Sanctuary for the Abused

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Free ADT Systems for Abused Women

Free ADT AWARE® Program: Protection for Abused Women

Since 1992, ADT Security Services, Inc., has offered a life-saving program to address the scourge of domestic violence. The ADT AWARE® program, which stands for Abused Women's Active Response Emergency, is active in more than 160 communities nationwide. It is credited with helping save the lives of 28 victims of serious domestic violence and has given countless other victims the peace of mind to escape an abusive partner.

The ADT AWARE® program is a coordinated effort among ADT Security Services, representatives of local law enforcement agencies, prosecutor's offices and battered women's shelters. After these community groups have selected participants for the program, ADT donates and installs electronic security systems in the homes of victims of domestic violence. The systems include a hold-up alarm pendant, which can be worn or carried with the victim while in the home. In the event of an imminent attack, the victim can press the button on the pendant, sending an immediate, silent alarm to ADT, which in turn notifies the appropriate police agency. Law enforcement agencies participating in the AWARE® program have agreed to respond to these AWARE® alarms on a priority basis.

ADT donates the equipment, installation and monitoring of the AWARE® systems. There is no charge whatsoever to either the victims or the community. Agencies within the community are asked to simply set criteria for selection of victims who are at the highest level of risk for lethal attack by their batterers. The criteria typically require the victim:

be in imminent danger of attack,

have a restraining order or other order of protection against the abuser, and

be willing to prosecute and testify against the batterer in a court of law if he's apprehended as a result of the use of the ADT security system.

The ADT AWARE® program has received widespread acclaim for helping reduce the incidence of domestic violence, acting as a deterrent to would-be attackers while helping victims of abuse return to a safe and normal life in the one place in which they should feel safe—their homes.

Click HERE for more information

Labels: adt, free alarms, imminent danger, restraining order, victim

shared by Barbara at 12:56 AM 2 comments

Dealing with an Affair

AFFAIRS: Common Patterns in Dealing with Them
by Peggy Vaughan
Based on hearing the personal experiences of so many people during the past 24 years, I have come to recognize some typical patterns that often appear, regardless of the specific situation. Here are a few key points that seem to be quite common (both for the person having an affair and for the spouse):

1. Person having an affair: Keeping the affair "separate" from the rest of life. Many people having affairs "compartmentalize" their lives and keep their family relationship and "outside" relationships separate in their own mind—as if one has nothing to do with the other. They even keep more than one "outside" relationship separate from one another.

2. Spouse: Being "crushed, humiliated and in pain" are almost always the reactions to learning of a partner's affair (even if there was a suspicion beforehand, but even moreso if there was no suspicion). The most common word used is "devastation."

3. Person having an affair: Flatly denying an affair and/or not communicating about the affair once it's discovered. There seems to be an unwritten rule among people having affairs: "Never tell. If questioned, deny it. If caught, say as little as possible." This includes blaming the other person for the affair "He/She tempted me" or "He/She made it up - it never happened."

4. Spouse: Having a difficult time understanding how/why this happened; struggling with the feeling that this doesn't "make sense." (Affairs are not based on being rational; in fact, people having affairs tend to "rationalize" their behavior in order to feel OK about themselves.)

5. Person having an affair: Wanting to "put it behind us" and go on instead of dealing with it and trying to work through it.

6. Spouse: Losing a lot of weight and having a hard time simply functioning. In fact, the struggle to physically deal with the pain and loss is the first order of business for most people.

7. Both: Wanting to find a quick/easy solution to the upheaval caused by an affair. Seeing a therapist can help, but getting over the pain of the situation and rebuilding trust takes a lot of time and work. It can't be rushed. Some factors that make a difference are: willingness to answer questions and hanging in through the inevitable emotional impact. There is the changing contact with the other person or reframing the relationship with the other person, if you lied your way into the affair or they were a friend to start with. (These are not absolute, but usually indicate a willingness to resolve this issue instead of trying to bury it alive, where it just keeps coming back.)

8. Both: Wanting some "guarantee" that it won't happen again. There is no simple one-time action that can provide protection. Preventing an affair in the future requires a commitment to ongoing honest communication.

Labels: affairs, cheating, cover up, denial, minimizing, pain, spouse, trauma

shared by Barbara at 12:25 AM 0 comments

Catalysts for Violence

In his book Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say, Dr. Warren Farrell lists (p. 159) five catalysts to violence upon separation:

(1) Deplete the bank account;

(2) Leave a vitriolic, rejecting note;

(3) Take the kids;

(4) Have the spouse [or significant other] arrested [or served with a restraining order];

(5) Have a lover and go to her or his house.

We cite many examples below where these factors appear to have been catalysts for murder. But in how many other cases was the violence more limited than murder? After all, with a restraining order the "abuser" knows right where to find the "victim." It even tells them where to look on the restraining order: "Stay away from ____" and that was usually the man's home before the woman filed the order.

Wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that avoiding these catalysts would greatly reduce the violence during separation? And not taking out a restraining order to get State-enforced custody of the kids, and possession of the house, car, and bank account, would also seem to be a wise move if violence is to be avoided. Even better would be a State that encouraged marriage and children and discouraged divorce and family destruction.

In a subsequent section we look at the relationship between violence and mankind. Men, as predators, are clearly at the top of the food chain, and survival suggests it best they remain there. Now the worst thing you can do when faced with a predator is to exhibit fear. That arouses a primitive instinct in any predator to attack. Yet that is exactly what women do in getting a restraining order, having their mate arrested, taking the children, leaving a vitriolic note, etc. Similarly, attacking a predator in any fashion invites a violent response at a very primitive level.

Mating privileges with females also trigger violent responses in most primates and many lower animals. In Colorado the image of mountain sheep butting heads during rut comes to mind.

These primitive responses to fear are also evident in human females. Women's reactions will differ somewhat, though often more cruelly (see The Female of the Species).

The catalysts for violence described here are thus operating at very basic biological levels to trigger the violence society hopes to avoid. Thus, current domestic violence laws and practices seem more designed to instigate violence than control it.
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Examples of the catalytic precipitance of violence

Example one
On August 6, 1999, Laura Maria Gattas was shot and killed by her estranged husband, Eduardo, when she arrived for work at Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs. In a front page story in The Gazette on November 3, 1999, reporter Bill Hethcock stated that: "Colorado Springs police detective Todd Drennan testified in a preliminary hearing his investigation showed Gattas was angry at his wife for having him arrested in May in Toronto, where they lived."

Example two
Another example of how restraining orders don't protect was published in the August 29, 2002, issue (p. Metro1 and Metro 7) of the Colorado Springs Gazette. Mary Lou Smith, age 52, was shot and killed the evening of August 28 th as she sat in the living room of a friend's house where she had sought safety. Police were looking for her husband, Marlon Laja Smith, age 47, in connection with the shooting. Court records show Mary Lou sought police help at least three times in August of 2002, once on allegations of domestic violence, and two other times to report her husband of 19 years violated a temporary restraining order and threatened her life.

The first call from Mrs. Smith came on August 10 th , when Mr. Smith was booked into jail but released on $1,600 bond the next day, according to court records. Mary Lou called police the second time August 12 th , and a third time on August 14 th when the responding officer reported she said her husband threatened to kill her.

While friends and counselors suggested Mrs. Smith go to a shelter, she did not heed their advice. We would suggest the law be revised to require a peace officer to transport the woman to a place of safety in such situations. Restraining orders do not supersede the law of the jungle and Mr. Smith is portrayed as a particularly jungly type.

