Trauma-Organized Systems

Physical and Sexual Abuse in Families

Arnon Bentovim

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9780429923319
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book is about the experience of individuals who have been abused or who have abused others, but it also traces the way an abusive experience can organize a family or professional system so that changes are difficult to achieve. The author has been in the forefront of the child abuse field for many years, and he discusses in this volume the way his thinking has changed to incorporate the ideas from the feminist movement and the constructionist family therapists. He looks at the way victimizing actions and the traumatic effects of abuse combine to create a trauma-organized system, which includes the individual, the family, the professional helpers, the community, and the cultural values. The author describes the characteristics of these systems and a diagnostic procedure to help the workers plan the treatment.

Chapter One
The family as a violent institution: a sociological perspective

The Prevalence of Violence in the Family

Strauss and Gelles (1987) have completed a number of important sociological studies that have demonstrated the extraordinary extent of violence within the North American family—violence between men and women, parents and children, children and their peers, the widespread use of guns, objects, and so forth. Although there may be some basic differences between North America and the United Kingdom and Europe in terms of scale and particular types of violence, there are likely to be many similarities. The rate for sexual abuse, for instance, is comparable in the United Kingdom and the United States, and studies in Australia and New Zealand indicate very similar rates of child abuse as in the United Kingdom and the United States.

The theoretical position Strauss and Gelles take is not to ask is the family a violence-prone institution, but how violent, and what are the factors that make for more, rather than less, violent interactions. What makes for the extremes of family violence reported in families seen in Social Service departments and by clinicians, and how do they differ from families with similar characteristics but who are not reported to authorities? All researchers feel that families who come to note represent the tip of the iceberg.

The Family as a Violent Institution

We first need to ask how it is that the family is an institution prone to violence—rather than care. As Michael White (1989) has put it, what are the factors that prevent, or in his words restrain, family members from respecting each other and providing adequate care and consideration, rather than high levels of anger and rejection?

Gelles (1987) described eleven factors that made families prone to violence, rather than providing appropriate nurturance and socialization. Within these factors are issues that researchers and clinicians have observed that differentiate "abusive" from "normal" violent families (Burgess & Congar, 1978).

1. Time at risk

The ratio of time family members spend interacting with each other far exceeds the ratio of time spent interacting with others. The ratio will vary depending on stages in the family life cycle, and on cultural contexts in terms of how men, women, and children are expected to spend their time and where. The more time a family spend together, the more opportunity for conflict and violence there is. Poor environmental conditions, low income, poverty, unemployment, poor education, isolation—all are "markers" for violence in families. By definition such families have less space and fewer resources available to them and therefore more time at risk of conflict rather than being involved in other activities.

2. Range of activities and interests

Not only do family members generally spend a great deal of time with one another, but their interactions also range over a much wider spectrum than non-familial activities so that conflict is far more likely. There are striking differences when people are at work, compared to being in the family—e.g. sitting in an office in the company of peers, versus meeting the demands of a hungry, temper-tantruming toddler or a fed-up teenager.

Families where abuse occurs show a disproportionate expression of negative or aversive behaviour towards each other in the face of what may be relatively neutral differences. Abusive parents also show a tendency to perceive differences linked to ordinary development as hostile rebellious behaviour.

3. Intensity of involvement

By comparison with non-familial interaction, the quality of family interaction is also unique in terms of communication patterns, alliances, boundaries, and affects (Loader, Burck, Kinston, & Bentovim, 1981). The degree of intensity, commitment, and involvement in family interactions is, therefore, greater. A cutting remark made by a family member is likely to have a much larger impact than the same remark in another setting.

What characterizes families where abuse occurs is the presence of mutual antagonism, higher levels of criticism, threatening behaviour, more shouting—all evidence of extreme intensity of involvement. Interestingly, there is also a tendency to the reverse—an avoidance of interaction—perhaps as a way of avoiding the conflict and intensity which may feel like an inevitable script.

