Between Rigidity and Chaos

Abstract

The goal of this article was to examine the worldviews of cohabiting or married men and women who experienced domestic violence in their relationships. The study was based on content analysis of in-depth interviews with 48 men and women (24 couples), who were living together after experiencing at least one violent event in their relationships over the previous 12 months. Using constructivist grounded theory, the authors examined the deep structure of the ways by which partners living with intimate partner violence constructed their world. The men and women under study constructed heuristic models in two major life domains—psychological processes and how the world works overall. The analysis has revealed two axes resulting in four worldviews. The two axes were the construction of the world and the construction of the mind. Constructions of the mind ranged from chaotic to deterministic. Constructions of external reality ranged from static to fluid and uncontrollable. The theoretical model developed suggested four different types of basic worldviews. The suggested typology was examined in relation to existing typologies in the field of intimate partner violence and in relation to future research and interventions.

Introduction

Intimate Partner Violence

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has been the focus of research for several decades. It is defined as physical, sexual, or psychological harm, perpetrated by a former or current spouse. The exact extent of the problem, as well as the relative involvement of male and female partners in perpetrating violence, is highly controversial (e.g., Chan, Straus, Brownridge, Tiwari, & Leung, 2008; Langhinrichsen- Rohling, 2010; Winstok, 2007), and has been so since the mid-1970s (Straus, 1999). Studies that have defined and framed IPV as a family/couple conflict have generally found equal rates of assault by men and women. However, studies that have were framed as studies of “crime” or “victimization” found men to have perpetrated about 90% of the IPV acts reported (Chan et al., 2008; Straus, 1999; Winstok, 2007). Although the reasons for the high discrepancy in reported rates of violent acts may be both ideological and methodological (Hines & Douglas, 2009; Langhinrichsen-Rohling, 2010; Straus, 1999; Winstok, 2007), in the context of this research, it is suffice to state that most of the couples who participated in the current study reported mutual acts of violence and aggression; from this perspective, the dichotomized view of “batterers,” on the one hand, and “victims,” on the other, may not be applicable. Indeed, whereas in the past societal interventions and law enforcement tended to view men as batterers and women as victims, there is a reported increase in women being arrested and prosecuted for assaulting an intimate partner (Henning, Jones, & Holdford, 2005).

Issues of Control in IPV

Personal control (Mirowsky & Ross, 1989, 1990; Rosenfield, 1989; Turner & Noh, 1983) refers to the “belief that one’s own intentions and behaviors can impose control over one’s environment” (Umberson, 1993, p. 578). Low levels of personal control have been found to be consistently associated with IPV, among both men and women. Historically, because of the dominance of feminist perspectives among IPV researchers, the meaning and implications attributed by researchers were differential by gender (Hines & Douglas, 2009; Umberson, Anderson, Glick, & Shapiro, 1998). For men, it was assumed that a low sense of personal control is a causal factor in their violence; in other words, they are violent because they lack control and “cannot stop themselves.” Early studies of male batterers suggested that IPV is a response to a perceived lack of control over the environment by the man, with its main role being to gain control over the woman (e.g., Campbell, 1993; Dobash & Dobash, 1979; Sonkin, Martin, & Walker, 1985; Stets, 1988). According to this view, violent attempts to control others are most likely to occur when the perpetrator perceives some threat or challenge to his control over them (e.g., Campbell, 1993; D. G. Dutton, 1988; Stark & Flitcraft, 1991). Lack of personal control was also found among women involved in IPV. Whereas for men it was posited to be a causal factor, for women it was assumed to be the outcome of exposure to violence (e.g., Umberson et al., 1998; Walker, 1994). Thus, because of ideological influences on the research, the same phenomenon was interpreted differently for men and women (Hines & Douglas, 2009).

Low levels of sense of control accompany IPV and may serve as both a causal factor and an outcome of it, probably contributing to circular causality and sometimes to the escalation of violence. Further insights into issues of control in the lives of partners living with IPV, both self-control and the need to control the other, may be gained from examining the typologies of batterers and of types of relationships of couples living with IPV.

Typologies of IPV

Over the years, several typologies of IPV have been suggested in the literature. The two frameworks that we will focus on within this study are that of Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart (1994) and that of Johnson (1995, 2005, 2006, 2008). Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart (1994; Holtzworth-Munroe, Meehan, Herron, Rehman, & Stuart, 2000) developed a typology of male batterers. Johnson (1995, 2005, 2006, 2008) developed a typology of couples living with IPV rather than of batterers.

The Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart (1994) typology included those who are violent only within the family, those who are generally violent and antisocial, and those who exhibit dysphoric or borderline personality problems (Holtzworth-Munroe & Stuart, 1994). Those who are violent only toward the wife and/or children were labeled “Family-Only batterers.” They demonstrate little or no psychopathology and are usually the least violent group. Those who exhibited attachment problems and emotional dependency were labeled “Dysphoric/Borderline batterers,” and they tend to be depressed, emotionally distressed, and volatile in their emotional expressions. Those who are violent and aggressive in their everyday conduct were labeled “Generally Violent and Antisocial batterers. They are likely to have substance abuse problems, but in addition they act in antisocial ways in the community. They are characterized by high rates of violence and other criminal behavior.

Johnson (1995, 2005, 2008) argued that researchers should focus on the relationship level and distinguished between four major patterns of partner violence: “common couple violence,” “intimate terrorism,” “violent resistance,” and “mutual violent control.” The first type of partner violence labeled “common partner violence” is not related to a general pattern of control. It arises in the context of a conflict or argument between the couple, in which one or both lash out physically at the other. The second type of violence was labeled “Intimate terrorism.” The basic pattern in “intimate terrorism” is one in which violence serves as merely one tactic in a general pattern of control. The violence is motivated by a wish to exert general control over one’s partner. The distinguishing feature of “Intimate terrorism” is a pattern of violent and nonviolent behaviors that indicates a general motive to control the behavior of the other. The third type of violent relationships is labeled “Violent resistance,” perpetrated almost entirely by women, in response to the man’s intimate terrorism. The fourth and final type of relationships was labeled the “Mutual violent control.” A pattern in which both husband and wife are controlling and violent, in a situation that could be viewed as two intimate terrorists battling for control. Overall, it appears that issues of personal control and control of the partner are central to understanding the behavior of IPV. Johnson (2005, 2006) has indicated the convergence of Holzworth-Munroe’s typology (Holtzworth-Munroe et al., 2000) and his, in that the Intimate terrorists are either Borderline-Dysphoric acting out their fear of abandonment by asserting control over their partner or Generally Antisocial Violent seeking control over their environment (including their spouse) through coercive, aggressive, and violent behavior.

Disremembering Violence: Denial, Minimization, and Attributions of Blame

Even though the IPV literature has not addressed the issue of how and what is remembered in relation to the violence, there are indirect reports of memory lags, partial memories of events, a tendency to minimize violence, and partner blame, among both men and women involved in IPV (e.g., Henning et al., 2005; Scott & Straus, 2007). Although similar phenomena have been found among men and women involved in IPV, many researchers attempted to frame such phenomena differently by gender. Women’s forgetfulness was framed using clinical terms such as posttraumatic stress disorder, denial, and repression (e.g., M. A. Dutton, Hohnecker, Halle, & Burghardt, 1994; Harvey & Martin, 1995), explaining those phenomena as serving a protective function for the “victim.” Regarding men, on the other hand, the denial or minimization of violence has been explained as the need to detract from the consequences of the violent act and as attempts to construct a positive and normative self-image (e.g., Helfritz et al., 2006; Holtzworth-Munroe & Hutchinson, 1993; Miller, 1995).

The Construction of Memory

Most research on intimate violence is based on participants’ memories—be it responses to survey questionnaires or in-depth interviews. Research in the field is focused mainly on the recollections of participants. However, these memories are taken for granted and few studies have examined their structure and the processes by which such memories are reconstructed. Attempts to fill this gap need to explore how people construct their reality, based on the ways in which memories are reconstructed and structured using cognitive processes such as schemas, scripts, and narratives.

Schemas are models or mental representations, constructed through experience, regarding situations, people, objects, and events. They are ways of organizing knowledge and beliefs that a person holds about the world (Glaser, 1984; Ward, 2000). Schemas are not necessarily exact; rather, they constitute summaries of information that omit many details in the process of coding to memory (Bartlett, 1932; Searleman & Hermann, 1994). When individuals remember an event, they remember it as a story they tell to the self and others. At each level of the process, an act of “telling the story” is performed that changes the nature and content of the story according to different factors such as the context of the story, constructions (schemas) one holds of the self and of others, the message and self-representation one wishes to present to one’s audience, and the individual’s beliefs concerning others’ expectations (Schank, 1990; Schank & Abelson, 1995). In this sense, the memory fulfills a rhetoric function of creating a shared reality between the narrator and the audience (Middleton & Edwards, 1990), whereby the past is rebuilt according to the functional aims of the present (Edwards & Potter, 1992). Therefore, the reconstruction process of memories of IPV is neither accidental nor haphazard. Rather, it occurs according to ontological and epistemological constructions (schemas) of a person’s view of self and the world, as they would wish to reconstruct it between themselves and their audience.

