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Characteristics of female perpetrators of domesticviolence in group therapyAlan Schroffel Ph.D., LCSW

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To cite this article: Alan Schroffel Ph.D., LCSW (2004): Characteristics of female perpetrators of domestic violence in grouptherapy, Smith College Studies in Social Work, 74:3, 505-524

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Smith College Studies in Social Work 74(3), 2004

CHARACTERISTICS OF FEMALE PERPETRATORS OFDOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN GROUP THERAPY

Alan Schroffel, Ph.D., LCSW

(The author wishes to thank Duane Baker, MSW, whose expertise,endurance, and genuineness as a co-facilitator helped make

this paper possible.)

Abstract

This report is based on a set of clinical observations that identified uniquecharacteristics of 12 female perpetrators of domestic violence in courtordered 52-week group treatment. The observations are primarily basedon the experiences of two therapists who treated a group of 12 female par-ticipants, concurrent with two male groups, each of which consisted of 10participants. A number of comparative clinical observations are made inrelation to the treatment of these male and female perpetrators. The groupleaders identified three characteristics specific to female perpetrators ofdomestic violence: compulsive and premature disclosure by more thanhalf the participants in the woman's group, versus minimal or deferreddisclosure in the men's groups; perception of self as perpetrator andambivalent perception of self as victim in the women's group, versus per-ception of self as either victim or perpetrator in the men's groups; anddevaluation of self in the women's group, versus devaluation of the part-ner in the men's groups. The group leaders also observed that the percep-tions and attitudes of the younger, poorer, less well-educated participantsoften conflicted with those of their more affluent counterparts.

Therapists who treat mandated perpetrators of domestic violence ingroups must contend with direct expressions of hostility. They must alsohelp clients recognize and understand reasons for their dysfunctionalpartnerships and begin to think about how they can develop healthier rela-tionships. The clinical observations from this group strongly suggest thatpsychological and socio-economic factors interact to significantly influ-ence treatment process and outcomes.

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BACKGROUND

In 1998, the State of California legislated Penal Code statute 1203.097,requiring that all persons convicted of domestic violence attend a 52-week treatment group. In communities without treatment resources,courts were authorized to assign offenders to an alternative counselingprogram. Additional features of the statute include a minimum 36-monthformal probation; a criminal protective order to shield the victim fromfurther harm; varied fees and fines; and community service hours. Failureto be accepted into and actively participate in a treatment program, orexclusion from the group program after acceptance, were all consideredbreaches of probation.

The report is based on the observations of two clinically licensed socialworkers, one male and one female, who facilitated gender-specific groupswith male and female perpetrators of domestic violence. All group mem-bers had been convicted of at least one misdemeanor or felony related tothe offense. Treatment group size ranged from ten to twelve members.The paper is based on a review of clinical process in one women's groupover a one-year period. The agency under whose jurisdiction the groupswere conducted is located in a semi-urban community in SouthernCalifornia.

RATIONALE FOR THE REPORT

There is a dearth of literature related to female perpetrators of domesticviolence. Due to the preponderance of arrests and convictions, mostresearch is focused on the male population. This lack of research limitsour ability to understand causative factors and effective treatment meth-ods for female perpetrators.

The "National Violence Against Women" [NVAW] (1988) telephonesurvey, conducted between May of 1995 and November of 1996, sur-veyed 8,000 women and 8,000 men about their experiences with rape,physical assault, and stalking. According to this study, 25% of thesurveyed women and 8% of surveyed men had been raped and/or physi-cally assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, orsomeone they had dated, at some time in their life. In addition, 1.5% ofall surveyed women, compared with 0.9% of men, reported that they hadbeen raped and or physically assaulted by a partner in the previous 12months.

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Extrapolated, these figures suggest that in the United States, 1.5 millionwomen and 834,700 men are raped and/or physically assaulted each yearby an intimate partner. According to the survey, women who were rapedor assaulted by a current or former intimate partner were more likely tosustain injuries than were men. Thirty-nine percent of the women whowere physically assaulted after age 18 reported a sustained injury com-pared to 25% of men. Women reported 837,899 assaults while menreported 147,896 assaults by intimates, close to a six-fold difference.These statistics may help explain the preponderance of male-focusedresearch. In addition, violence against women was primarily partner vio-lence: 76% of the women who were raped and/or physically assaultedafter age 18 were assaulted by a current or former husband, cohabitingpartner, or someone they had dated, compared with 18% of the men.

