For the past several years Donna and I have attended the Battered Mothers Custody Conference and so we have been able to interact with domestic violence experts. Both of us were surprised to discover that although most of the worst spousal assault perpetrators have personality profiles indicative of sociopathy/psychopathy this fact is not recognized by many experts.
I have worked to become well acquainted with the scientific literature regarding intimate partner violence because I teach psychology of gender and because I very much want to understand why people who should know better often fail to diagnose sociopathy in perpetrators. This failure to diagnose has lead to intimate partner violence being erroneously interpreted as a gender issue related to male domination of females. This flies in the face of the real statistics which show that there are equal numbers of female perpetrators. The failure to recognize personality disturbance in female perpetrators has lead to male victims being further traumatized.
I am happy to report that the leading expert on intimate partner violence, Professor Donald Dutton of the University of British Columbia is fighting to correct the above misconceptions and to help people understand that domestic violence is perpetrated by disordered men and women.
In 1979, he cofounded the Assaultive Husbands Project, a court-mandated treatment program for men convicted of spousal assault. He has frequently served as an expert witness in civil trials involving intimate abuse and in criminal trials involving family violence. Dr. Dutton has published over 100 papers and four books, including Domestic Assault of Women, The Batterer: A Psychological Profile, Rethinking Domestic Violence and The Abusive Personality Violence and Control in Intimate Relationships.
I just finished reading The Abusive Personality and recommend it highly. In this book Dr. Dutton details the profile and personality structure of both male and female batterers. He makes a compelling case for his contention that personality disturbance is behind domestic violence in Western society. Next week I will summarize the personality profile of “Abusers” and explain how abuse relates to sociopathy/psychopathy.
Thanks for this information, Liane. I have thought “all along” that domestic battery, as well as sexual predators are mostly if not ALL HIGH IN psychopathic traits, if not full blown psychopaths. I will be interested in getting these books and reading them.
I am very glad that another “expert” seems to actually have “gotten it,” and better yet, is spreading teh word via his books and public speaking.
TOWANDO for this guy, as Jim in Indiania would say!!!
When I was in my 30s and I had two little children under five I joined a theatrical feminist group that put on plays in the city.
I had been brutally beaten for ten years by my then psychopath husband.
He was in this industry too, so he attended the play at the theater on opening night and applauded it with accolades.
He invited everyone and their families and the press to a bbq at our place the following day.On that day he wore the T shirt that we had to promote the play.
I wish I could tell you the wording on the t shirt as it was brilliant, but it migh identify me.
Anyway, he wore that Tshirt regularly when we went out, easily and effortlessly.
He believed his own denial. He used to say to me that his brutal bashings, (where I ended up in hopsital with broken bones), were nothing. And all he had done was “push me”.
Sometimes, looking at him through a broken nose and two black eyes,I believed him. I believed that yes, really he only pushed me. Such is the scenario of domestic violence.
P.S.
I totally identify and understand women who go back to the psychopath. I did until I was 53.
I was with my primary partner (husband) for approx 12/14 years. The I had a lot of long bereaks (YEARS) in between each partner after that. I was forever trying to find the “OPPOSITE” to the “last one”. Every time I was on my own (with three kids), I got stronger. Then bang, I would always end up with a narc or a P who would destroy me.
Now I am pretty sure i won’t be with anyone anymore. I am too damaged. And thats fine with me. But I would like to win the lottery!
DEar Tilly,
Funny (odd) that, my egg donor used to say my P sperm donor would “lie until he believed them himself” so what you said about your X “pushing” you sounds like that. Wearing the shirt, for him, must have been a real “joke.” Not a funny one, but a real joke!
Sweet Tilly, we are all damaged to one extent or another, physically and/or emotionally and/or financially…they take and take. and take. I am so sorry you endured so much for so long, but I am also so glad that you are out of that now, and on the road to healing.
Yea, I want to win the lotto too! We just got a new one here in my state, never had one before but all the states around have them sio our state is trying to keep our folks from going out of state to buy tickets, and keep the money at home. I believe the odds are 13 million to one–about the same as a P keeping their word, so I’m “just sure” I might win! ha ha NOT!