The Current Study

The current study is based on qualitative data collected for the purpose of understanding the emic perspective of couples living together while involved in domestic violence. More specifically, the authors attempted to analyze and understand the ways couples living in violence constructed their schemas regarding themselves, their partners and the relationship within the context of a life embedded in violence. The implications of such schemas for the construction of self- and other-identities, the planning of the future, and the perception of the possibility of change are also examined.

Method

Research Design and Sampling Procedures

The present study used a qualitative methodology by examining 48 in-depth qualitative interviews of 24 heterosexual couples, who remained together in spite of the violence. Violence was defined as one or more physical acts of aggression during the 12-month period prior to the time of the interview. Most of the interviewees were physically abused two or more times during the past year. In most cases, mutual aggression was reported. Although women reported perpetrating violence more often than men, men’s violence was more severe in terms of outcomes. The physical violence included pushing, shoving, slapping, choking, and kicking. Physical violence was mostly associated with verbal abuse, which included insults, swearing, name-calling, and persistent threats. Respondents were identified through social service agencies and municipal police departments in northern Israel. Public social service agencies have hotlines and trained personnel to respond to domestic violence referrals and calls. The participants for this study were drawn from the list of clients who were referred or self-referred to these agencies. Their names were given to us following written consent provided by the clients to their social workers. A similar procedure was followed with informants drawn from police files. The sociodemographic characteristics of these two groups of clients were similar. In fact, the same names were often found in both places.

The couples had been married for a period of time ranging from 2 to 25 years (M = 10.3; SD = 4.3). Ages ranged from 22 to 65 years (M = 31.2; SD = 8.1). All came from a lower-middle-class status. At the time of the interview, about half the women (13) were working outside of home, mostly in clerical positions. Most of the men (21) were working, most in manual labor or clerical positions; one was self-employed; and two were unemployed. In terms of religiosity, most of the participants (37) self-identified as secular or “traditional,” and the rest identified themselves as religious.

Participants’ Recruitment and Ethical Considerations

The initial telephone contact was made by the referring agency. Participants were informed about the study conducted by university researchers and about its purpose—understanding the ways couples manage interpersonal conflicts. During this first telephone conversation, participants were told that they were under no obligation to participate in the study and guaranteed anonymity if they chose to take part. No financial or other material compensation was offered to participants, other than the opportunity to help in a research project and narrate their life stories.

Prior to the actual interview, an additional briefing about the purpose of the study and confidentiality were reiterated. Interviewees were told that the researcher would like to tape-record the session, but that they could ask that the recording be stopped at any point during the interview if they so wished. Additionally, they were informed that they could choose not to answer any questions they deemed obtrusive or inappropriate. Interviewees were asked to sign a letter of consent. In the following sections, identifying information has been omitted from all citations, and the names attached to them are pseudonyms.

Interview Process

The research was based on in-depth, semistructured, qualitative interviews. In qualitative research, interviews are perceived as a guided conversation that aims to understand the perspectives, interpretations, and meanings given by interviewees to specific issues (Enosh & Buchbinder, 2005a, 2005b; Kvale, 1996). The interview guide included open-ended questions and probing questions. The interviewer, contingent on the way the conversation with the interviewee developed, followed the interview guide loosely. All interviewers were graduate students trained in qualitative in-depth interviewing techniques. The interviews were conducted simultaneously at the homes of the participants, with each of the partners being interviewed by a single interviewer in a separate room. All interviews were conducted in Hebrew. Quotations used within this article were translated from the Hebrew by one of the authors, and two other researchers then examined the translation separately, to ascertain the credibility and transferability of meanings.

It is important to note that the researcher, as one audience in front of whom the participants play out their constructions of reality, receives reconstructed realities, rather than facts, from informants. The reconstruction process occurs throughout the data collection by interviews, which are a form of social interaction (Enosh & Buchbinder, 2005b; Enosh, Ben-Ari, & Buchbinder, 2008; Fivush, Haden, & Reese, 1996; Mishler, 1986; Neisser, 1976, 1986). Through such interviews, the informants reconstruct their memories of events and the reality they share with the interviewer as audience—to endow meaning to life-events, persons, and their lived experiences (Bruner, 1990). The process of meaning making can relate to people’s internal or external world, and the events that they experience. This constitutes their autobiographical memory (Bluck & Habermas, 2000; Bruner, 1994; Fivush et al., 1996; Fivush & Nelson, 2004), which serves to construct understandings of the self and of the world at large, as well as of one’s place in the world—thus creating the self-identity (Conway, 2005).