There is also an absence of desirable, warm, affectionate interaction, and coercive exchanges are maintained when they occur.

4. Impinging activities

Many interactions in the family are inherently conflict-structured with winners and losers, whether it involves deciding what television show to watch or what car to buy. Resentments are inevitable, between younger children and teenagers, boys and girls, men and women, concerning differences and choices that have to be made.

Families where abuse occurs show deficient social skills in managing these differences. Coercion is used to resolve conflicts, punishments for perceived transgressions. Such techniques are often used inconsistently and inevitably fail to achieve compliance, requiring ever-increasing power-orientated responses and aversive interchange.

5. Rights to influences

Belonging to a family implies that the most powerful member has the right to influence the values, attitudes, and behaviours of other family members. This is appropriate in social contexts where parents are expected to fulfil social obligations in relationship to children's socialization. But this may merely violate what somebody wants to do, and there is ample scope for conflict, disagreement, and resentment when a reasonable demand is made, e.g. a child wants to watch a favourite programme but is made to go to bed.

There is a continuum of parenting behaviour, the fundamental dimensions being demandingness—the degree of control parents attempt to exert—and responsiveness—the balance between interactions that are child-centred versus adult-centred. Abusive parents are either the extreme of the authoritarian—insensitive to children's level of ability and needs, using intrusive power and assertive techniques—or neglectful, insensitive, and undemanding—"anything goes". Such attitudes have a profound effect on social competence, spontaneity, formation of conscience, and intellectual performance (Maccoby & Martin, 1983).

6. Age and sex differences

The family is unique in that it is made up of different ages and sexes, with inherent societal views about gender and age and authority being enacted. There is a current high rate of reconstituted families, and in such families children and parents come together at different life stages, with different generational positions and different histories. There are major potentials for conflicts between generations, families, and sexes. Societal rules construct particular roles having more or less authority, on the basic age, sex, and generational position, regardless of the individual's capacity to fulfil them.

Families where violence occurs are characterized by patriarchal views pervading the childhood of one or both parents: women and children are accepted as appropriate victims of violence and abuse. Stresses in the current family can trigger the release of models learnt in the original family—which can be a "test bed" for violent interactions (Strauss & Kantor, 1987).

7. Ascribed roles

In addition to the problems of age and sex differences, the roles of mother and father are socially constructed. There is an assumption that a woman who has given birth could be a mother, the man who helps create a child a father; for instance, a mother of 16 and a father of 17 are expected to step into these roles. Alternatively, it is felt they could not possibly develop such a capacity.

Similarly, the man who lives with or marries a woman with a child, or a woman who marries a man with a child, becomes a stepfather, or stepmother, the children stepchildren, stepdaughters, stepsons. Thus authority and dependent relationships are defined through social construction, giving the adults rights to make demands to socialize children and expect compliance. Such demands may be inevitably conflictual, and can become abusive if there is no background of attachment, or experience of care to back up the roles taken. There is a higher rate of intra-familial violence, e.g. sexual and physical abuse, in reconstituted families. Men and women with an abusive orientation can take advantage of the roles left vacant when a parent leaves, and children may be "groomed" to become victims of abuse.

8. Privacy

The modern family is a private institution, insulated from the eyes, the ears, and often enough the rules of the wider society. Where privacy is high, social control by definition must be low. Idiosyncratic rules and family meanings can grow in isolation and can overwhelm individual differences and needs. Rules for appropriate punishment reflecting societal expectations can grow and become distorted in private. Extreme distortions of belief about appropriate punishment characterize abusive parents.

There are also distortions about children and adults as appropriate victims for punishment. The sort of violent incident to a child which would now provoke a search for a scapegoat amongst social workers, is scarcely noted if it occurs between adults. Spouse abuse, particularly abuse of women, is frequently labelled as a private domestic incident. Fortunately such attitudes are changing, but the degree of violence accepted against spouses far exceeds what is currently accepted against children. This is another aspect of the progressive social construction of what is acceptable violence and what is not.