Example three
Lisa Marie Boothe, age 44, was found dead July 4, 2002, in a Colorado Springs hotel room.

Two weeks before her husband, 41-year-old Philip Andrew Punk pled guilty in fast-track court to assault for slapping Boothe in a downtown parking lot. In that case he was sentenced to two years probation, 270 days work release, a six-month suspended jail sentence and 52 weeks of domestic violence classes. Mr. Punk apparently avoided jail time by accepting the relatively long work-release sentence in his plea bargain. But court records show he never reported for work release. As noted elsewhere we free the guilty and punish the innocent, who often remain in jail awaiting trial if they plead innocent.

Court records show Phillip Punk had convictions in five domestic violence cases involving at least three women in El Paso County in the past three years. He's been in and out of jail, on and off probation and ordered to take domestic violence classes. Court records also show Punk threatened to kill his previous wife and chop her into pieces. In another case, he pled guilty to beating a former girlfriend and choking her with her hair when he thought she was cheating on him. Obviously the current practices had no deterrent effect on Mr. Punk except to move him from one victim to the next.

Phillip Punk has now been charged with second-degree murder in Lisa Booth's death and was awaiting trial as of November, 2002.

Example four
On Wednesday, October 30, 2002, at a little after 11 AM Keith Warren, age 24, went to the third floor office of the Land Title Trust Co. in the Alamo Building in Colorado Springs where his former fiancee, 20-year-old Karri Frazier, worked. Warren, an employee of a security firm, after talking briefly with police, killed both Ms. Frazier and himself (Colorado Springs Gazette, Thursday, October 31, 2002, p. A1 and A8)

The couple had been going together for about a year and had been living together in recent months. But a fight on October 17 th , during which Karri Fraser alleged Keith Warren had punched, choked, and threatened to kill her, ended the relationship. Police arrested Mr. Warren that night and Ms. Frazier moved into her sister's home.

A restraining order was issued but two days later Karri complained to police that Keith had tried to contact her at her sister's house. Mr. Warren was then again arrested for violating the restraining order.

On Monday, October 21 st Keith Warren pled guilty to third-degree assault involving domestic violence under the 4 th Judicial District's "Fast Track" system that has a well-deserved reputation for railroading defendants. He was sentenced to two years probation, 45 days work release, and the standard 36 weeks of domestic violence prevention classes. A six-month jail sentence was suspended and a no-contact restraining order was imposed.

In the transcript (Colorado Springs Gazette, November 8, 2002, p. A9) of the 911 call made by Karri Frazier minutes before the murder/suicide, Keith Warren states: "She is the one who attacked me, and now I have to go through all this crap."

Whatever credence one puts in Mr. Warren's dying statement that he had been falsely accused, clearly his repeated arrests and the restraining orders had acted as a catalyst that enraged him to the point of homicide and suicide.

It is equally clear that the restraining orders provided Karri Frazier no effective protection whatsoever.

Example five
According to the Thursday, December 19, 2002, Denver Post (p. 3B) 51-year-old Michael Higgins killed a 40-year-old single mother of two, with whom he had a relationship, at her home south of the town of Elizabeth in Elbert County, Colorado, near dawn on Wednesday, December 18 th . Higgins was later found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head atop a ridge near an old quarry on the west side of Castle Rock in Douglas County around 12:30 PM the same day.

Higgins had been arrested in Castle Rock on October 25th for domestic-violence related harassment and had a restraining order against him.

Example six
According to the January 7, 2003, edition of the Detroit Free Press Marie Moses Irons, 41, a Pontiac Schools administrator in Michigan, was killed with an ax December 29, 2002, as she slept with her 2-year-old son at home in Southfield. Her estranged husband, Christopher Walter Howard, has been charged with first-degree murder. Irons had obtained a restraining order on December 23 rd , two days before Christmas and six days before she was killed.

Example seven
Vicki Sue Keller-Wendt, 45, was killed, along with her niece, Brandie Lee Keller, 20 and her friend, Douglas McCoy, 50, in March 2002, as they left the Isabella County Courthouse in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, following a dispute with Keller-Wendt's ex-husband Thomas Wendt according to the January 7, 2003, edition of the Detroit Free Press. Thomas Wendt had repeatedly violated a protection order.

Example eight
Abstracted from the Allen American

July 24, 2003 — Mark Taylor of Allen, Texas, called his brother on Monday evening, July 21 st , just before he shot himself in the chest.

Taylor told his brother that he'd just killed his wife and was going to turn the gun on himself, police said.

After receiving that call, the brother called Allen Police at about 7:50 PM. A little more than an hour later police found the bodies of Mark Taylor, 42, and Carol Renee Taylor, 39, of Allen, in a sport-utility vehicle on Cedar Drive in Allen Station Park.

Stephanie Taylor, 19, said her parents had just left a marriage counseling session when they drove to the park Carol Renee Taylor had filed for divorce and obtained a restraining order against her husband on July 15, according to court records.

She said her father hadn't physically harmed her mother since they separated 10 days before their deaths, but that Mrs. Taylor had obtained the restraining order because she wasn't sure how Mark Taylor would react to the divorce.

Police Capt. Robert Flores said police are still investigating the case, including where Mark Taylor obtained the small-caliber handgun with which he shot his wife twice in the chest before killing himself.

Example nine
Abstracted from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Man kills wife after she sought protection, then commits suicide Thursday, August 7, 2003, Vancouver, Washington — The bodies of Helen Hampton Lycklama, 54, and John Lycklama, 58, were found Tuesday evening in the master bedroom of his upscale home with a .357 Magnum revolver between them on the bed, Clark County sheriff's Sgt. Dave Trimble said.

The woman, a schoolteacher in Portland, Ore., had been shot in the head, and other injuries indicated she tried to defend herself in a struggle, Trimble said.

The man, a local home builder, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

Detectives believe the shootings occurred August 1, the day the two had made plans to meet at a Hazel Dell restaurant, possibly to discuss their pending divorce.

Records show the Lycklamas were married in August 1995, and sheriff's deputies said they had no reports of domestic violence involving the couple.

In April, however, Helen Lycklama filed for divorce and obtained a restraining order that barred him from molesting or disturbing her or coming within 1,000 feet of her home or workplace. "I believe my husband is stalking me," her request for the order stated.

Example ten
Abstracted from the Denver Post

Prison guard shoots estranged wife and her two sons, then himself
Wednesday, September 17, 2003, Colorado Springs — A Colorado Department of Corrections officer, whose wife apparently left him for another man, shot and killed her and her two sons, ages 5 and 10, before taking his own life, according to El Paso County sheriff's officers.

At 11:50 PM Thursday, September 11 th , Rutendra Raghunandan went to his wife's apartment. Lolita would not let him in but he managed to get inside through an open door on the balcony, according to a court document. Once inside, Raghunandan found another man in the apartment and asked him to leave. The other man, who has not been identified, did.

Lolita told a sheriff's deputy that her husband then grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into the bedroom, a court document shows. "Mr. Raghunandan shoved Mrs. Raghunandan against a bedroom wall, grabbed her hair and forcefully shoved her head into the wall causing pain. Mr. Raghunandan also tore Mrs. Raghunandan's shirt," the deputy wrote in the court document.

The deputy noted that a screwdriver was embedded in a bedroom door and that a closet door had a hole in it. Raghunandan told the deputy he caused the damage.