Analysis Procedures

The interview recordings were transcribed to allow for later cross-sectional analysis. The analysis was structured according to the guidelines of constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006). Charmaz (2006) presents clear guidelines for the processes of separating, sorting, and synthesizing data by using qualitative coding. These codes are initially written down as names, or short phrases, next to a word, line, or segment of the data (an interview transcription), and are later searched for the most significant or frequent codes in order to sort, synthesize, and organize large amounts of data. Eventually, following the categorization and analysis of the data and emergent themes, a theory is offered about the phenomenon that was studied.

Findings

The structure identified from the interviews can be roughly divided into two broad themes of constructed explanations: One addressed the ways the individual mind operates—“constructions of the mind”; the other dealt with the way the world works—“constructions of external reality.”

Constructions of the Mind (Internal Reality)

The Chaotic Mind

The following quote is from a male partner; he and his spouse have had sustained mutual violent episodes. It illustrates a construction of chaotic and hardly predictable internal processes, which might lead to violent outbursts:

Sometimes, I want to get things out of my system. I don’t have anyone to get them out to. I don’t have friends, and things happened. Sometimes, I can’t bottle things up, and I am not willing to bottle anything up for anyone, you understand? I get it out, I burst out at someone, I say something. I will not keep it inside me. On Yom Kippur [the Jewish day of atonement, which is a fast day], something like this happened. Yom Kippur, I was lying down, and she came with the children, and this one was crying, and that one was whining, so I got pissed off and started shouting; sometimes a person gets stressed out. I couldn’t take it anymore and the overload over what happened to me, I burst out. I can’t hold it in. Can’t. I told her, do me a favor, take the kids, I am a little pissed off. But, we, Moroccans, have a saying that some days are like that, like Yom Kippur, when the devil plays.

This interviewee described his inability to exercise self-control over forces larger than himself. He enlisted a series of internal, external, and mystical reasons to account for this inability. This combination created a complex explanatory schema, including inner pressure that could not be contained, along with environmental stressors, such as work-related stress and mystic influences, which together paint a picture of a situation that was out of control, inevitable and certainly beyond his responsibility.

Another dimension emerging from the interviewee’s quote has to do with his implicit theory of the body–mind relationship. He argued that whatever was held inside was undesirable, detrimental, and therefore needed to be cleansed at all cost. In this context, his outburst became a purification process, which was both normative and desirable, as it helped his body–mind integrity. The subtext implied that if he would have kept it inside, it would have damaged such integrity.

The interviewees did not limit themselves to heuristic theories about the self, but broadened these to include their partners’ selves. For instance, one woman said,

I never stand near him when he is angry, ’cause when he is angry he is really angry. . . . Always within safety range. He has no control over his irritation. Later, he regrets it. . . . Let’s say, if we argue and he raises a hand to me; later, he would come back and say, “I am sorry, but why do you upset me?” At times, the pressure, the pressure at work gets to him and he lets it all out at home. So I never answer. I don’t answer because I don’t like it. I have no answers to give. If I were to answer, it would lead to a worse fight. So it’s better to shut up so that he calms down. I speak quietly to him and that’s it.

This woman also described her partner’s unpredictable and chaotic outbursts, yet she introduced a moment of predictability in the certainty that the outburst was likely to happen, and therefore, it was best to keep one’s distance. It appears as though predictability exists in certain areas but not in others. One may predict what would happen following a certain specific stimulus, such as reacting to his anger and irritation (the implied outcome would be a “fight”; a term relating to what she later in the interview described as an occurrence of mutual violence). Therefore, while the emergence of anger and irritation were unpredictable, the man’s uncontrolled violence was predictable and helped create a sense of control.

The Fixed and Determined Mind

Parallel to the perception of a chaotic internal reality, other informants described a well-delineated and predictable process, whereby the mind is managed and evolves according to a well-known and understandable script. One man, who suspected his partner of lying, described the following process:

A:

If she doesn’t give me a satisfactory answer, such as where the thing I am looking for has disappeared, or what she really did in a certain situation, I continue the argument. I keep it up, since she does not carry a dialogue with me.

Q:

So then how do you argue if she does not have a dialogue with you?

A:

By screaming. I get her upset.

Q:

What do you tell her?