9. Involuntary membership

There is a powerful social construction that the family is more than the individuals who make it up. The family is construed as an exclusive organization: birth relationships are the responsibility of birth parents and cannot be terminated—unless violence/breakdown patterns are such that a court deems that the degree of development impairment is too great. Politically the State construes the family as a coherent exclusive organization in an attempt to get members to take responsibility for each other rather than relying on the State. Current legal approaches to the care of children requires a high level of proof of poor care on a parent's part for the State to intervene. Indeed, current U.K. legislation prescribes that even when violence has occurred the State has to demonstrate that the alternative plan it has in mind would represent a real advantage to the child.

Whilst there can be ex-wives and ex-husbands, there can be no "ex-children" or "ex-parents"—except in extreme situations. There is a constant dialetic between State authority and the rights of children to be protected, versus children being an involuntary member of an organization—the family—whose integrity has to be protected at the expense of its members.

Being a member of a family can represent a right to expect and give care, nurturance, affection, and support. In families where abuse occurs, being a member can also involve personal, social, material, and legal commitment and entrapment. When conflict arises it is not easy to flee the scene, or resign from the group. Political responses such as not funding young people's living away from their parents increase the sense of legal entrapment.

10. Stress

Families are prone to stress. Moreover, families are constantly undergoing changes or transitions. Events of the life cycle—e.g. the birth of children, maturation of children, aging, retirement, and death—represent changes that have effects on the family group. Similarly, events that affect individuals—unemployment, illness, handicap—cause stress to be transmitted. There are also stressful events and relationship patterns that are transmitted intergenerationally, and which influence marital choice and subsequent attitudes to children (Bentovim & Kinston, 1991).

Violent means of dealing with stress is a characteristic learned response within the family context. Where abuse occurs families are characterized by being "stress-filled", and stress is dealt with by aversive rather than appropriately coping responses.

11. Extensive knowledge of social biographies

The intimacy and emotional involvement of family relationships reveals a full range of identities and roles for family members. Strengths and vulnerabilities, likes and dislikes, loves and fears are all known to family members. While this knowledge can help support a relationship, the information can also be used to attack intimates and lead to conflict. Specific attitudes and perceptions of "the other" can grow, and a deep conviction can arise about the qualities of "badness" or "goodness" of the other which is reinforced by the closed repetitive intense context of family life and character.

Thus roles of men, women, husbands, wives, boys, girls may be shaped, meanings grow and develop and roles are created and reinforced. They are seen in their most negative forms in abusive families. The attribution of "deserving" punishment or sexual interest is the underlying matrix and gives meaning and reason for abusive action.

Chapter Two
Family violence: explanatory models to describe violent and abusive families

There are a multitude of factors that have been associated with violence in the home. Researchers have consistently found a number of factors related to various aspects of domestic violence.

The cycle of violence

The cycle of violence—the inter-generational transmission of violence—is advanced as an important factor on the basis of the following findings. The more parents are violent to children, the more violent those children are to siblings. The more violent husbands are to wives, the more violent the wife is towards her children. Viol...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• Contents
• EDITORS' FOREWORD
• FOREWORD
• INTRODUCTION Why attempt to develop a systemic approach to family violence?
• CHAPTER ONE The family as a violent institution: a sociological perspective
• CHAPTER TWO Family violence: explanatory models to describe violent and abusive families
• CHAPTER THREE Developing a social-interactional-systemic account of family violence
• CHAPTER FOUR Family victimization processes and social-interaction explanations for family violence
• CHAPTER FIVE A systematic account of the different trauma-organized systems in various forms of family violence
• CHAPTER SIX Trauma-organized systems: breaking the denial process by externalizing
• CHAPTER SEVEN A focal model to encompass the descriptions of the trauma-determined family system
• CHAPTER EIGHT Treating the trauma-organized system
• CHAPTER NINE The treatment process in trauma-organized systems
• REFERENCES
• INDEX