Raghunandan was arrested and booked into the El Paso County Criminal Justice Center on suspicion of third-degree assault, domestic violence and second- degree burglary. A judge advised him of his rights Friday, and he was released on a $10,000 personal recognizance bond with a mandatory restraining order at 7:23 PM on September 12 th . Raghunandan's supervisors at the Denver Women's Correctional Facility, where he had worked as a correctional officer since April 1, 1999, were notified of the arrest, and a DV conviction would certainly have cost him his job.

On Friday, Lolita apparently also went to TESSA, who helped her obtain a civil restraining order against her husband as well. By now Rutendra had lost his wife, any children that might have been his, and his job due to his wife's actions. And with only the sketchiest of hearings and no trial, everything he owned or loved was taken from him and the legal system left him among the living dead. By Monday, he, his wife, and her sons were dead.

A neighbor, worried that she had not seen the boys, asked a maintenance worker at the apartment complex to check on the family Tuesday morning. The man opened the door, saw Lolita's body and called the sheriff's office at 8:53 AM September 16, 2003.

Lolita Raghunandan, 32, was found in the living room of her east Colorado Springs apartment, 7135 Independence Square Point, where she had moved less than a month ago after separating from her husband. Sons Akash, 10, and Rene, 5, were found in a bedroom with her husband, Rutendra Raghunandan. A 9 mm gun was found near the father.

Lt. Rodney Gehrett, El Paso County sheriff's spokesman, said detectives believe the shootings occurred one or two days before the bodies were found. Neighbors gave conflicting reports; some reported hearing shots late Sunday night, and others said they heard them Monday morning.

Even under the draconian provisions of current law, which negate virtually every Constitutional civil liberty, clearly there was no effective protection available for Lolita. Conversely, Lolita seems to have invoked at least three of the five catalysts for violence tabulated above. And note that while the newspaper referred to the children as his, DNA paternity testing of children in other similar relationships suggests there is at least a 30% chance that one or both of her children may not have been Rutendra's. That suspicion is reinforced as Lolita was apparently having an affair, since Rutendra found another man in her apartment at midnight.

Example eleven
Canton, Ohio, woman murders her husband after he obtains restraining order and files for divorce

Abstracted from Akron Beacon Journal

April 8, 2004, Akron — Sobbing throughout Wednesday's court hearing, a 38-year-old Canton woman avoided the death penalty by agreeing to plead guilty to aggravated murder and aggravated arson in the death of her husband last year.

Sass, using gasoline, started the fatal fire on the morning of September 14, 2003, at the home she once shared with husband Christopher A. Sass in the 7500 block of Oakhill Avenue Northeast in Washington Township, authorities have said.

Francine Sass, who had a history of arrests for domestic violence, waived her right to a jury trial, saying she agreed with and understood the pleas after being questioned for more than two hours by a panel of three Stark County Common Pleas judges.

Christopher Sass, who had filed for divorce in April of 2003 — even gaining a protection order — was 34.

Court records show Francine Sass was arrested for domestic violence twice — on October 19, 2002, and just five months later.

Example twelve

Warning signs go for naught and court worker murdered at city center
2004 Abstracted from a story by John Ingold published June 27, 2004, in the Denver Post

According to court records, Mrs. Tina Esparza filed for divorce from her husband in early 2004, shortly after her husband was charged with misdemeanor sex assault in Jefferson County, Colorado. Soon thereafter she got restraining orders against him for herself and their four children.

Tina Esparza was reportedly terrified of her estranged husband during the final months of her life. "I can't help but wonder," she wrote in an e-mail to her attorney, "what else he is going to do to 'make me pay' before he leaves." In e-mails, she told friends how messy her divorce had become, how angry her husband was, how she feared what he might do next.

In January, 2004, Mrs. Esparza called police and asked them to increase patrols at the parking lot at the Englewood, Colorado, City Center where she worked in the municipal court. Her friends organized a buddy system to walk her to her car every night.

In early April, Mrs. Esparza had her truck taken; she told police she suspected her husband. Because the Esparzas were still married, police didn't pursue a car theft case, but an Englewood police division chief told officers to keep a closer eye on the parking lot at the city center where she worked.

On May 14, 2004, Tina Esparza was killed at 12:43 PM as she walked in the Englewood City Center parking garage. She was shot once in the chest and died with her car keys in her hand.

Prosecutors have arrested and charged her husband, 37-year-old Gabriel Esparza, with murder.

What is the answer?
So is the answer ever more draconian laws as victim feminists would have us believe? We think not! Or should women act in ways to ensure their own safety and protection, and take responsibility for their actions? The latter would seem to be a safer course for both individuals and society. Civilization is but a thin veneer when a man is given no options and society backs him into a corner.
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Other examples and opinions

Additional examples are given in When Men Are Driven To Desperation. A man who intends to kill a woman and plans to take his own life, or knows that he will face murder charges, won't be deterred by the penalties for violating a restraining order, as too many headlines show.

Whether a woman's partner be male or female (lesbian relationships are apparently the most violent of all) restraining orders do not protect. By violating the civil rights, and eliminating due process for men they are imposed upon, such orders can only incite. By stripping everything a man owns and loves from him without so much as a hearing, society makes him treacherous. Men with nothing to lose are very dangerous.

The National Violence Against Women survey (NVAW, p. 52) found that approximately one-half of the restraining orders women took out against males were known to have been violated and nearly one-third of the orders men had against women were basically ignored.

Several other studies also suggest that, despite their widespread use, restraining orders have little, if any, protective effect. Cathy Young quotes: "A 1984 study by Janice Grau, Jeffrey Fagan, and Sandra Wexler has concluded that the orders have a protective effect for women who were not severely victimized in the first place. If so, peddling them to women in real danger is like giving cancer patients aspirin."

Incredibly, the Equal Justice Foundation has never encountered a case where a restraining order provided any documented level of protection, or even anecdotes about how a restraining order made a woman safe. And we hear from many women on this issue (see In Women's Own Words).

Unfortunately, since restraining orders don't protect endangered women (or men), radical feminists then claim that even more draconian laws are required. As one result we have the present nightmarish system that protects no one and violates virtually every civil liberty a man has.

Making the penalties for violating a restraining order ever more draconian is very unlikely to change the rate at which such orders are violated but does increase the catalytic effect such orders have on violence. Dugan and others (2001) found that:

"...Increases in the willingness of prosecutors' offices to take cases of protection order violation were associated with increases in the homicide of white married intimates, black unmarried intimates, and white unmarried females..."

One manifestation of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different outcome. Are we not doing exactly that with restraining orders?

Instead of more iron-handed laws we need to provide means of protecting women in danger.

Labels: assaulted, divorce, homicide, order of protection, restraining order, verbal abuse, violence

shared by Barbara at 12:24 AM 0 comments

Child Custody & Access Assessments

By Samantha E. Poisson

Whether it is because most parents can devise a workable child care arrangement or because of the absence of one parent, the majority of separating families, approximately 80% (Johnston, 1994), do not become embroiled in legal battles over the children. The remainder, however, approach the justice system looking for some form of conflict resolution such as mediation, arbitration, assessment, or a custody trial. Many enter the process with a lawyer to represent them, however, increasingly they are unrepresented [due to cutbacks in legal aid]. For this subgroup of highly conflicted families characterized by ongoing acrimony, litigation and conflict over the custody and visitation arrangements for the children; a history of domestic violence is probable. It is the children in these high conflict/violent families who stand to lose the most with simplistic solutions derived from an idealistic belief that it is always beneficial to children to have equal contact with both parents post-separation. As battered women know, battering men frequently do not end their domination over their families once separation has occurred. The abusers may use threats to seek custody as a means of perpetuating control over their former partner. Lengthy and costly litigation, fear of abduction, harassment, intimidation and violence during transfers are all genuine issues of concern. Although difficult to believe, a surprising number of battered women even face the real possibility of losing custody to their abuser. Recent research suggests that batterers are twice as likely to apply for custody and equally likely to convince the court of the merits of their custody application as non-violent fathers (Bowermaster & Johnson, 1998; Zorza, 1995).