A:

I get her upset by insulting her. I start insulting her so she gets worked up. Once a person gets worked up, he talks a lot more. The person tells the truth, he spills it all out, he’s not afraid.

Q:

That’s what happens to her?

A:

When she gets upset, I tell her: “You went here or there . . . ” I know that this is true, more or less. . . . And then I realize she spoke the truth. When we are a little calmer, I tell her it can’t go on this way.

This man believed that by directing unpleasant external stimuli at his partner, he would arouse her, her control would break down, and she would be likely to speak the truth. Inherent in this statement is the belief that the woman was naturally dishonest and would be truthful only as a result of extreme provocation. Second, he believed in a sequential and predictable process by which the mind works: by upsetting his partner, he was likely to make her lose control in a predetermined manner.

By constructing a psychological model explaining the ways in which the mind operates, the interviewees developed an explanatory schema of their own and others’ behavior. In addition, this explanatory schema was located between themselves and the experience and enabled them to acquire a reflective stance toward the experience under scrutiny. To construct such explanatory schemas, the interviewees used generalizations that transformed processes into nominalizations, describing them in terms of psychological and/or pathological states. For instance, one interviewee who sustained intimate terrorism from her husband defined her response to his violence as “hysteria”:

Q:

What happens to you after he beats you? Do you keep crying? Do you recollect? Do you calm down and get a hold on yourself?

A:

I am in a state of hysteria.

Q:

What do you mean by hysteria?

A:

I really don’t know. I just lose it. . . . How should I call it? I see nothing, I care about nothing. All I see is that I should leave the house with my child. Together with the child. Not alone. I never left the house without the child. Never left the child with him. . . . I took the child and left.

Q:

Why do you take the child?

A:

That’s the kind of situation it is. I see nothing, I feel nothing. I see nothing. It is this personal pain and the need to leave home. That’s all I have in my head. Once I leave home, then I can start thinking about other things. I try to recall what I have done and how I got to this situation and all this stuff. You get it? All this happens later. Once I’ve left. It doesn’t happen when I am at home.

This woman would have been satisfied by summarizing the experience as hysteria. Only through the interviewer’s probing was she able to reconstruct the process behind the nominalization and her language became processual. Things were tied in a successive chain. The inner reality presented was not fully understandable, but it could be both predicted and described. The state of “hysteria” involved several predetermined, well-known actions and processes. On the psychological level, it involved lack of awareness of the surroundings and inability to think or reflect on what had happened. This ability was reacquired once the woman had left her home. On the behavioral level, the woman took her child and ran from home. She understood what was happening to her but fell short of describing the process of how and why it had happened.

The use of psychological diagnostic categories is not the exclusive prerogative of women but is used by men as well. For instance, the husband of the woman quoted above said:

Look, when a person gets angry in one place, he takes it with him everywhere. . . . If I get angry at home, it goes with me to work. If I get angry at work, it comes home with me. When a person is tense and angry, every word can upset him and it doesn’t matter where he takes the anger from: from home to work, from work to home or to the streets or anywhere.

By sequentializing the places without any chronological order, this interviewee created timeless events that were fixed and could not be changed. By doing so, the events took on a predetermined character, and the schema became generalized and unchangeable. In the previous example, the woman had a hysteria script, whereas here, there was no script, but rather a reified state of affairs.

Constructions of the World and Context (External Reality)

The World in Flux: Fluid and Uncontrollable

The perception of external reality and the meaning attributed to it had a critical impact on how the interviewees experience their ability to control or change the violence. One woman described frequent reoccurrences of mutual violence, including an incident in which she had locked up her husband in their apartment, hid the keys, and threw hard objects at him, followed by his pushing and “bodily searching” for the keys; and another time when he punched her and displaced her nasal bone. At one point in the interview, she stated,

That’s the way I am. I get these weaknesses. . . . I live from one day to the next. Maybe there will be violence in the evening, maybe there won’t. . . . I don’t know how to explain this to you, but I don’t see this place as permanent. I know that one day, it must fall apart; because you can’t leave the situation as it is, I know I will not continue like this. One day, I’ll just get the kids and leave. I won’t stay in this situation.

Nothing was known or predictable for this interviewee. Violence might or might not occur; she might stay or she might leave. She would have left, but could not and thus perceived herself as weak and adopted a fatalistic view of life. This seemingly ambiguous state created enough blurring to allow her to go on. She had an overall prediction of life in the future as bad and untenable but was unable to make any specific statements as to what would occur at a given time or in a given place. She positioned herself in a permanent state of waiting without knowing what she was waiting for.

