Abstract
Some years ago, I was asked by a very distressed female acquaintance for a recommendation for a therapist. Knowing her feminist beliefs, I immediately suggested a similarly inclined female colleague and went to considerable lengths to contact her myself and arrange an appointment. Much to my surprise (and, admittedly, disgust), my acquaintance then ignored my advice and began treatment, with a tall, handsome, male colleague, well-known for his ‘macho’ therapeutic style. I was even more surprised when I attempted to apologise to the female therapist I had originally arranged, and was told-off by her, in no uncertain terms, for my ridiculous male power games.
Before doing the ‘right thing’ for the unfortunate patient-to-be, I probably should have read something like Adam Jukes' book. For a middle-aged, male mental-health professional (such as myself) in this post-modern world, the central issue is increasingly that of gender and how it impacts on all of our interactions, whether with patients, potential patients, professional colleagues or those who share our personal lives. Jukes has made an important attempt to apply a wide range of theoretical perspectives to the practical clinical problems which face us when we attempt to help men whose expectations of being able to control, dominate and devalue women differ only in degree from the socially legitimised beliefs held by ourselves.
The model he suggests for doing so is very useful. He begins with a fairly orthodox psychodynamic position: many men (not just those who abuse) have experienced major difficulties with the very early developmental tasks of achieving a stable and secure identity separate from that of their primary care giver (nearly always their mother). As a result, their fears of (and dependence on) a powerful female figure, without whom they will disintegrate into a state of ‘non-self’ (non-identity) places them in a ‘bubble’ (Jukes' term) in which they are unable to understand, or empathise with, any feelings or behaviours apart from their own.
Where conventional psychodynamic theory and Jukes' model part company is in his description of what happens next. The important and telling point here is that even the intense emotions generated in ‘the bubble’ do not have to result in aggression and violence. Rather, for most abusive men, violence towards women is instrumental and socially legitimised; they are not required to consider the alternative responses to frustration and disappointment which they so successfully can use in other areas of their lives. Thus, although the attitudes of abusive men towards women may be the product of deep and primitive anxiety, their decision to abuse is mostly conscious, deliberate and supported by social norms.
Jukes persuasively sets out some far-reaching implications of his model. We must avoid ‘isolating’ violence as a problem. This isolation can take place in two ways, first, by concentrating on its affective components as justification for it (rather than seeing it as being instrumental and goal-directed) and, second, by separating it from all the other forms of abuse practised by men, including verbal humiliation, rigid control of financial and other arrangements in a relationship, sulking (particularly when used as a response to a women's requests for intimacy), among other things.
Another important implication is the up-front demand by the therapist that the man take full responsibility for his abuse, even when, at first sight, there appear to be systemic problems in the relationship. It is only with this perspective that much of the alleged irrationality of women (e.g. ‘nagging’) can be seen to be an appropriate and normal response to the often subtle efforts to control and devalue them initiated by their male partners.
A third implication is that the cognitive—behavioural techniques currently so fashionable in treatment programs for abusive men are useful, but not enough. In particular, the structure provided by such programs may subtly collude with abusive men's perceptions that their violence is the main problem, rather than their more general desires to dominate and humiliate women. To recognise these desires, they need to recognise their underlying fears and even experience frank depression in a supportive and restorative environment, such as an analytically orientated group composed of men with similar problems.
The book has a number of minor faults. Apart from some annoying typographical errors (Cleckley's name is consistently misspelled, despite extensive quoting of his work on sociopathy), I found some of the theoretical sections (particularly chapters 6 and 7) confusing. Things were not made easier by the author's style, characterised by long sentences containing many parenthetical comments. As well, sometimes Jukes overstates his case: in an argument for enriching the psychological interventions available to angry men, he describes the exclusive reliance on anger management programs in some correctional settings as being ‘soul murder’. Yet, as he himself would probably acknowledge, many anger management programs offer the benefits of more traditional group therapy, listed by him, for example, the instillation of hope, the discovery by participants of the universality of their problems, development of social skills and interpersonal learning, even if these are not explicitly recognised in such programs.
These are only unimportant quibbles, however. Jukes provides a wealth of useful clinical wisdom, not only in the formal description of his treatment techniques, but also in the numerous case vignettes scattered throughout the book. More importantly, in an age where clinical perspectives are being increasingly constricted and blinkered by DSM-IV, management guidelines and political correctness, he has succeeded in synthesising insights from a broad range of sources, both clinical and non-clinical, to create a treatment model which could change not only violent men, but also those attempting to change them. For males especially, read the book and learn some profound truths not only about the troubled people we are trying to help, but also about ourselves.