In determining the best interests of the children from high conflict families, the courts may turn to custody and access assessors. An assessor can be a social worker, psychologist or psychiatrist. Currently, there are no licensing or specific training requirements for assessors in Canada. Most assessors are members of a professional governing body, such as the College of Psychologists, but that may not always be the case. Guidelines exist, which include minimal standards of ethical practice, such as the Ethical Guidelines for Psychological Practice Related to Child Custody and Access by the Ontario Psychological Association. Regardless of the assessor's field, every assessment should meet a minimal standard of acceptable ethical practices.

An assessment can be court ordered or completed by consent of the parties and their legal counsel. The cost of an assessment can range from $1500 to over $5000. These costs may be covered by Legal Aid or by the parents themselves. The process of an assessment typically involves three to five interviews for each of the parties, observation of the child/parent interaction, contacting collateral sources of information such as doctors, therapists and teachers and reviewing affidavit material. Psychological testing may also be a component of the assessment if the assessor is suitably qualified to administer such instruments. At the end of the process, the assessor prepares a report, which typically includes detailed recommendations regarding custody and access, and this report is submitted to court.

A custody and access assessment report can be a very significant piece of evidence considered by the judge. Therefore, choosing an appropriate assessor is crucial. Assessors, like many other professionals, may erroneously subscribe to romanticized notions of "shared parenting" in cases with a history of domestic violence. Prior to an assessor being appointed to your case, explore his/her qualifications, know whether or not he/she has had domestic violence training, and gain a sense of any trends or biases in his/her recommendations. A thorough assessment by a well-qualified, appropriately trained assessor, can be invaluable evidence in custody cases involving domestic violence.

Once an assessor is chosen, be prepared to detail your history of abuse, your views of how the children have been affected by witnessing the abuse and any supporting documentation or collateral sources which may lend credence to the history of abuse. Domestic violence is, by its nature, a private experience. In many cases involving domestic violence, there is typically scant evidence of the abuse. These factors contribute to a battered woman's inability to corroborate her victimization from the moment a child custody dispute begins. Be as prepared as possible to highlight any evidence of your victimization.

In Canada, the federal Divorce Act is silent on the issue of domestic violence and most provincial statutes do not identify domestic violence as an issue to be considered in the deter-mination of custody and access. However, judicial precedence increasingly recognizes the negative impact of exposure to violence on children (Bala et al., 1998). In the United States, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (1994) has developed a Model Code on domestic violence in the child custody area that clearly delineates several important principles. First, there is the rebuttable presumption that it is detrimental to the child to be placed with the perpetrator of family violence in sole custody, joint legal custody, or joint physical custody. Second, visitation orders for the batterers can be tempered with conditions such as supervised transfers, supervised access, and treatment orders. And lastly, that there is a presumption against mediation in cases with domestic violence.

Despite the existence of judicial precedence and the Model Code, most domestic violence advocates would probably describe a significant gap between theory and practice when it comes to recognizing domestic violence as a germane factor in custody determinations, and affording due consideration to maternal and child safety (Jaffe and Geffner, 1998). An increasingly powerful backlash, in the form of "parental alienation syndrome," has provided battering fathers with the theoretical explanation for why their children may not want to visit with them post-separation. Victimized mothers can be typecast by this unsubstantiated theory and many judges, lawyers and assessors are uncritically embracing this concept. Anticipate the use of such tactics, be prepared to defend yourself against them, and become as knowledgeable as possible prior to the commencement of an assessment. Many battered women before you have been ill prepared for their experiences during a custody battle and alarmed by the ultimate outcome of the custody dispute. Preparation is key.

Ms. Poisson, M.Ed., is currently in the process of completing her Doctorate in Education in Applied Psychology from the University of Toronto. She has been employed as Clinical/Research Services Co-ordinator at the London Family Court Clinic since 1995. Ms. Poisson is qualified as an expert witness in Ontario and New Brunswick in the areas of custody and access and the impact of childhood physical and sexual abuse on adult survivors.

Labels: abuse, assessor, child custody, child support, divorce, domestic violence, joint, sole, visitation

shared by Barbara at 12:30 AM 0 comments

The Roots of Violence

ALICE MILLER: The Roots of Violence
Interviewed March 1987 by Diane Connors for OMNI Publications International

"I describe pictures of people, use histories of them as mirrors. And then many come and say, `This is exactly what I felt all my life but couldn't say.' I don't want to be a guru. I don't want people to believe me. I only encourage them to take their own experience seriously."

Alice Miller's stories portray abused and silenced children who later become destructive to themselves and to others. Adolf Hitler, says Miller, was such a child. Constantly mistreated by his father, emotionally abandoned by his mother, he learned only cruelty; he learned to be obedient and to accept daily punishments with unquestioning compliance. After years, he took revenge. As an adult he once said, "It gives us a very special, secret pleasure to see how unaware people are of what is really happening to them."

Miller, famed throughout Europe, wrote of Hitler's childhood in For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence. In the same work she lets Christiane F. tell her own story: "I had trouble telling the letters H and Kapart One evening my mother was taking great pains to explain the difference to me. I could scarcely pay attention to what she was saying because I noticed my father getting more and more furious. I always knew what was going to happen. He went out and got the hand broom and gave me a trouncing. Now I was supposed to tell the difference between H, and K. Of course by that time I didn't know anything anymore, so I got another licking and was sent to bed." Christiane went into the street and became a drug addict.

"We do not need books about psychology in order to learn to respect our children," Miller says. "What we need is a total revision of the methods of child rearing and our traditional view about it.

The way we were treated as small children is the way we treat ourselves the rest of our lives: with cruelty or with tenderness and protection. We often impose our most agonizing suffering upon ourselves and, later, on our children."

In 1979 Miller's first book, The Drama of the Gifted Child, was published in Germany. First titled Prisoners of Childhood, its three short essays described how parents project their feelings, ideas, and dreams upon their children. To survive and be loved, a child learns to obey. In repressing his or her feelings, the child stifles attempts to be herself or himself. The result, said Miller, is all too often depression, ebbing of vitality, the loss of self. The Drama drew wide audiences in Europe and then the United States. Two more books quickly followed: For Your Own Good and Thou Shalt Not Be Aware continued to focus on the child but moved into deeper studies of child abuse, attitudes of child rearing, psychological theory, and treatment.

Last summer Miller published Pictures of a Childhood. A collection of 66 water-color paintings, it represents a small fraction of her art. As she tells us in the book's introduction, Miller started to paint 14 years ago. "Five years after I began painting spontaneously, I started writing books. This never would have been possible without the inner liberation painting has given me. The more freedom I got playing with colors, the more I had to question what I had learned twenty years ago.

"It wasn't until I wrote my books that I found out just how hostile society was toward children," she says. "I have come to realize that hostility toward children is to be found in countless forms, not only in death camps but throughout all levels of society and in every intellectual discipline -- even in most schools of therapy."

Born in Poland in 1923, Miller was educated and lives in Switzerland. She studied philosophy, sociology, and psychology and took her doctorate in 1953. She completed her psychoanalytic training in Zurich, and as a practicing psychoanalyst she has been involved in teaching and training for more than 20 years.