The Static World

The external reality might include the overall outside world, and the behavior of the other people, including the partner. The following quote, from another woman experiencing intimate terrorism, describes a static reality of the partner’s behavior:

All he wants all the time is to be satisfied. He wants me to caress and hug him and everything else that goes with it. . . . I don’t always feel like it. He cannot live with the fact that the woman doesn’t always feel like it. And if I go or refuse, he is angry. “You are running away from me . . . ” It’s a daily thing, sometimes twice a day. I am talking about fully fledged sexual intercourse. I feel as though I am losing my mind. It’s impossible. I keep it inside, because he is really upset. I can’t say anything to him, as he would get upset, he would curse and use bad language. He forces me to have sex. He forces me to do things you see only in porno cinema. He wants me to do things I cannot accept because otherwise he would beat me. It already happened that I refused and he beat me up. So I do it out of fear. I tried to talk to him, but he can’t help it. He is constantly obsessed with sex. He just sees me around and whoops! He sends the kids downstairs and the party starts. I can’t handle it anymore. Sometimes, I lose my mind. I run from home just not to be with him alone. I often tell the kids not to go downstairs. If daddy tells you to go downstairs, then don’t. Stay home. Because I know what’s in store for me.

This woman’s expectation of being sexually assaulted was clear. She knew it was coming; she could identify the frequency, the situational cues, and the environmental manipulations leading up to it. She provided an almost fixed menu by which the situation proceeded and there were no surprises as to what was bound to happen, almost invariably. Such a deterministic context transformed the violence into an occurrence that is taken for granted, which made it predictable and enabled the woman to achieve a partial sense of control over her life.

Discussion

Toward a Grounded Theory of the Deep Structure of Constructed Reality in IPV

The findings presented above yield a grounded model of the deep structure of participants’ constructed assumptions regarding the nature of the human mind (internal reality) and of the world (external reality). These assumptions can be mapped on a two dimensional matrix presented in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Constructions regarding the mind and external reality.

The vertical axis of the matrix deals with interviewees’ perceptions of the nature of the human mind and the impact of such beliefs on the ability to exercise free choice in various life situations, particularly violent ones. The assumptions regarding the human mind can be categorized into three subgroups, with two extreme poles and an emerging middle point in between. The first pole is the one in which participants construct psychic processes as deterministic. They tend to attribute the behavior and the psychological processes to factors outside the person’s control, such as stress, the work of the devil, or the influence of other people. The opposite pole constructs psychic processes as chaotic, whimsical, and thus incomprehensible. The third, middle point category, presents those who assume inner psychological processes, involving causality on the one hand and an element of choice on the other. Participants whose perceptions falls around this middle point are able to grasp the processes they are undergoing, understand, and control them. This, in turn, opens the possibility of change.

Similarly, the horizontal axis presents the perception of external reality, including the behavior of other people. This axis also ranges from one extreme, which views reality as static and unchangeable, to another, which views reality as fluid, in a permanent flux, with no control or ability to predict. Between these two categories is the third category of those interviewees who perceive reality as understandable and changeable. At the intersection between the two axes, one can identify a typology of constructions. The inner circle around the intersection includes those interviewees whose constructions might tend toward one extreme or another, but who still experience the capability to act and change reality, and make choices concerning their own emotional state. The aforementioned assumptions can be seen as meta-schemas organizing the informant’s worldviews and attribution patterns. The following section includes of a description and analysis of the four extreme types emerging from our data, based on the variations as to how their identity is constructed, their perception of the ability to change their situation, and their overall perspectives of the future.

Although the analysis focuses on extreme cases for demonstrative purposes, an attempt was made to keep the content areas parallel to the themes emerging from the analysis of less extreme cases (middle points). The analysis proceeds clockwise, starting from the upper left quadrant.

The First Quadrant: The Chaotic Mind in a Fluid Context

This quadrant includes a perception of the inner mind as chaotic and of a fluctuating external reality. Interviewees of this type perceived their lives as constantly changing, with no control over the timing and the quality of the changes. Their identity changed and was often lost. Under these conditions, their values became irrelevant, if they existed at all. Their overall experience was chaotic and unbearable.

This quadrant included people who would willingly give up the constant, ongoing change for some stability, permanence, and predictability in their everyday reality. They perceived the future as unknowable and, therefore, as extremely threatening. Thus, similar to the way they related to violence in their lives, any attempt to deal with the future, in any context, was characterized by massive denial and alienation. The reality they narrated (Conway, 2005), the metaphors they constructed, the rationalizations they supplied (Edwards & Potter, 1992; Middleton & Edwards, 1990), were all confused and unpredictable, serving to justify their chaotic ontological and epistemological worldviews.

