Intimate Violence: A Study of Injustice

by Julie Blackman

Overview

Traditional analyses of domestic battery often point to the batterer's need for power and control to explain patterns of violent behavior. Offering a nonjudgmental and compassionate view of the interior life of the batterer, Intimate Violence moves beyond this explanation and transforms our understanding of the psychic origins of abuse. The book is divided into three main sections. The first assesses psychoanalytic understanding of the inner mechanisms of the batterer's violent behavior toward close family members, pointing to disruptions in the abuser's "narcissistic equilibrium." The second section looks more broadly at the ideas of "batterer" and "victim," and the ways these categories—and the social stigma and support accorded respectively—may impede healing and resolution. The third section addresses various treatment methods that promise permanent changes in batterers' behavior.

Intimate Violence also deals frankly with the dynamics of the therapist/client relationship in battery cases, particularly transference and countertransference. How do therapists deal with feelings of revulsion for the batterer's behavior, or for the batterer him- or herself? How do they resist the very human urge within themselves to punish their clients? Scalia persuasively argues that these issues subtly undermine counseling, causing resistance to develop within both parties, and that a new approach to therapy is needed. His analysis suggests that "emotional communication" in the context of prolonged and deep psychoanalysis enables patient and practitioner alike to transcend cycles of recrimination and defensiveness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231119849
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	03/06/2002
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.80(d)
Lexile:	1450L (what's this?)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Joseph Scalia is a psychotherapist who has written articles for The Journal of Interpersonal Violence and Modern Psychoanalyst.

Table of Contents

Part 1. Understanding the Batterer
1. Affect Regulation and Narcissistic Equilibrium
2. The Experience of Self and Other
3. Identification with the Aggressor
Part 2. The Politics of the Batterer-Treatment Movement
4. Political Versus Clinical Determination of Abuse and Other Associations
5. Our Unwitting Persecution of the Batterer and Other Facile Conveniences
Part 3. Treatment
6. Countertransference
7. Transference
8. Joining Techniques
9. Working Through: A Synthesis

What People are Saying About This

James S. Grotstein

This work is a watershed....a must, not only for all mental health workers but also for society at large.

— James S. Grotstein, M.D., clinical professor of psychiatry, UCLA School of Medicine

Christopher Bollas

Scalia's book is the most comprehensive psychoanalytical study of domestic violence to date, and, it will prove to be essential reading to anyone working in this area. His case studies are not simply informative and clinically helpful; they are also unforgettable. He arrives at new and convincing theoretical understandings of violent men. He has, in other words, found creative understandings of otherwise off-putting individuals: a remarkable fact in what so often seems a rather bleak part of the world of mental health.

— Christopher Bollas, author of The Shadow of the Object

Cindy Garthwait

Those seeking to understand intimate violence and who are willing to critically reexamine the psychic interior of the batterer will be rewarded with a fresh blending of theory building and treatment guidelines.

— Cindy Garthwait, University of Montana

Editorial Reviews

In a scholarly and clinically astute work Joseph Scalia has integrated a wide range of clinical and developmental theories that demythologizes and humanizes a psychoanalytic pariah, the batterer. In a clearly written style Scalia provides firm and valuable guidelines for treatment laced with substantial clinical vignettes. Intimate Violence is essential reading for every clinician who works with batterers and their victims."

Robert J. Marshall

Joseph Scalia's work Intimate Violence: Attacks Upon Psychic Interiority offers an in-depth exploration of the psychological complexity behind domestic violence... Scalia's work presents an important and interesting arguement.

Criminal Justice Review

[Scalia's] approach is an eye-opener. The author has what seems the rare ability to get beyond the revulsion and disgust these patients would arouse in most therapists. He is able to reach patients at a primitive, emotional level and can effectively combat the powerful impulse to back away. Reading the author's clinical material enables one to see the humanity that even batterers possess.

Journal of Psychohistory - Neil Wilson

[Scalia's] approach is an eye-opener. The author has what seems the rare ability to get beyond the revulsion and disgust these patients would arouse in most therapists. He is able to reach patients at a primitive, emotional level and can effectively combat the powerful impulse to back away. Reading the author's clinical material enables one to see the humanity that even batterers possess.

— Neil Wilson

Journal of Psychohistory