I’m shortly off to town for the day, or as my son says going to OZ. Have a good day Tilly (((Hugs)))
I REALLY hope you win the lotto TillY!:)xx
‘This failure to diagnose has lead to intimate partner violence being erroneously interpreted as a gender issue related to male domination of females.’
In my on-line tootling I have come across and read some sites and blogs that are set up for women suffering from domestic abuse.(The S/P I knew was not physically violent but I have been in a physically violent relationship and my mother and sister were extremely violent on a daily basis) and I was shocked to see how many female victims of violence in their home or communities find it difficult to get heard or are shunned when they speak out about abuse and male victims are extremely reluctant to come forward AT ALL (because this is something that ONLY happens to women?). I at one point put something on my face book page about an anti violence against women group and the reaction I got was, ‘friends of mine ‘backing off’ both male and female… there is this stigma attached to women speaking out against it why? Becuase they are seen as millitant feminists or ‘hysterical’ women …? Does this attitude towards women have a bearing on how seriously domestic violence is taken across the board? If so then we as a society are not as developed as we would like to think and that is a separate(and BIG) issue … but I would welcome any move to shift the view of domestic violence as a gender issue to a ‘personality disorder’ issue male/female/child.
Oxy:
It just occurred to me I never buy a ticket (I don’t like the odds either!) so I probably wont win lotto!
Dear blueskies,
I agree with you, violence is not an an age, gender or racial issue, but a HUMAN ISSUE. some societies tolerate or even encourage violence against women more than others, but unfortunately, our society VERBALLY dis’es it, but in fact does LITTLE ABOUT IT realistically. It is still for the most part a HIDDEN epidemic. My son C’s X-wife tried her best to be violent with him, and apparently to “provoke” him to be violent back. It didn’t work with him because he would just up and leave the hosue until she calmed down and quit it. (until the next time). She claimed that all her previous husbands and live-ins were violent toward her, and I don’t doubt that some were, but at the same time, I think that she was in “gasoline and fire” (dual disordered people) relationships.
The “gasoline and fire” relationships where BOTH parties are disordered and each “gives as good as s/he gets” gives TRUE victims a bad name as “asking for it.”
When my X-DIL-P got out of jail in our rural area there was no place for a woman, alone, penniless, no friends to even pick her up, in the clothes she was arrested in, to go to, so the sheriff’s office sent her to a DV shelter where she was “taught” that SHE was “abused” because my son kept guns in the house (like 99.9% of every male in this county) of course she soaked this up like a sponge, blaming it all (her affair and her and her BF’s purchase of guns and an attempt to kill her husband) as resulting from her “abuse.” some how that didn’t fly with the cops or with us, or anyone else who knew her, but it apparently did with the DV shelter folks. The worker who accompanied her to the divorce hearing was staring daggers at me and my son. LOL
Tilly, I’m sorry you have to take TWO class with this witch, I wish I could say it will be “easy”—I do know you CAN do it though, but at what “price”? (((hugs)))))
my s/p dad, who used to smack us all around — my mom, brother and me — used to say, ”it couldn’t have been that bad. i never put any of you in the hospital!”
he was serious.
Lostingrief, I feel sick when I hear that parents like yours smacked you around. How brave anc courageous you must be to have survived that and are still alive and hearling.
There are so many here who were abused as children. I feel like I’m feeling “surivor’s guilt.”
Sometimes I feel like maybe I don’t even belong here because I never had that experience. Also, I have only known one narcissisiopath — my Ex. I want to comfort others from my limited experience.
BTW, no one needs to answer that. Realistically I know I belong here if only for my own continued healing, actually.
Your dad’s comment is probably what my Ex thought but didn’t express. I never had to go to the hospital — but should have the last time. I just packed my suitcase and left!
He also never hit or bruised my face or any part of my body that couldn’t be covered up with clothing. I say he must have KNOWN what he was doing to be so selective!