As her writing progressed, Miller's view of the child became more and more opposed to that of traditional Freudian theory. Miller at first dedicated Thou Shalt Not Be Aware to Freud on the one hundred twenty-fifth anniversary of his birth. "His discoveries of the survival of childhood experiences in the adult unconscious and the phenomena of repression have influenced my life and way of thinking," she says. "But I came to different conclusions than Freud when I could no longer deny what I learned from my patients about the repression of child abuse."

Today Miller has departed from the traditional analytic approach to treatment and from Freudian theory. Early in his work Freud believed that the root of neurosis was actual trauma, often violent and sexual in nature, that had been repressed in childhood. Later he altered his view, deciding that the child is by no means innocent but is born with drives that are sexual and destructive in nature. Why has Freud's Oedipus complex lasted so long? Miller asks. "Because in the Freudian view the parents, not the child, are innocent. The Freudian view fits society; it overlooks in Oedipus the abused child and sees him with incestuous wishes that lead to his killing his father, marrying his mother, and ultimately blinding himself."

Traditional analysis, says Miller, duplicates the parent-child relationship. with the conventional analyst in the position of power. But there is hope in therapy if the therapist is a true advocate of the patient. Respect for the child within the patient and his discovery of his real history must play a role in the treatment process. The child undergoes a long inner struggle "between the fear of losing the person he loves if he remains true to himself, and panic at the prospect of losing himself if he has to deny who he is. A child cannot resolve a conflict of this nature and is forced to conform because he cannot survive by himself. Therapy should not repeat this condition."

Miller uses the phrase poisonous pedagogy to describe what we inflict on children "for their own good" out of our hypocrisy and ignorance. She perceives that we instill humiliation, shame. fear, and guilt as we are "training" children. By encouraging conformity, suppressing curiosity and emotions, a parent reduces a child's ability to make crucial perceptions in later life. "Children are tolerant. They learn intolerance from us."

While Miller's work is ignored or attacked by the orthodoxy, farsighted therapists often hail it as monumental in its analysis of hidden cruelty and the roots of violence. Anthropologist Ashley Montagu stated that Thou Shalt Not Be Aware "will undoubtedly prove to be a watershed in the history of psychoanalysis."

"My antipedagogical position is not directed against a specific type of pedagogy," Miller notes, "but against pedagogical ideology in general, which can be found also in the permissive theories." She fears that as a consequence of adults' arrogant attitudes -- including "permissive" attitudes -- toward children's feelings, children are trained to be accommodating. But their own voices will be silenced, and their awareness killed. And more blind and arrogant adults will be the result.

Interviewer Diane Connors, also a psychotherapist, visited Miller in her apartment near Zurich. Small in stature, Miller radiates a sense of both caution and fragility, and a clear-eyed, unflinching commitment to what she is saying, and an awareness of society's resistance to her work.
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OMNI
When did you realize respect for the child would be your central focus?

Miller
I looked from the beginning, I think from my childhood, for the answer to why people behave in such an irrational way. I always needed to understand and make things clear. I didn't get much information from my mother, who would say, "It is this way; it is so and so and so." She never gave me an explanation if I asked. I was very alone as a child.

Maybe I was five years old when I saw a woman with a child. The girl was three or four. She fell down and was hurt. Her mother, who was talking to another mother, slapped the child just because she came crying with bloody knees. I remember my question then: "This child is punished twice: first by falling down and then by the mother. Why does she punish the child? She is not guilty -- she needs her mother's help, not punishment."

OMNI
Did you ask your mother?

Miller
I did not dare ask this question, but it was the "prequestion" of my life. Then I saw the war, and I asked why people hate so much and behave in this absurd way. They must have a hidden reason, I guessed. I found no answer in philosophy and none in psychoanalysis. I found it in the later years of my life when I faced the child within myself and when I began to listen to the child in my patients.

I had to forget the theories. Even Freud says that the child is guilty if he is hurt. The child is always guilty. The mother of my childhood memory was angry that the child was a problem when she wanted to talk to a friend. I could see that because I was five and didn't know any theories at that time. Grown-ups don't see. They learn theories that cover up the most obvious explanations, and they believe these theories.

You know Andersen's tale "The Emperor's New Clothes"? I think it is my role in society now, and in analytic society, to say the emperor is without clothes. And many now say, "Oh, I am so glad because I knew it too but didn't dare say it." Yet there are others who say he is wearing clothes, because they are afraid of losing power.

In The Drama I'd hoped to reach the professionals, my colleagues; so I spoke in psychoanalytical language. Meanwhile I went beyond this language, and I don't use it anymore: I no longer try to reach people trained as I was. Even as they deny what I wrote, their patients say, "She describes my own experiences. I know what she is talking about."

OMNI
Why do some professionals deny what you're saying?

Miller
Because they are not allowed to face reality. You know, it was interesting. The first time I talked on these ideas was when I spoke to about three hundred analysts on the narcissism of psychoanalysts. They were so surprised, because it was very unusual to hear a colleague side with the child. First they reacted naturally, were just grateful and did not show much resistance to their feelings. They thanked me and said, "But how did you know it was my life you described?" And I said, "It was my own life I described." Many men had tears in their eyes. Then I tried to publish this article in a German professional review, but the editors refused it. Resistance was already established. They sent it back because they had to see everything as Freud would have; otherwise it is frightening or dangerous. The International Analytic Society published it in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis. But the German review, Psyche, did not. It was too provoking for the Germans.

OMNI
What were the provocative issues?

Miller
That neurosis and psychosis result from repressed feelings that are a reaction to trauma. The child's anger and all the other feelings we don't like are reactions to child abuse.

Today we know that we have a lot of child abuse. It was silenced before. The child must repress the memory of this abuse and deny the pain in order to survive; otherwise he would be killed by the pain.

OMNI
Might this happen so early in the child's development that he lacks words, understanding, or permission to express the pain?

Miller
The words have to be found. A good therapy should help the patient evolve from a "silent child" to a "talking child." The child couldn't have found the words if the trauma were too early, or the environment too hostile. But now, in therapy, if you have a therapist who is really your advocate, your conscious witness for when you experienced your trauma for the first time, then you become a talking child. Therapy exists to help you find the words to tell your mother or father how you felt at that time when they hurt you or how you felt when you could not talk -- even that.

OMNI
What do you mean by advocate?

Miller
One who sides with the child. Always. The therapist must not say the parents were disturbed but well-meaning, because he is then siding with the grown-ups. If the child thinks that the parents who behaved so strangely and humiliated him were well-meaning, he cannot feel his pain, and he sympathizes instead with his parents. It is a crime to beat a child because the beating is a damage, and you can never change this reality. A battered child feels humiliated, confused, isolated; and he is made to feel guilty because he is told he is bad. We are afraid to say that child abuse is a crime because we want to protect the parent from his guilt. But we really fail to help them when we support their blindness, because in this way we also betray the child in the parent.

OMNI
How do you deal with pain in the healing process?

Miller
Pain is the way to the truth. By denying that you were unloved as a child, you spare yourself some pain, but you are not with your own truth. And throughout your whole life you'll try to earn love. In therapy, avoiding pain causes blockage. Yet nobody can confront being neglected or hated without feeling guilty. "It is my fault that my mother is cruel," he thinks. "I made my mother furious; what can I do to make her loving?" So he will continue trying to make her love him. The guilt is really protection against the terrible realization that you are fated to have a mother who cannot love. This is much more painful than to think "Oh, she is a good mother, it's only me who's bad." Because then you can try to do something to get love. But it's not true; you cannot earn love. And feeling guilty for what has been done to you only supports your blindness and your neurosis.

