Intimate violence is a collectively, as well as individually, damaging reality in our society. It is pervasive, persistent, and widespread. It thrives on secrecy, but frequently surfaces as headlines at the local, regional, national, and/or world level. Yet, for every publicized event there are uncounted examples of individuals and groups of individuals who are being subjected to terrifying, bewildering, and mostly undeserved damage by virtue of being a target of such violence.
One of the most tragic facets of this reality is that neither aggressor, nor target, either benefit, or escape damage, from these encounters. In fact, the damage spreads beyond the principals in ways that invariably touch family, friends, colleagues, and communities to a greater or lesser, but always significant, extent.
To complicate things even more, I would argue that it is an inescapable reality of our existence that we all play an almost constant role in intimate violence in one respect or another. I would even venture to say (and I would ask readers of this to bear with me for a bit, while temporarily suspending their disbelief) that we have played every part in this phenomenon at one time or another in our life.
So now it's time to put up or shut up, right?
It will help, I believe, if you will permit me to back up a bit and lay some brief foundation. Hearing no immediate objection, I will proceed.
I have adopted a very important (at least to me) definition of abuse. By way of disclaimer, I find it hard to believe that someone has not articulated this view before me, even though I am not aware of any such prior use, therefore I will not claim it as original with me.
Whenever I do something to benefit myself, but that also has an impact on someone else, without consideration of how it might harm the other person, I believe that I have committed an act of abuse.
While I find this to be pretty straightforward, and eminently useful as a measure of my own behavior, it has an interesting facet which might not often be associated with a definition of abuse.
Note that it does not automatically classify abuse as good or bad. For example, if I see a baby happily playing in the street, apparently oblivious to the fact that a vehicle is bearing down on it, and intervene to remove the baby from that situation, especially without first interrogating it about whether it minds my intervention, by my definition I would be abusing that child. But most people would characterize that as a good thing to do in those circumstances.
Which brings me to John Ciardi's poem, "The King Who Saved Himself From Being Saved!" which Brad Olson, PH.D. has nicely reproduced on his web page - unfortunately sans the illustrations which add so much to the charm of the original book (http://mwhealingartsbrad.wordpress.com/2008/04/17/the-king-who-saved-himself-from-being-saved/track
back/). It does a great job of deflating the hubris of people like me who are self-styled "helper" types.
What I find is that this definition of abuse forces me to think about what I'm doing, because I have to make a conscious judgment as to whether any given act that benefits me is acceptable or not while at the same time not only taking into consideration whether it has the chance of having a significant impact on someone else, but, if so, whether that impact is going to be acceptable to that other person.
Which is where a fundamental value becomes significant. Namely respect. As someone who very much wants to be respected, life was often very frustrating, and even painful, for a long time, until I achieved an important insight. What I realized was that the people who I respected most were those who first respected me. Therefore, it followed that if I wanted people to respect me, I needed to make sure that I was not only treating them with respect, but that (as I just realized while writing this [who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks!]) it would have to be clear to them that I was treating them with respect. Another way to put that would be to say that I need to treat them with respect in a language that they can understand.
Related to that is a heavily intertwined proposition that if I want to interact with people in any substantially positive manner, it is vitally important that they feel safe with me. This approach becomes even more significant when, for whatever reason, they are inclined to approach me with reserve, suspicion, or even outright hostility. This has become an important feature of my approach to my profession as a psychotherapist. Many of my clients come to me not because they want to, but because they have to. Early on in my career, I tried the power approach, with little success, but fortunately, finally came to recognize the counter-productivity, not to mention irony, of trying to teach people not to misuse power via the use of power over them.
It seems to me that respect and an atmosphere of safety are so profoundly intertwined that if one is not fully and unequivocally present, the other is not present.
Another prominent feature of these principles is that they are almost entirely dependent on me creating conditions which help this other person consider opening themselves to what I may be able to proffer them. It is my responsibility to initiate the atmosphere, to consistently and unfailingly manifest in all of my behavior, and in terms that they can understand, the principles of respect and safety, and only then invite this other person to engage me in a positive fashion.
It is unlikely to hurt this process if I am able to present, again in terms that they can understand, something that they will clearly value as a product of this interaction, but I cannot count on its value alone, no matter what it is, to ensure success.
I trust that in adhering to this approach it is very unlikely that I will perpetrate any intimate violence, although inadvertence is always a possibility (note that in one sense of that term my carelessness might well be a cause for reproach, while in the other sense I might well at least avoid condemnation).
So, aside from reducing the likelihood of intimate violence by implementing this approach to interpersonal relationships, what am I trying to say?
That will have to await another day when I have alleviated the brain cramp I'm experiencing right now. Meanwhile I will try to commit to not getting violent in response to any input that might come my way, however critical.
Dave
"Those who construct ramparts rarely feel constrained by their presence." Elizabeth George