Partners living with such a chaotic perception of their lives express a constant sense of insecurity, lack of trust in the partner and his/her behavior, and ongoing ambivalence regarding their relationships. As a result, violence and control attempts by the partner were frequent. In terms of the extant literature on IPV, such partners may be classified as belonging to what Holzworth-Munroe and colleagues (Holtzworth-Munroe, & Stuart, 1994; Holtzworth-Munroe et al., 2000) termed Dysphoric-Borderline Personality, and what Johnson (1995, 2006, 2008) referred to as intimate terrorists. Such persons have been found to have low ability to regulate negative emotions (e.g., Koenigsberg et al., 2002), and are characterized by impulsivity (e.g., d’Acremont & Van der Linden, 2007), neuroticism (Gross, Sutton, & Ketelaar, 1998), and attachment anxiety (Hellmuth & McNulty, 2008; Henderson, Bartholomew, Trinke, & Kwong, 2005; Holtzworth-Munroe & Stuart, 1994; Shaver & Mikulincer, 2007).

The Second Quadrant: The Chaotic Mind in a Static Context

It included interviewees who perceived their psychological processes or those of their partner’s as chaotic, but their external reality as fixed, structured, and rigid. They perceived their identity, values, and personal characteristics as given, but open at some level to negotiation and change, as their theory of mind allowed for change. Yet, in their narratives, life events were predictable, as the external reality was fixed and cyclic (Schank, 1990; Schank & Abelson, 1995). In other words, as bad as life was, it was predictable, and as such, bearable. Violence existed and was explained away as a function of changes in the partner’s emotional state. Situational descriptions and nominalizations were used to describe dyadic interactions, yet this was followed by dynamic descriptions of the inner experiences. The structured nature of the external reality enabled both framing and containment of the inner chaos and made it livable.

Theories of aggression suggest that to be able to respond in a nonaggressive way, one needs to be able to regulate negative affect (Finkel, 2007; McNulty & Hellmuth, 2008), especially shame (Gilligan, 2001). Partners of the interviewees classified as belonging in the first and second quadrants tended to lack such skills. Although problem solving skills were not part of the current study, we can reasonably expect that partners who construct their self (Schank & Abelson, 1995) in such a chaotic way would lack not only in self-control but also in problem solving skills, leading to increased propensity to engage in IPV as a measure of “compensating” for this lack (Helmouth & McNulty, 2008) and attempting to gain control over what is basically conceived as “uncontrollable.”

The Third Quadrant: The Deterministic Mind in a Static Context

The interviewees who fit into this quadrant constructed inner and external realities as stable and unchanging. Identities were viewed as given, with stable, fixed value structures, which are absolute and unshakable. The events taking place between the couple, and the violence between them, were constructed as the inevitable result of personality structure, as defined by the interviewees and their value system. When describing the events, they emphasized external situations and inner states (as opposed to processes through which these states arose). They constructed their actions as a product of those states and as predetermined. Thus, such actions were constructed as beyond their individual control yet lent themselves to explanation and prediction. Reactions of the partner were stable and predictable, proceeding according to a given script, which makes them predictable. Within this context, the possibility for change did not exist, and was often undesirable.

The Fourth Quadrant: The Deterministic Mind in a Fluid Context

Within the framework of this quadrant, the interviewees presented attempts to make changes on the identity level, by attempting to change their own or their partners’ values and characteristics. However, these attempts were doomed to failure, as they could not create inner changes by outer manipulations. When they attempted to explain the violence, they showed an inability to control it, while simultaneously enlisting accounts and justifications focusing on external forces beyond their control (Schank, 1990; Schank & Abelson, 1995). Some of the men in this category may fit the type of men described as “cobras” (Jacobson & Gottman, 1998)—men who keep an utmost level control during even the most heated quarrels, in contrast to “pit-bulls,” who fit more with the dysphoric-borderline personality (Holtzworth-Munroe et al., 2000) described above. Other men and women who fit in this quadrant were characterized by a fatalistic outlook, accepting that “what was is what is to be.”

By the means described above, the violence was explained and became understandable (Conway, 2005), but any attempt to change it was perceived as doomed to failure, as violence was constitutive and part of the person’s identity. In the process of remembering the violence, the interviewees emphasized the activities undertaken to change the undesirable reality, the ongoing failure to achieve this goal, and the parallel hope for a better future. The contrast between the hope on the prescriptive level (concerning how things should be) and the hopelessness on the descriptive level (how things are) resulted in a total stalemate, and the perception that the problem was limited and identifiable.