There are some treatments where the patients cry a lot -- they really suffer -- but do not talk. I saw a videocassette where for one hour the patient relived the pain of birth but didn't talk about it. Only later did he report on what he had felt. But in my opinion it is important to speak, to verbalize, during the experience of pain. Even if the patient felt as if he were in the womb, he should try to talk to the mother and tell her how he feels. The link between feelings and their verbal expression is crucial to the healing process. But he can't do it without assistance; he has to know someone is there who understands how he feels, who supports and confirms him. If a child has been molested and the therapist doesn't deny this fact, many things can open up in the patient. The therapist must not preach forgiveness, or the patient will repress the pain. He won't change, and the repressed rage will look for a scapegoat.

OMNI
Do you think the child has no history, that a child is born into the world like a tabula rasa on which experience inscribes his or her character?

Miller
No, I don't. The child comes from the womb with his or her history as experienced in the womb. But he doesn't come with projections. He is born innocent and ready to love. And the child can love -- much more than we grown-ups can. This idea of the child as a loving being meets so much resistance because we learned to defend our parents and to blame ourselves for everything they have done.

OMNI
In what ways does your style reflect these views?

Miller
I try to reach the child in the readers, allow them to feel. I see my style as ranking keys. Everybody can take one so that they can go open their own door to find something. Or they can say no, I don't want to go through this door; I will return the key. I try to evoke feelings, images. In this way I offer keys to your own experience. You can then go look at your children and learn from them, not from me. Because only from your own experience can you really learn.

In my first studies I was very abstract; I wanted to understand the most abstract ideas -- of Kant, Hegel, or Marx. My dissertation in philosophy was very abstract. Now I see that each philosopher had to build a big, big building in order not to feel his pain. Even Freud.

OMNI
Why did you decide to become an author and lecturer? Miller
I want to inform people that there is no one person in the whole world who abuses children without having been abused as a child. I think this finding is crucial and can help to understand a lot of things. As an analyst, I couldn't share my findings with anybody of this profession. It wasn't possible, and I had to understand why not. So I wrote my third book, Thou Shalt Not Be Aware Again I was in the position of the child who sees so many people admiring the emperor without clothes. I wanted to understand this too, their motive. Why are they not aware?

Then others began showing interest in my work. Ashley Montagu confirmed my view of the child, and I also found confirmation from other writers who wrote about child abuse. Montagu sent me his book Growing Young, in which he quoted the famous British psychoanalyst Edward Glover. Glover describes the perfectly normal infant as "egocentric, greedy, dirty, violent in temper, destructive in habit, profoundly sexual in purpose, aggrandizing in attitude, devoid of all but the most primitive reality sense, without conscience of a moral feeling, whose attitude to society as represented by the family is opportunist, inconsiderate, domineering, and sadistic." So when we compare the normal baby to the criminal type labeled psychopath, the baby for all practical purposes is a born criminal. This view is dangerous to humanity. We pretend to give the child the norms of society to make him into a "human being." This is the Freudian view of the infant. Melanie Klein also saw the infant as a destructive creature. I once talked to a Kleinian analyst, a nice young woman, and she said, "Haven't you seen destructive babies?" And I said. "What do you mean?" She said, "Small siblings that give you a slap." And I said, "Why are you so appalled by this play? The baby doesn't understand. But if you believe it is wrong and bad, he will feel wrong and bad, will not understand, and will finally become destructive out of this distress." I think our attitude toward infants will make them either good, loving, and trusting or hating and destructive.

OMNI
Do you have reactions from Kleinian analysts to your works?

Miller
A Dutch psychiatrist trained in the Kleinian school once wrote me: "What you have written seemed terrible at first and turned around everything I had learned, and it scared me. But now I am grateful. Every day at the hospital is fascinating. Each patient is a history, and I learn from each of them."

When I say I'd like to open my eyes and ears to the suffering of the child, it's close to what [Frederick] Leboyer did with the newborn. So many people have witnessed birth, yet nobody saw the child was suffering, crying out in psychic pain. Nobody could feel with the child. They were convinced it was necessary to cry after birth. Leboyer said that this pain was unnecessary. "I can show that the child will smile some minutes after birth," he said. Many mothers know he was right, but not the professionals, who still prevent mothers from making birth a good experience for their newborns. They learned thirty years ago that it is necessary for the baby to scream and be spanked, and they continue to believe what they learned.

It is the same for my work. To protect what they learned, the professionals ignore what I'm showing them. What Leboyer did for the newborn, I'm trying to do for the older child to explain his behavior, to bring adults closer to his suffering, which they deny; to explain how he feels and in this way prevent child abuse in the future. As long as we deny the child abuse, we can't stop it. We just call it upbringing. I am trying to listen to the child's voice. make people aware of the child's feelings, feelings that I first faced in myself when I started to paint.

OMNI
Do you think painting opened up a lot of feelings for you?

Miller
Because I could begin without theoretical knowledge, without luggage, really, as a child. And I had so much fun when I began. I knew something was going to be created, to come out. And it did. The first five years of painting enabled me to write The DramaA in this unconventional way. I was playing with thoughts. And as I experienced creativity in my painting, I became much more critical about what I had learned as theory.

OMNI
In The Drama you connect repressed feeling with loss of vitality. Was that your experience here?

Miller
Yes, experiencing the pain of my life gave me back my vitality. First pain, then vitality. The price of repressing feelings is depression. I also had to resist the usual way of learning. If you are forced to do something, you cannot have fun. But for me, having fun is the first condition of creativity. I learned when I played with color. But I resisted learning about color by reading theories from books. For me painting, dreaming, and writing have something in common. I paint as I dream. I have many impulses and associations. I never have a plan, a concept of what I want to do. I do have a concept sometimes, but I cannot realize it because while painting, I start to dream of something else and I forget my plan. In the beginning I had a sort of narrative style. I wanted to tell a story, or a story in myself wanted to be told. Now it's more like needing this color, this form, this line. It's improvisation. I'd say I am painting like a jazz musician.

I don't want to make a masterpiece, or even good pictures. Fortunately, I don't need to sell my paintings. I'm only compelled to work further and further into what is true. Sometimes I destroy my paintings. I change and change them, even though they may have been nicer before. In the end I'm happy because it's what I wanted to say. I don't care if someone says it's good or not. In painting I feel absolutely free. I have my palette, my white paper; and nobody can tell me what is right or wrong.

OMNI
You admire Goya and Turner?

Miller
They are not models for me but are examples of true and great artists. Both were successful and admired. Then suddenly they absolutely changed their styles. Goya, who had made wonderful portraits, began painting ghosts and his inner world. And Turner began painting light. And when people began to say, "This is not good -- you made really good paintings before," he didn't care; both he and Goya did what they needed to do. So for me they are examples of courage.

Picasso, too, did this so many times. To go out of what for most people is comforting -- to be good, skillful, admired, famous, and then to abandon all this to go your own way -- is so very frightening to most people. But I had to do this in order to get in touch with myself, to become free. Otherwise I feel like I am in a prison.

OMNI
Who are your heroes?