According to Fagan (1996), assuming that patriarchy and power rela-tions alone cause domestic violence tends to obscure other causative fac-tors such as weak social controls, situational arousal, and psychopatholo-gy. Fagan also reported consistent differences in recidivism related to theseverity of perpetrators' prior histories of violence. Despite this finding,however, most research on the effects of legal sanctions for domestic vio-lence has treated batterers as a homogeneous group and has focused pri-marily on male perpetrators. Measurement of the effect of imposed legalsanctions is "...littered with weak evaluation designs...(and) small sam-ples... [only a] few studies have analyzed the effects of legal sanctionswithin a framework of increasing severity" (Fagan, 1996, p.31).

In at least one instance, data on assaults by women were purposely sup-pressed. The Survey of Spousal Violence Against Women in Kentucky(Washington, DC, 1979) was one of the earliest studies related to femaleperpetrators of domestic violence. The authors of this study initiallyexcluded information on female batterers. When the data on these violentcouples were reexamined, female participants' self-reports indicated theyhad initiated and committed 38% of the reported attacks (Klier, Jacobs, &Quiram, 1999).

The initial suppression of this information may be attributable to reluc-tance on the part of the researchers to consider assaults perpetrated bywomen to be equally significant to those perpetrated by men, the assump-tion being that violence by women tends to be 'minor' and 'harmless.'While men's assaults are more frequent and more violent, the decision tominimize, ignore, or rationalize violence by women (by not reporting thedata) may reflect an unconscious attempt, on the part of the researchers,to distance themselves from accusations of being anti-feminist. Because

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such defensive responses tend to support denial, deferment, and/or acqui-escence, they may ultimately result in far greater harm to one or bothcombatants (Klier, Jacobs, & Quiram, 1999).

CHARACTERISTICS OF FEMALE PERPETRATORS OFDOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN GROUP THERAPY

A number of theoretical formulations guide group leaders, including thetherapist's training and orientation. The observations reported in thispaper were generated in a psychodynamically-orientated treatment group.Gabbard (2000) described psychodynamic psychiatry as "...a way ofthinking about both patient and clinician that includes unconscious con-flict, deficit and distortions of intrapsychic structures, and internal objectrelations and that integrates these elements with findings from the neuro-sciences" (p.3).

While such a dynamic approach emphasized early childhood personal-ity development and subsequent therapeutic transferences, this paper doesnot propose an exclusive cause and effect relationship between earlychildhood experiences and domestic violence. Based on the experiencesof this writer, and taking into account the work of Carden (1994), whorecommended an integrated approach to treatment, a unitary approachfails to account for other theoretical formulations that add to our under-standing of how to address domestic violence. Many of these theoriesshare commonalties and are not as different from one another as sometheorists may wish to believe. It is the author's premise that pathologybased on conflict can best be examined through a lens that includes anexamination of social, economic, and culturally learned experiences.

Seligman's (1975) and Gelles' (1979) focus on social learning theoryand Lenore Walker's (1979) concept of "learned helplessness" empha-sized that women who grew up in violent homes tended to be more toler-ant and accepting of violence as adults. In a similar context, Painter andDutton (1985) referred to "traumatic bonding" as representative of the"strong emotional ties that develop between two people when one personintermittently harasses, beats, threatens, abuses, or intimidates the other"(p.364). Giles-Sims (1983), in the context of family systems theory, vieweddomestic violence between partners as "mutually causal elements" (p. 18)attributable to a couple's need to maintain homeostatic patterns of con-sistency and predictability. Feminist theory views battering as a socialand political problem (Straus & Steinmetz, 1974), assuming that tounderstand the abuse of power and control it is necessary to understandthe social construction of gender as it influences the perpetuation of the

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dominant male role, the subordinate female role, and the domestic vio-lence that results when such influences come into conflict. Feminist the-ory includes an emphasis on helping victims identify the impact of theviolence on personal behavior, self-empowerment, problem solving, theeffective use of social and legal institutions, and the use of therapeuticsupport groups (Resister, 1993).

Traditional psychotherapeutic guidelines rarely take into account theidiosyncrasies of treating court-mandated clients, and it is important toconsider whether mandating treatment is a precursor to failure. In themandated group discussed here, 9 of the 12 women treated over thecourse of a year became more self-aware and more assertive. As a result,they initiated major changes in their lives. An additional question iswhether providing group treatment for mandated clients is professionallyethical. The ethics of treating such a population must, in part, be weighedin relation to the judicial system's traditional provision of minimallysupervised probation and/or incarceration. While this important issuewarrants further investigation, a fuller discussion is beyond the scope ofthis paper.

Six primary parameters informed the authors' approach to group psy-chotherapy (Wolf & Kutash, 1990). They can be summarized as follows:

1. The presence of hierarchical and peer vectors in groups promotesparental and sibling transferences. The therapist is seen primari-ly as the authority and projected parental figure while group par-ticipants primarily serve to influence sibling transferences;

2. Patients use each other in both healthy and unhealthy ways andstimulate isolative members toward greater interaction;

3. Interpersonal and intrapsychic communication stresses self-knowledge designed to achieve personal and social integration;

4. Group pressure forces members to interact with each other;

5. Group interaction confronts monopolistic only-child tendencies;

6. Alternating roles, evoked by reactive feelings that include con-cern and understanding, frustration and discomfort, as well asother projective and reactive responses precipitate both interac-tive spontaneity and thoughtful contemplation.