Implications for Future Research

The present study presents a databased theoretical model of how couples living with violence construct meaning to their lives. These meanings are not haphazard; rather, they represent the individual’s integrated worldview or overall folk philosophy of life (Brunner, 1990, 1992, 1994). Such a philosophy includes a dimension addressing how the world operates and another addressing how the individual’s mind operates in the world (Natanson, 1970; Schutz, 1973).

The model presented above, grounded in the ways in which the participants described their life in IPV, facilitated the mapping of the informants’ basic existential assumptions about internal and external realities. This enabled an understanding of the implications of these assumptions on the way the violence and the general life story will be remembered. The model also illustrates how these basic epistemological (“theories of mind”) and ontological (“the way the world is”) assumptions interact with each other and create specific ways of reconstructing personal and social identities (Bruner, 1992, 1994) of a violent and/or victimized self, of others, and of the couplehood. Furthermore, these constructions not only affect the factual basis of what happened but also their constructed causes, consequences, and rationales for their occurrence. Subsequently, perceptions of the future and the possibility of change in the couplehood are also affected.

The extant literature regarding couples living in IPV has given extensive weight to typologies of “batterers” (Holtzworth-Munroe & Stuart, 1994; Holtzworth-Munroe et al., 2000) and, in recent years, to typologies of relationships rather than of individuals (Johnson, 1995, 2005, 2006). The current study may contribute further to this literature by suggesting a narrative-based, constructivist approach that emphasizes the underlying deep structure constructions regarding the ways the mind and the world operate (Bandler & Grinder, 1975a, 1975b). These underlying assumptions were communicated through the ways by which the participants narrated their lives with their spouses and their experiences of IPV, and were mapped through a grounded theoretical model (Charmaz, 2006). The model depicts the theoretical range of possible constructions regarding the external reality and the mind. Future research should attempt to relate the findings presented in this theoretical model with existing typologies, such as the relationship between belonging and the “dysphoric-borderline personality” (Holtzworth-Munroe & Stuart, 1994) and the construction of the chaotic mind, or the link between living in a constant fight for mutual control (Johnson, 2000) and the construction of a chaotic world and mind. Furthermore, we may hypothesize that couples living with “situational violence” (Johnson, 2000) would be belong to the middle range category, perceiving the world and mind as stable but changeable and allowing for the possibility of change in the self, the relationships, and the partner.

Implications for Practice

Those hypothesized relations between the typology emanating from this study and existing typologies in the IPV literature are of relevance for professionals who conduct interventions with couples living with IPV. Gaining awareness and understanding of the process through which couples living in violence construct their ontological and epistemological dimensions of their life philosophy could provide fresh insight into their violence-ridden lives. Narrative approaches (Allen, 2011; Lehmann & Simmons, 2008) for the treatment of IPV of both women and men have been gaining support over the last decade, emphasizing themes similar to those presented in this article: the examination of basic assumptions regarding self, others, and the world through the ways one narrates the story of one’s life. Yet most literature dealing with the treatment of couples living with IPV has focused either on feminist approaches (Babcock, Green, & Robie, 2004; Day, Chung, O’Leary, & Carson, 2009; Feder & Wilson, 2005) or more cognitive-behavioral psychoeducational approaches (Babcock et al., 2004; Feder & Wilson, 2005). The insights into the construction of the mind, the self, others, and the world presented within the current framework, and the possibility of relating those insights to accepted typologies, may serve as another bridge that can help clinicians in the field to incorporate narrative, constructionist approaches into their work.

Limitations of the Current Study

The current study has several methodological limitations that should be noted. First, it is a qualitative research that is based on the interpretation of the meaning of participants’ narratives and attempts to reconstruct from those narratives the deep structure of the belief systems regarding the ontological and epistemological constructions of the participants. The study did not include member-checking procedures, which could have contributed to the verification of the researchers’ conclusions. It is recommended that a future study attempt such verification procedures. Similarly, further research could be conducted attempting to validation of the model using quantitative measures.

A related caveat should be acknowledged regarding the sample. The sample was derived from a purposeful sample design, using self-referred participants. Further research should be conducted using a wider scale of agency populations. Quantitative research attempting to validate the current findings may be used with agency-based as well as population-based samples and compare the results from the two types of populations. As Johnson (2005, 2006, 2008) has demonstrated, different types of couple relationships may dominate the two sources of study populations.