Miller
The older I become, the less I have heroes. Even Freud was not a hero but for a long time a father figure. But when I discovered his denial of the truth, he wasn't even that anymore. I cannot idealize anybody as I did twenty or forty years ago. In my school days Socrates was a big figure; and he's someone I've liked for my whole life because he questioned so many things. I also liked the honesty of Montaigne; I liked Kafka, and I adored Shakespeare. Now I can't read novels so easily anymore. I am bored if I see the lie. I like reports on childhood if they are written honestly, which is rare. The childhood offers the keys to the whole personality. I wrote essays on Nietzsche, Picasso, [German expressionist] Kathe Kollwitz after I discovered facts from their childhoods that cast new light on their works. It is amazing that the importance of these facts was overlooked. The essays are still unpublished because I haven't had the time to put them in a new book. And I'm tired of publishing books. I love to write but not to publish. It takes so much time and is not really creative.

OMNI
When did you ultimately decide to write The Drama?

Miller
Oh, it was funny. Actually, I didn't. I told you I did a paper for a conference; then I wrote another on depression. After the German professionals refused to print the first one, I wrote the third paper, and made it all into a book. Although I wrote it in three weeks, it was an expression of twenty years' experience. I sent it to a small publisher in Switzerland who said they were not interested, that they had four other books "on narcissism." Then I sent it to Suhrkamp, my present German publisher. The editor telephoned me the next day and said, "Wait, please, and you will have the contract in three days. It's extraordinary; it's so unusual." And then the publisher came to visit me and said, "Usually I take new manuscripts home with me at lunchtime. This time I couldn't take my nap; I had to finish it. I didn't return to work that day, either. You made a big discovery."

OMNI
Does response to your work differ from country to country?

Miller
Yes. The Scandinavian lands, Holland, and the United States are most liberal and open. Most of my books are sold in Germany, but many Germans are still very much formed by the poisonous pedagogy. Swiss people, too. So many are not allowed to criticize parents or see the poison of their upbringing. These people say my work describes the education of the nineteenth century. They don't realize that they still live according to nineteenth-century values.

This response is also a reaction to Hitler's time. The denial of Hitler is so deep that the German cannot learn from his history. As a child, Hitler had no witness. His father destroyed everything his son did. He could never tell anyone the pains he was suffering. In Sweden they made a play, "Hitler's Childhood," from a chapter in my book. The story shows how that child looked for contact, longed for a glance, but was constantly treated like a dog.

A reaction similar to Germany's also comes from Japan, but also from Japan come reactions from people who already have become aware. Their awareness is not damaged by theories like the Freudian drive theory, so these Japanese can face what I write, use it in their reality. They can realize the ever-present child abuse, and they can really help.

Behind every act of violence there is a history. A history of being molested, a history of denying. The denial is a law governing us, but it is ignored by society and still not investigated by the professionals. Yet it holds the keys to our understanding why pure nonsense can be still held in high esteem in our culture, such nonsense as Sigmund Freud's idea that a child would invent traumas.

OMNI
Are there cultures that have a different attitude toward parenting?

Miller
Despite variations in cultures, abuse is found in almost every one. But there are some that are different. For instance, there are people on an island of Malaysia called Senoi who have a nonviolent culture. They talk with their children about dreams each morning. They never have had war. Our culture is so violent because as children we learned not to feel.

OMNI
What, in general, are your thoughts about dreams?

Miller
Dreams tell me the story of childhood, but childhood transformed. The problems of the previous day are mixed in. Dreams sometimes reveal repressed traumas, but they also help the dreamer to master them. Dreams are a creative force everybody has each night when the control is lessened.

OMNI
Can therapy effect a change?

Miller
Yes, but only if the therapy will come to the pain, which is blocked in our feelings of guilt. The idea "I was guilty for what happened to me" is a blockage. Since I discovered that Freud's drive theory not accidentally but necessarily conceals the reality of child abuse, I have looked for a new form of psychotherapy, an effective therapy to be based on the whole knowledge of child abuse available to us today. I finally found it, and I will describe this concept in my next book. This therapy enables the patient and the therapist to systematically come in touch with their traumas and pain -- step by step without suddenly breaking the defenses, without moralistic and pedagogical attitudes, and without bringing people into dangerous states where they experience chaotic feelings and are stuck with them.

One can find plenty of irresponsible and harmful techniques and mixtures of techniques that don't provide a systematic confrontation with the past. Some leave people with different mystical offerings or with their unresolved pain. These patients are victims first of child abuse and finally of therapy abuse. And they try to "help" themselves by taking drugs, joining sects or gurus, or looking for other ways of denying reality and killing pain. Political activity can be one of these ways.

OMNI
What advice would you give today to a therapist in training?

Miller
First try to discover your own childhood, then take the experience seriously. Listen to the patient and not to any theory; with your theory you are not free to listen. Forget it. Do not analyze the patient like an object. Try to feel, and help the patient to feel instead of talking to the patient about the feelings of others.

The child needs fantasies to survive, to not suffer. Believe what the patient tells you, and don't forget that repressed reality is always worse than a fantasy. No one invents traumas, because we don't need traumas in order to survive. But neither do we need their denial. Some of us pay with severe symptoms for this denial. Study the history of childhood. Therapy has to open you as well as the patient for feeling in your whole life. It has to awaken you from a sleep.

It is tragic to go to therapy and find, instead of help, confusion. I have a letter from a seventy-nine-year-old woman saying that for "forty years of my life I went to psychoanalysis. I saw eight analysts. But for the first time, after reading your book, I didn't feel guilty for what happened to me. I always tried, and the analysts were nice people. They wanted to help me. But they never doubted that my parents were good to me. I am so grateful now that I don't feel guilty since I read your books. I now see how terribly they abused me. It was first my parents and then my analysts who made me feel wrong and guilty." This insight came from a seventy-nine-year-old woman! Then she quoted from the last line of For Your Own Good "For the human spirit is virtually indestructible, and its ability to rise from the ashes remains as long as the body draws breath."

OMNI
Does TV violence affect children?

Miller
Children who have really been loved and protected will not be interested in these films and shows and will not be in danger. But the child who was hurt and humiliated -- maybe at school, not necessarily by his parents -- is looking for outcomes, for material; he is looking for an object to hate and on whom to take revenge. Of course there are people who make a business of the suffering of children. But the violence doesn't come from TV films. Its sources are deeper. Protected and loved children cannot become murderers. It is impossible to find one person who was not beaten who beats a child.

OMNI
Why does violence beget itself through the generations?

Miller
If you go back you can see that the abuser was always abused. But in most cases you will not hear it from him or her, because there is so much denial. If you go to a prison and ask a murderer, "How was your childhood?" he will say, "Oh, it was not so bad. My father was severe and he punished me because I was so bad. And my mother was a nice woman." This is the problem: You can't find the truth because the person, the murderer himself, will prevent you from seeing his cruel childhood as it actually was. Because he cannot bear that pain, he kills innocent people instead of feeling the pain of his childhood.

OMNI
Do you think a child can experience abuse in the womb?

Miller
Of course. Each child has its own experience; some experience real martyrdom. There was a child born with three ulcers. It died. The mother was fifteen years old. She was beaten during pregnancy as well, and she used drugs. Nobody knows what a child, even in the womb, has to go through. We are so ignorant, and we refuse to know.

You heard about the McMartin School in Los Angeles? At this day-care center of more than three hundred children it was charged that many of them were sexually molested. For seven months attorneys asked the children what happened to them there. This questioning was torture for the children. Some of them reported that they helped kill a baby. The grown-ups found this wasn't true, so they called the children liars. Eventually charges were dropped against five of the seven accused molesters. But obviously this was a symbolic way to say, "When I agreed to be sexually abused I killed the child in myself."