The group for female perpetrators had three particular characteristicsthat warrant emphasis:

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1. Two major subgroups evolved in the female group. A number ofmembers described a sense of isolation in past relationshipswhile a number of others described lives filled with excessivestimulation involving relationships they experienced as hostileand chaotic. The members who felt isolated were often consumedby a sense of apprehension and fear. The members who felt over-whelmed often described their lives as filled with intense stimuliand drama;

2. Periodic changes in the group's composition resulting from somemembers' premature departure and the addition of new membersto replace those who left, may have recreated family dynamicsrelated to abandonment, lack of predictability, and an overallsense of vulnerability. This dynamic was amplified by theunavoidable departure and subsequent return of the femalecotherapist part way through the group;

3. The group process was characterized by the clients' use ofdevelopmentally early defenses and direct and indirectexpressions of hostility. These characteristics made it necessaryfor the therapists to recognize and address their own, powerfulcountertransference reactions.

Unresolved countertransference in reaction to overtly and covertlyexpressed anger increased the risk of emotional withdrawal, or of collu-sion in the development of treatment destructive transference enactmentsby one or both group leaders (who periodically felt overwhelmed by thegroup process). After the group was underway, the female co-therapist hadto take a medical leave, making it necessary to recruit a replacement ther-apist who remained only briefly. On leaving, she emphasized her angertoward the group members because of their "primitive process" unresolvedanger, lack of sensitivity to the needs of others, and overall lack of insight.Fortunately, the original female co-facilitator returned immediately afterthe substitute therapist's sudden departure. For some group members,these sudden changes in leadership reinforced their fear of abandonment.For others, the changes served as a catalyst, motivating them to confronthostile and disruptive behavior on the part of other group members.

COMPULSIVE, PREMATURE DISCLOSURE VERSUS MINIMALOR DEFERRED DISCLOSURE

Seven of the 12 women in the domestic violence treatment group com-pulsively, dramatically and prematurely disclosed highly-charged infor-mation about their violent confrontations with partners. These disclosures

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FEMALE PERPETRATORS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE 511

were problematic because they occurred without apparent considerationof how the other group members might respond, and before trust had beenestablished between group members. In addition, the leaders observedthat the self-disclosing clients seemed driven to tell their stories, and didso before considering how they might feel after the group session ended.The six other female group members tended to be quieter, more with-drawn and more self-protective. Premature self-disclosure in the women'sgroup contrasted dramatically with the narrative process that developed inthe men's groups, where the members tended toward minimal disclosureand/or evasion, especially during the early stages of group process.

Some of the more circumspect members of the women's group appearedshocked and/or bewildered by other members' dramatic self-disclosures.Initially, the more circumspect members tried to empathize with whatthey thought the dramatically self-disclosing members were experienc-ing. These attempts were almost always met with smirks, eye rolling andcomments such as, "you really don't have a clue." Typically, such inter-actions led to group silences followed by attempts, on the part of the morecircumspect members, to change the subject. In retrospect, it seems like-ly that the dramatically disclosing members were deliberately trying togain attention by shocking the more circumspect members, who they per-ceived as privileged and inexperienced about what life is "really" like.This pattern also raises complex questions about how the prematurelyself-disclosing women might have been experiencing and dealing withissues of shame and guilt.

The most notable example of compulsive, premature disclosure involveda young woman with no prior criminal history. She described havingthrown a chair at her boyfriend's lover and then holding a gun to his head.She was ordered by the court to have no contact with the male victim, anorder she routinely disobeyed. When confronted by the group about safe-ty and the likelihood of re-incarceration, she giggled and stated, "well ifI get caught, I guess I'll just be some girl's bitch."

The group-as-a-whole responded to this as a dangerous crisis and con-fronted her about her lack of judgment and insight, as well as about theself-destructive aspects of her behavior. She responded blandly to theconfrontation, without any noticeable traces of insight, worry, or concernfor her well-being or safety. A few weeks later, she chose to leave thegroup, calling to mind Glen Gabbard's (2000) description of patients withdevelopmental deficits, who "...suffer from weakened or absent psychicstructures... preventing them from feeling whole about themselves.. .requir-ing inordinate responses from persons in the environment to (help them)maintain psychological homeostasis" (p.3).

