difficulties cont.

• Due to the sense of violation: insisting upon retribution or restitution based upon the point of view that there is a division of victims and violators.

• To break the world into victims and violators ignores depth of each person’s participation in the cultural sin”.

• discussion

Difficulties cont.

• Remembrance of “sin” in the context of vengeance is NOT the same a remembrance in the context of forgiveness.

• The difference is the WILL toward well-being as opposed to ill-being.

• It involves transformation as opposed to ill-being

Difficulties cont

• There simply are no innocents

• discussion

Difficulties cont.

• Transformation vs. destruction: one seeks a new future/the other perpetuates the past.

Dilemma cont.

• Accepting the will towards ones own well-being creates a loss of the “internalized” guilty self.

• In the freeze frame of trauma, there is a stoppage of time ad a stoppage of ones own total development

Dilemma cont.

• So, the refusal of forgiveness is not only:• The absolution of the past self• The distortion of each successive present to fit

the constructed parameters of the past• But, the loss of the whole self vis a vis

relationships

forgiveness

• Forgiveness promotes the release from guilt as a stuck place thus freeing the atrophied self

• In an inter-dependant world, willing ones own well-being is simultaneously willing the well-being of others.

Forgiveness cont.

• Thru the transcendence of memory, one differentiates one’s self from absorption into the past, allowing for the openness to claim a fuller past, one that contextualizes violence.

• Thru empathy one gains the ability to separate self from other, to “see” the other as they are and as they are in relationship to one’s self.

Forgiveness & the imaginal

• It is thru the imagination that the will to well-being can move into visions of well-being thus creating the very empowerment to work on well-being.

Religion & forgiveness

• For those patients who are religious the paradigm can be this:

• EVERPRESENT truth, love and beauty form a criterion of well-being

• They also form / inform memory, empathy and imagination

• Divine character is forgiveness

Religion & forgiveness

• THE DIVINE does not have a past• THE DEVINE contains the past• Hence THE DEVINE has no memory, in that

memory indicates a past.• But, THE DEVINE has truth, in that truth is the

fullest knowledge of all that has ever been• Within THE DEVINE, beauty and imagination

converge.

RELIGION & forgiveness• The imagination of The Devine is an ever-changing vision of

beauty wherein all manner of things shall be well• The human often cannot afford the vulnerability of acceptance

and love due to the power of the violation/violator over us, interfering with the will toward well-being.

• But The Devine has no such limitation hence all violators are invited into the great transformation that is God

• The Devine IS the living activity of truth, love and beauty. Hence It is forgiveness and hence the lure towards our own modes of forgiveness. This is not a mandate it is a pull.

• A pull to participate in the nature of The Devine.

RELIGION & FORGIVENSS

• It is also a pull toward the beauty and reciprocal well-being and the hope of transformation mediated through memory, empathy& imagination luring us away from violence.

Religion & forgiveness

• Convergence of empathy and love:• For the human, empathy does not require law,

in order to feel the otherness of the other. • For The Devine, who re-contextualizes and

resurrects the world, empathy and love converge.

• SEE FINAL SEGMENT OF IN THE BEDROOM