I want to show how society reacts to children's reports. Abuse means killing the soul of a child. We cannot understand the child's symbolic language, so we say the child is lying. Then abusing teachers go free, and we think that everything is legally correct. The problem is that children protect the abuser. Sometimes the abuser is exchanged for another person in their reports. They perhaps say, "I'm afraid of the mailman because he was bad to me." And the parents know that the mailman had no body contact with their child. But behind the "made-up" story lurks a father or uncle. The lie functions to protect the loved person but at the same time expresses anxieties. Grown-ups say that these are children who invent stories. But the story is not invented; a real event happened.

OMNI
Can society learn to understand the child's language?

Miller
I hope so. Otherwise we will commit a mass suicide with the help of technology. The child's language is often very clear, but we refuse to listen to it. Children can endure terrible abuse and cruelty from the first moment of their lives, thanks to the technology in hospitals. The abuse is stored up in the mind, and it can remain active the whole life. Therefore, a mother maltreating her small baby can repeat exactly what happened to her without having any knowledge, any conscious memories. But the stored-up memories in her body will compel her to repeat the same trauma.

Unless a child receives the warm arms of a person who will console him and tell him with his arms that the shock of birth is over, this child will wait his whole life expecting a repetition of this shock. One of the first lessons is that you are alone, in a dangerous place, and nobody sees your pain. But this situation can easily be changed when we acknowledge the newborn as a feeling and highly sensitive person. Very often the child comes into life after a struggle, and we don't realize that he needs consolation and the arms of a mother. We give him medication, hospitals, and high technology instead. And we think it is good for the child -- only because we had the same experience years ago and think it is usual. What really happens in the psyche of a newborn is absolutely not interesting to most people. That is why I am giving you this interview.

OMNI
What would you like to do now?

Miller
I would like to support people who are confronting child abuse. I received a letter from a child therapist in California. He was a consultant for a school. A girl told him stories of a "hot box," a tiny windowless closet in which the children were locked up as punishment. He believed her, investigated, and, when he wrote a report about it, was fired. But he kept on investigating and found these hot boxes used in other schools. Newspapers reported about the case, and his voice and experience were noticed. He thanked me because he felt supported by my books. This shows one person can make people aware that methods they never questioned before are, in fact, damaging. The single advocate of a child can save a life; advocates say a crime is a crime; they don't conceal the truth by calling it ambivalent parent's love. An advocate can help keep a child from becoming a criminal. The child learns from an enlightened witness to recognize cruelty, to reject it, to defend himself against it, so as not to perpetuate it. Experiments have conclusively proven that no one learns anything by punishment. What you learn is how to avoid punishment by lies and how to punish a child twenty to thirty years later. People continue to believe, however, that punishment can be effective.

OMNI
Can you change this belief?

Miller
I hope so, at least partly. My life and work concentrate on the problem of child abuse and on the question of how I can transmit what I have learned about it to professionals, parents, and people responsible for law. It's not easy, because most people learned from the beginning of their lives that the child has to be spanked in order to become as good, human, honest, tolerant as the teachers, parents, ministers, and others around them believe that they are.

In England, where I've given some radio shows, interviewers often say, "You talk about the serious forms of violence and brutality in families, but there are also other forms -- spankings, caning, shouting at a child." The interviewers claim these forms of exercising power are harmless and not serious, and they argue that although they were often spanked as children, they didn't become an Adolf Hitler. I see it as my task to repeat that each kind of beating, caning, and spanking of a child is a humiliation and is a serious damage for his whole life. A child can avoid becoming a criminal if he has the chance in childhood to meet at least one person who is not cruel to him, who maybe even likes him or understands him. The experience of love, compassion, or sympathy would help him to recognize cruelty for what it is. Children who lack this experience because there is no conscious witness will see cruelty as a normal way of treating children and will continue with this burden. They will become as Hitler, Eichmann, [Rudolf] Hoss, and all the millions of their followers who in their childhoods never found anything but cruelty.

OMNI
What about the milder forms of cruelty, such as spanking, shouting, and verbal humiliation?

Miller
The tragedy is that people treated this way -- even if they don't become like Hitler -- pretend that this kind of treatment was necessary. They reserve the right to do the same to their children and are reluctant to pass laws forbidding spanking. In Britain such a law was not passed until 1986, and I see this delay as one of the effects of child abuse there.

The ignorance of our society is the result of child abuse. We were spanked in order to become blind like Oedipus. We have to become seeing in order to give our children the chance to grow up with more responsibility and more awareness than was available for our generation now producing atomic bombs.

http://www.nospank.net/miller4.htm
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Labels: abuse, alice miller, children, confrontation, denial, domestic violence, neglect, pain, parents

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Few Religious Leaders are Trained to Deal with Abuse

Silenced by shame; Fixing broken lives can be frightening, arduous
BY: Linda Espenshade

Religious leaders who believe it's their job to save an abusive marriage are taking on a job that gives even professional marriage counselors a headache.

"It's awfully hard to unscramble an egg," said a Mennonite minister simply. Yet that's precisely what a couple asks for when they bring their beaten marriage to their leaders.

"I don't think these ministers want these problems to be there, but because they don't know how to work with it is why it goes on," said Paul, a conservative Mennonite pastor who counsels abuse victims from all over the East Coast.

In many conservative churches, the leaders have no training in theology, family dynamics, abuse, psychology, conflict management or leadership principles, nor do many want to know more than what they read in the Bible.

Many are selected for church leadership through the lot, a kind of God-ordained lottery. The church chooses several men they believe are godly. After prayer, each man selects a book, one of which holds a special paper. The man who selects the book with the paper in it is the new leader.

Now, this man, in addition to working full time, must lead a church, preach, counsel people, go to meetings and nurture his own family in his spare time. Chances are he doesn't have time to deal with an abuse situation.

"Well, if you start getting involved in someone's life where there are marriage difficulties, it's going to take tremendous amounts of time," said Mary Boll, a Lancaster Conference woman who is a consultant for Mennonite ministers dealing with abuse.

"This isn't a quick thing. It's not one or two sessions and then it's done. This can be several years of involvement. I know many who have been involved for long periods of time."

In addition to the time commitment, dealing with abuse can be frightening for a minister, said Boll.

"If this guy is really doing what she says she's doing, is he dangerous? If I interfere, is he going to come after me?" a minister may ask himself, Boll said.

"The other fear that I think comes in there is, what if she wants to leave him? Heaven help us if we break up a marriage. And I don't say that lightly because I believe in marriage," said Boll, who's been married for 36 years.

Paul said some leaders are so concerned about keeping the church pure, they miss the needs of the person.

"If they are a bishop, they feel like their job is to administrate and take care of ordinances...and make sure everything is straight, that everybody's following the rules...rather than to sit down and listen to somebody."

Some leaders may be afraid to listen and acknowledge the abuse because then they would have to admit that they don't know how to deal with it. Then they feel powerless and impotent, said Mary Steffy, executive director of the Mental Health Association.

Even those who do know how to deal with abuse can end up feeling used and powerless when they get involved, said Boll. For example, if a minister tries to hold an offender accountable, the man can go to another church or denomination where the minister has no influence.

Or a minister may get involved in helping a woman get out of an abusive situation, only to have the victim change her mind at the last minute.

Paul said he is dealing with an abusive marital situation at his church now that won't resolve. "I've done everything books and literature say to do, but unless a person wants to fix the problem," it won't happen, he said.

Lancaster Newspapers, Inc./ INTELLIGENCER JOURNAL (LANCASTER, PA.)

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