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This client's impulsive and premature departure from the group evokedserious concern about how the therapists could have helped her remain intreatment. In addition to concerns about this member's safety and welfare,the issue is of wider importance. Six of the 18 members who participatedin the women's group for one or more sessions left prematurely eventhough they knew that by doing so, they were endangering their proba-tionary status with the court. Four of these six women did so after com-pulsively and dramatically self-disclosing. Typically, they did not returnto the group after self-disclosing. After missing a number of subsequentsessions, they eventually informed the leaders that they had decided todrop out of the group.

Is it possible that the process of dramatic and premature disclosure mayrepresent a re-creation of what Walker (1984) described as the cycle ofabuse? The author, in the context of social psychological theory,described a three-phase cycle of ongoing, repetitive abuse: the tension-building phase; the acute battering phase; and the loving, contrite phase.Is it possible that the women who had attacked their partners and who, inthe group, dramatically and prematurely self-disclosed, were uncon-sciously re-enacting the first part of this cycle of abuse (the increasedbuild up of tension) without being able to move on to the loving, contritephase that had previously characterized their mutually combative rela-tionships? Is it possible that some of these women left treatment in a stateof fear and abandonment, due to the group's failure to excuse, simplify,rationalize, and reestablish the viability of their abusive relationships?

Would it have been helpful to redirect these women away from sharingtheir stories precipitously? Would they have felt safer and less anxious ifthe therapists had interrupted their narratives by asking them to describegrowing up in their families of origin before telling the group about howthey had attacked their partners? While some practitioners would viewtherapeutic direction of this kind as controlling, it might allow these vul-nerable women to develop more trusting relationships within the groupbefore self-disclosing in ways they later regretted. The women who dis-closed personal information compulsively, dramatically and prematurely,appeared to do so as a way of gaining the group's attention. While theattention-getting aspect of the narratives appeared to be conscious, thesecondary ambivalent calls for help seemed unconscious. On reflection,these women seemed more intent on commanding the group's attentionthan on trying to address their underlying problems and conflicts. In addi-tion, they seemed unable to imagine that they were intact and of value.

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PERCEPTION OF SELF AS PERPETRATOR AND AMBIVALENTPERCEPTION OF SELF AS VICTIM

Six of the group members perceived themselves as perpetrators but heldconfused and ambivalent beliefs about having been victimized. This wasin marked contrast with perceptions in the men's groups, where themembers presented themselves as either perpetrators or victims. Becausethe members of the women group members were both perpetrators andvictims, it was particularly important for them to confront the reality ofthe latter role in their relationships. While they had initiated the violentincidents that preceded their arrests, in every case there was a history ofverbal and physical abuse initiated by their partners. From the group lead-ers' perspective, the participants' ambivalence and confusion about beingvictimized was related to the highly dependent, symbiotic, destructivenature of their intimate relationships. They were hesitant to leave mutual-ly destructive situations, often professing love for the .partners who con-trolled and abused them. They described the controlling nature of theirrelationships, while simultaneously blaming themselves for not meetingthe partners' needs and expectations. Their role as victims was filled withambivalence and confusion. They could identify their partners' historicalrole in the abuse but tended to blame themselves for not being adequate-ly compliant with the partner's demands.

Hendricks-Mathews (1982) reported that therapy was less successful forwomen who self-blamed than for those who blamed their batterers. Millerand Porter (1983) viewed the tendency toward self-blame as a copingmechanism that allowed a woman to maintain an illusion of personal con-trol and maintain a belief in a "just world" that assumed people get whatthey deserve. Although group members, in a feminist context, stronglyadvised these women to seek court orders, access shelters, and re-focussome of the blame on their mutually combative partner, such efforts oftenfailed. This was frustrating to both group members and the group leaders.Register(1993) examined therapeutic blind spots that included therapists'sometime futile attempts to save women from themselves: "Such a direc-tion on the part of the therapist may indicate to the client that she is notbeing heard or accepted by the therapist. Such focus may place the ther-apist in the untenable position of validating the societal bias that tells thewoman that she is not competent to make her own decisions or form herown judgments" (p. 101).

One example of a group member's confusion and ambivalence involveda woman who described her male partner as insisting she remain at home,form no male or female friendships, and have minimal access to financial

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resources. Her partner created a highly controlling environment whilesuccessfully representing himself as provider and protector. This womanfelt both shamed by and rejected for her violent act. She initiallyexpressed little anger toward her husband despite his prior history ofphysical abuse. She accepted her husband's directive that she was notworthy of participating in any relationship outside the confines of hermarriage. She eventually came to realize that her state of dependency andwillingness to accept long-term social isolation was based on low self-esteem. She also came to realize that she was a victim of his long-termabuse and that she perpetuated much of this abuse through acquiescence,self-blame, and fear of abandonment.

A second example of this kind of confusion and ambivalence involveda woman whose husband "punished" her by embarrassing her in the pres-ence of their children. This woman had a long-term marriage and wasarrested after her husband awakened her in the middle of the night andplaced his hand within an inch of her face, as he screamed and pointedlythrust his fingers toward her face. As she abruptly awakened, she flailedabout and in the process, scratched his face. He then called the police andshe was arrested. When initially describing the incident to the group, sheclaimed she was not angry and had long ago learned the futility ofexpressing anger. She felt responsible for her actions but minimized herhusband's behavior and any responsibility he might have in the conflict.Apparently, she was unaware of how vulnerable she was at the time of theincident, having been awakened from a deep sleep. Her intent was to"never do it again." This woman often isolated herself from the othergroup members, describing herself as a highly passionate, creative per-son. She shared her beliefs in the power of glass crystals and extra sen-sory perception, but was not otherwise overtly psychotic. She believedshe had a good marriage and attributed her behavior to a lapse in judgment.

In a group session, the author asked her to close her eyes and to visual-ize this incident. She relaxed into a mildly dream-like stance. At thispoint, with a raised hand and fingers pointed within centimeters of herface, the author attempted to startle her, demanding that she awaken.When asked again if she felt any anger, she knowingly smiled andanswered affirmatively. This response evoked a great deal of group feed-back. Over time, through such feedback, she became aware of how sheoften attempted to maintain her sense of control through a passive-aggres-sive, non-verbal process.

It was many months later that her smiles of denial were transformed totears of loss and sorrow as she recognized how sad and alone she hadtruly felt for much of her 20-year marriage. The group experience gave

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her permission to begin to explore her futile quest to maintain the illusionof a perfect family, when in fact she was in regular conflict with both herhusband and their two children. Greenberg and Mitchell (1983) addressthe function of such illusions, which they view as regressive solutionsunconsciously designed to deny separateness and vulnerability. Thisclient's state of denial was operative through various illusions whichserved as ".. .a magical bastion against the reality of life; their purpose isnot pleasure, but an imagined safety" (p. 108).

As she became more aware of the abusive nature of these experiencesand her long-term acceptance of them, she began to challenge her hus-band and her self-esteem gradually improved. At the conclusion of treat-ment, she was better able to see herself as a separate and responsible per-son, and to identify and differentiate between her roles as perpetrator andvictim. She eventually asked her husband to move out of their home aspart of a temporary separation. To her surprise, he was receptive andmoved without incident. She gradually came to understand that she was avictim of an abusive husband and that she had perpetuated this abuse byher passivity and low self-esteem. The couple ultimately pursued adivorce. Greenberg and Mitchell (1983) discuss how some children try towin parental love and respect by internalizing their parents' view of themat the expense of their own individuality. The authors hypothesized thatthis group member's low self-esteem stemmed from a fear of socialostracism and object loss.

Several group members maintained intimate relationships with the part-ners who had previously assaulted them. Having decided to stay in theserelationships, they nonetheless complained that their partners wouldthreaten to call the police if they failed to behave in ways the partnersdeemed satisfactory. Overt and covert threats of this nature were particu-larly difficult for women whose child guardianship and visitation rightswere threatened. The crucial clinical question is why they returned to abu-sive situations. Melanie Klein (1932) provides an interesting hypothesis indescribing the repetition compulsion as an on-going process in which indi-viduals compulsively enact dangerous situations in the external world thatrepresent powerful internal anxieties.

The group leaders utilized this formulation by encouraging the mem-bers to discuss their own childhood experiences. The goals were: 1) tohelp them recognize the relationship between their own and their chil-dren's experiences; 2) to explore some of their internalized anxieties; and3) to examine how experiences with parents and siblings had affectedtheir adult object choices and the problematic behaviors that developed intheir couples' relationships.

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DEVALUATION OF SELF

Women in the domestic violence treatment group often reported identityloss and role confusion involving intimate relationships. While membersof the men's groups tended to devalue their partners, many of the womengroup members described a chronic history of self-devaluation. Whilemen in the perpetrators' groups insisted on maintaining a "one-up" stancein relation to their female partners, the women perpetrators often accept-ed the position of being "one-down," a position they temporarily reversedwhen they assaulted their partners. Interestingly, it seemed that the ideaof being equal co-partners had never occurred to them. Four of the sixfemale perpetrators who left the group prematurely, as well as one whocontinued in the group, returned to their partners, seemingly out of asense of insecurity and inferiority. Overall, the younger, less-educatedwomen had more difficulty leaving abusive and destructive relationships.Two members of the ongoing group became pregnant by their abusivepartners and chose to complete the pregnancies despite negative feedbackfrom several other group members. Bearing their partners' childrenincreased their dependency on the partners for financial and emotionalsupport. Both women who made this choice expressed regret about it astime passed.

It may not be surprising that economically disenfranchised women inrelationships fraught with issues of control, coercion, and manipulation,saw themselves in a negative light. From a feminist perspective, thesewomen's relationships were shaped by those power and control dynamicsrelated to gender inequalities. It seems possible that by self-disclosing insuch a manner, these members may have been anxiously trying to checkout how the other members would respond to their having temporarilyreversed the power dynamics in their relationship. Such a process appearsto have been unconscious and may be indicative of what Freud (1920)described as a part of the "repetition compulsion," an instinctual, uncon-scious repetition of one's behavior, despite past suffering associated withit. The members' behaviors in this case evoked negative responses fromgroup participants and resulted in their premature departure from thegroup.

When the group leaders directly tried to help members identify linksbetween their internalized self-representations and their object choices,they responded with various defenses including rationalization anddenial. They responded more positively, however, to being asked to dis-

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cuss their childhood experiences. Such discussions sometimes helpedthem recognize both how they were repeating internalized, family-of- ori-gin relationships with their partners and how enacting those relationshipsmight affect the lives of their children, both born and unborn. To thedegree these discussions loosened the hold of internalized object repre-sentations, they helped the group members create new'and different rela-tionships.

For some group members, particularly those who were unemployed, theperceived flattery bestowed upon them by their transiently remorsefulpartners following a violent conflict seemed temporarily to serve a com-pensatory function, providing meaning to shattered illusions of a life ofhappiness and bliss. The women's illusions of blissful happiness weresometimes revived when their male partners returned following an abu-sive conflict, armed with apologies, superficial remorse, flowers, andcandy. As the grandiose 'knight-on-white-horse' illusion died (frequently,a slow, prolonged, and painful death), tensions increased, and with it, thelikelihood of another violent episode.

Refusal to accept the lost fantasy of a life of intimate bliss seemed relat-ed to intense abandonment anxiety. Althea Horner (1984) in her discus-sion of oedipal strivings among children, noted how "...one child may bestruggling with the task of differentiation from an engulfing mother;another may be consumed with rage at an abandoning mother; and a moreevolved child may have negotiated the task of separation and individua-tion, attaining a modicum of object constancy" (p. 167). Abandonment,both past and present, was a common theme among the group membersand they responded positively to invitations to discuss the linkagebetween repressed feelings of abandonment and life-long feelings andactions that overtly or covertly expressed hostility.

SOCIAL CLASS CONSIDERATIONS

Socio-economic factors played a significant part in the group interaction.Women who led affluent and privileged lives more readily recognizedtheir potential to move from a dependent to a more independent lifestyle.This sometimes resulted in conflict between them and the subgroup ofpoorer women. While not always recognized or acknowledged as such,some poorer group members conveyed a sense of smug envy based ontheir belief that their struggles were both more understandable and moreintransigent. They seemed convinced that they could not change theirlives or their behavior because of the constraints and turmoil inherent insurviving a life of poverty, i.e., living in dangerous neighborhoods, hav-

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ing less education, and bringing up their children in the context of chaosand violence. This conviction evoked resentment in some of the middleand upper-middle class group members who commented on what theyperceived as a lack of initiative and "inadequate morals" on the part oftheir poorer counterparts.

Group members, particularly the low-income women, were often defen-sive when discussing their socio-economic status, e.g., they demonstrat-ed little affect when describing family of origin socio-economic status.This defensive posture was evident even when they discussed how theirfamilies' poverty had affected their education and sense of safety, and asthey tentatively acknowledged the similarities between their childhoodlifestyles and the lifestyles they now have as adults and parents. It wasdifficult for the low-income participants to formulate plans that mightalter these intergenerational patterns, even when the more affluent groupmembers and the therapists encouraged them to consider other possibili-ties. As noted earlier, when the more affluent group members attemptedto be empathic and understanding, the low-income group membersresponded with statements such as "you simply cannot understand." Thetherapists observed that several of the more affluent group membersseemed to feel equally resentful toward their economically less advantagedcounterparts, feelings they expressed in more guarded and intellectual terms.

Also of considerable interest is the observation that none of the 5 mid-dle to upper-middle class members compulsively and prematurely self-dis-closed. In contrast, all 5 of the low-income members and both of the lower-middle class members did so, at least to some degree. It seems possible thatsome of these premature and dramatic disclosures were consciously orunconsciously meant to shock the more economically privileged groupmembers. At times, latent conflicts between the economically divergentsubgroups became manifest, directly expressed in tense silences and con-frontations that indicated very high levels of anger, resentment and disbelief.While never resolved, these conflicts did not seem to undermine themembers' capacity to utilize the group process constructively.

Not surprisingly then, in spite of considerable effort on the part of thegroup therapists, the younger, less affluent, and the older, more affluentmembers made little progress toward becoming more empathetic with,and accepting of, each other. The strained relationships between the twosubgroups made it difficult to facilitate the creation of an accepting "sym-bolic family" in the group, as originally envisioned by the therapists.Nonetheless, the group-as-a-whole tension may have served a therapeutic

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function by recreating a symbolic dysfunctional family that, nonetheless,differed significantly from the members' own families by maintainingrules and boundaries designed to protect all the members.

THERAPEUTIC GROUP PROCESS CONSIDERATIONS

The therapists believed that promoting group integration and cohesionwas essential so group members would feel free to examine unhappy ele-ments of their past and present life experiences (Pines & Marrowe, 1990).In the initial stages of group process, it was possible to promote cohesionby asking members to talk about their experiences with the legal system.They shared information about the intricacies of filing restraining ordersand applying for legal separations, the importance of maintaining contactwith their probation officers during times of crisis, and ways of minimiz-ing the likelihood of re-arrest. In this manner, universality (a commonal-ity of concerns) helped bind the group together.

In spite of the high level of ongoing intra-group tension, the memberswere able to agree that they had certain things in common regardless ofsocial class. Their recognition of shared experience allowed them to sit inthe same room and talk together even when they were most angry at oneanother. The commonalties they identified were difficulties in: 1) creatingand sustaining clear relationship boundaries; 2) establishing trusting, inti-mate relationships; and 3) accepting the demise of fantasies of relationalbliss. They also concurred in describing the high levels of chaos and dis-trust that characterized their intimate, partner relationships.

Later in the group process, the group discussed child-parent interac-tions, family dysfunction, self-esteem, and healthier ways to choosefriends and intimate partners. Discussing the etiology of their problem-atic relationships made it possible for some members to examine issuesof self-esteem and reasons for returning to abusive partners. While a num-ber of the women made progress in this direction, at the conclusion of thegroup it was still unclear to what extent the members had achieved a bet-ter understanding of how economic, social, and cultural variables influ-enced their self-images and their behavior with intimate partners.

As noted earlier, the degree to which some women in this group com-pulsively and dramatically self-disclosed, created process difficulties forthe group-as-a-whole. It seems likely that it also created intense discom-fort or perhaps a sense of relief for the self-disclosing individuals. Onreflection, it appears that premature self-disclosure may have representeda transference enactment, i.e., a way of conveying emptiness, boredom,

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self-devaluation, and social distress, while at the same time elicitingrejection, disdain and criticism from other group members. This formula-tion suggests that the prematurely self-disclosing members were commu-nicating childhood experiences of deprivation, abuse, and/or neglect, totest whether the group would/could respond differently to their distressthan their partners and primary caregivers had in the past.In order to respond therapeutically to extreme experiences of childhoodtrauma and despair among domestic abuse perpetrators, treatment groupsmust seek to create a sense of safety in a more healthy and supportivecontext. Anticipating dramatic displays of affect and premature disclosureat the beginning of such groups orients therapists toward creating struc-tures that encourage introspection and a more graduated form of outwardexpression. Redirecting participants toward discussing their childhoodand adolescent experiences might make it possible to reduce the level ofdrama and anxiety, thereby allowing the group members to build a sus-taining level of trust before self-disclosing.

Some members of the women's group tended to be more quiet and with-drawn, and were reluctant to share intimate details about their relation-ships with partners. Their resistance gradually dissipated as they felt saferand more secure in the therapeutic setting. For this subgroup of women,the balance between safety and interpersonal pressure in the group pro-moted increased involvement over time. Several other women, however,shared only superficial and non-intimate information over the course ofthe group. Due to their lack of affectively meaningful participation, theydid not achieve the degree of insight or the increased understanding ofhow their earlier experiences had affected their couples' behavior that themore active members achieved. The author cannot assess the extent towhich their lack of participation might contribute to future acts of domes-tic violence even though, in the group, they directly stated their determi-nation to remain free of such acts.

DISCUSSION

Improvement was measured by an informal assessment of members'ability to:

• Understand, contain, and appropriately express their anger;

• Accept responsibility for their personal actions; and

• Become more aware, assertive, and confident, especially regardingtheir ability to avoid future acts of violence.

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Utilizing these criteria, nine of the 12 group members appeared to haveimproved markedly during the course of the 52-week group sessions.Four of the women who improved were upper-middle class, two werelower-middle class, and three were poverty class. The remaining twopoverty-class women (19 and 20 years of age) completed the group withlittle apparent improvement. One other woman, who was upper-middleclass, showed little or no improvement. She had been in denial through-out the 52 weeks, having made no apparent progress toward assumingpersonal responsibility for the charge of domestic violence. This womanconsistently claimed to be the victim of a husband who was both confusedand very ill, a claim that appeared to have some degree of validity. Noneof the participants appeared to have gotten worse over the course of thegroup. While socio-economic factors played a significant part in thegroup interaction, they appeared to make little difference in terms of ther-apeutic outcome for the nine members who evidenced marked improve-ment. A difficult challenge in working with women perpetrators ofdomestic violence is exemplified by the six women who left the groupprematurely. The observations reported here suggest that a cognitive-behavioral individual treatment option should be considered, at least as anearly intervention strategy, for this subgroup of particularly volatile, con-fused and vulnerable female perpetrators. Such a model would help mem-bers identify precursors to violence, know when to consider a "time-out,"and teach ways to structure a routine communication plan with their partner.

STUDY LIMITATIONS

The. report's limitations include the dearth of available literature and itssmall sample size, i.e., 12 women in the single female group and 10 menin each of the two male treatment groups. Excluded from these observa-tions of 32 group participants are six women who left the group prema-turely and thereby did not meet the minimum attendance requirements(the program allowed for a maximum of six absences). Following theentry of new participants, the remaining 12 participants completed all 52weekly sessions.

Categorically dichotomizing male and female treatment respondentsruns the risk of sexist stereotyping and projective bias. Due to the natureof the review, it was not possible to account adequately for variablesrelated to social class, race, education, and sexual orientation. Allattempts to retrieve socio-economic data on this population of female andmale perpetrators of domestic violence were unsuccessful. Although for-mal demographic data was not available, working with this population

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over the course of a full year did provide a degree of anecdotal reliabili-ty in relation to socio-economic status. The clinical observations report-ed here strongly support the recommendation that socio-cultural factorsneed further research and analysis.

CONCLUSION

The purpose of this treatment group was to provide members with anopportunity to change dysfunctional characterological patterns that hadnegatively influenced their family relationships. The group's one-yearduration, the requirement that members attend regularly, and the group'sstructure helped three-quarters of the participants who attended regularlyto make such changes. Improvement seemed based on the facilitators'ability to establish a milieu that encouraged mutual respect and the abili-ty to tolerate differences. Direct interventions and limit setting effective-ly increased the level of trust over the course of treatment. Therapists whowork with this population must be prepared to contend with expressionsof hostility, and address countertransference issues.

There are multi-faceted challenges to finding effective treatment mod-els for female perpetrators of domestic violence. The author's experiencesuggests that women mandated to complete 52 weeks of group psy-chotherapy due to a conviction for domestic violence can became moreself-aware, more appropriately assertive, and better able to initiate majorrelationship changes. A minority of highly resistant clients appeared tobenefit only minimally from the group process. It is possible that some ofthese women would benefit from individual psychotherapy and/or cogni-tive-behavioral approaches.

Based on an object relations model of treatment that also integratedother theoretical models, group discussions emphasized child-parentinteractions, family dysfunction, self-esteem, current life crises, andstrategies for choosing friends and intimate partners^ Increased under-standing of the etiology of abusive relationships in terms of the relation-ship between self-representation and object choice helped participantsexamine their reasons for returning to their abusive partners. Three-quar-ters of the members left the group with a better understanding of howfamilial, social, cultural, and economic variables had influenced theirlives.

Group members also explored the linkages between repressed feelingsof abandonment and life-long feelings and acts of hostility and rage.Periodic changes in the group's composition due to members leaving andbeing added, as well as the departure of an interim therapist, may have re-

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evoked feelings of abandonment, unpredictability, and vulnerability forsome clients. For others, the change in therapists may have rekindledmemories of chaotic family of origin experiences and served as a stimu-lus for appropriate confrontation with disruptive group members.

Socio-economic factors significantly influenced gro'up interaction.Women who led affluent and privileged lives more readily recognizedtheir potential to move from a dependent to a more independent lifestyle.This sometimes resulted in conflict between them and the lower-incomegroup members. Little progress was made in helping some less affluentgroup members become more accepting of more affluent group members,and visa versa. There appeared to be a relationship between age (youth)and economic impoverishment and the degree of intrapsychic disorgani-zation. It is not surprising that lives consumed with poverty, chaos, andconfusion influence foresight and internal cohesion. This observationhighlights the particular challenges involved in finding effective treat-ments for younger, poorer, less-educated female (and probably male aswell) perpetrators of domestic violence.

Formal research is needed to find effective methods of treating femaleperpetrators of domestic violence. Social workers can take a key role inresponding to this challenge. Both clinical and socio-economic factorsneed further study designed to identify how they influence treatment effi-cacy. Because most work with domestic violence offenders is cognitivelybased, comparing outcomes between cognitive and analytically informedapproaches might provide valuable information as to how this populationcan be better served.

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