Violent men’s paths to batterer intervention programmes: masculinity, turning points and narrative selves

ABSTRACT

Drawing on interviews with voluntary participants in intervention programmes for perpetrators of intimate partner violence in Sweden, the present article analyses violent men’s turning-point stories, that is, their narratives of deciding to start and starting treatment. Three types of turning-point stories are identified: narratives that describe men recognizing their violence either before or during treatment, and narratives of returning to treatment. Through these stories, the men not only present reasons for joining therapy, but also produce gendered narrative selves. In particular they present themselves as morally ‘good’ and self-conscious men by simultaneously acknowledging their abusive behaviour and distancing themselves from being violent men.

KEYWORDS:

• Batterer intervention programs
• desistance
• masculinity
• narrative analysis
• turning points
• violence prevention

Research on batterer programmes has predominantly been quantitative and focused on evaluating treatment efficacy. Some researchers have explored offenders’ experiences of interventions (e.g. Buchbinder & Eisikovits, 2008) and what causes change (cf. Walker, Bowen, & Brown, 2013), and others have presented change process models in relation to court-mandated batterer programmes (Scott, 2004). There is little knowledge of how and why violent men voluntarily seek professional help. Moreover, few studies have explored violent men’s paths to treatment and the turning points that play an important role in their voluntarily attending treatment (Sheehan, Thakor, & Stewart, 2012). Analysing offenders’ accounts of the processes that occur prior and during treatment is important if we are to understand willingness to change and long-term desistance from intimate partner violence (IPV).

Drawing on qualitative interviews with 44 men who voluntarily participated in batterer intervention programmes in Sweden, the aim of the present article is to analyse partner-violent men’s turning-point stories, that is, their narratives of deciding to start and then starting treatment. In particular, I examine how the men recount how they came to be aware of their need to change, their ‘epiphanies’ (Denzin, 1989), and how they, through these stories, produce gendered narrative selves. I argue that these enable the men to present themselves as morally ‘good’ and self-conscious by simultaneously acknowledging their abusive behaviour and distancing themselves from being violent men.

Violent men’s desistance and turning points

Two strands of research bear on violent men’s turning-point stories. One focuses on processes through which individuals desist from criminal behaviour in general, the other on change in relation to batterer programmes.

The literature on desistance has presented turning points as a way of understanding the processes through which individuals cease to offend (Farrall, 2006; Laub & Sampson, 2003; Maruna, 2001). For instance, Laub and Sampson (2003) see turning points as structural life events such as marriage, parenthood and employment, which may initiate desistance processes because they create increased social control, give the individual distance from delinquent networks and cause him to re-evaluate his life (Laub & Sampson, 2003). In contrast to this ‘strong social model’, others have emphasized subjective experiences of desistance, arguing that the individual’s motivation to change is more important than structural circumstances (cf. LeBel, Burnett, Maruna, & Bushway, 2008). According to this ‘subjective model’, turning points are insights or experiences that initiate desistance processes: The individual’s desire to change causes him to select environments and situations that support a new lifestyle (LeBel et al., 2008). Consequently, desistance is not seen as being connected to life-course transitions but rather to the individual’s possibility to develop a new identity (Maruna, 2001).

The desistance literature has paid little attention to IPV and generally not considered that it has a different social dynamic than other forms of criminal behaviour (Walker et al., 2013; but see Gadd & Farrall, 2004; Quigley & Leonard, 1996). What desistance theorists describe as an institution that keeps men away from criminal activity – marriage – is often the very context in which men’s violence against women is exercised (Gadd & Farrall, 2004). This calls for more nuanced accounts of cessation from different forms of criminal behaviour and the gendered characteristics of desistance.

In contrast, IPV researchers have theorized how violent men cease their abuse, particularly in relation to batterer programmes (Dobash, Dobash, Cavanagh, & Lewis, 2000; Scott, 2004; Sheehan et al., 2012). They often present change as occurring in relatively pre-determined steps, where individuals ‘proceed through an orderly set of stages in preparing for, accomplishing, and maintaining behavior change’ (Murphy & Maiuro, 2009, p. 3). In a research review, Scott (2004) summarizes several ‘stages-of-change’ theories, arguing that they all identify that violent men move from ignorance to crisis and change. In these theories, turning points are mostly understood as specific events that permanently change how men view their violence (Sheehan et al., 2012). Turning points may be caused by internal forces, such as an acute awareness that violence comes at a great cost to the man or his partner (Dobash et al., 2000) or a realization that the man is becoming like his father (Sheehan et al., 2012). They may also be caused by external forces, as when women engage their social network. Through their interventions, the police, social services and other community forces may also cause the men to change (Sheehan et al., 2012).

Batterer intervention programmes constitute another important community force that may initiate turning points (Gondolf & Hanneken, 1987; Hellman, Johnson, & Dobson, 2010; Sheehan et al., 2012; Silvergleid & Mankowski, 2006). Desisters often identify treatment as playing an important role in changing their violent behaviour (Gondolf & Hanneken, 1987; Shamai & Buchbinder, 2010; Sheehan et al., 2012). The therapist’s and the group’s ability to provide both support and critique is seen as important for men’s change, as it may help them listen to criticism that would otherwise create feelings of shame (Silvergleid & Mankowski, 2006). Others argue that contemplating the effects of violence has the single greatest effect on men’s willingness to change (Hellman et al., 2010). A number of researchers are, however, critical of intervention programmes and argue that they create a rhetoric of change rather than actual change (e.g. Schrock & Padavic, 2007; Shamai & Buchbinder, 2010).

Most studies of men in batterer programmes have observed or interviewed men in prison or men undergoing court-mandated treatment (but see Boethius, 2015; Gondolf & Hanneken, 1987; Shamai & Buchbinder, 2010). Therefore, there is little knowledge of how and why violent men voluntarily seek professional help. An early and rare study looking at men who self-referred to batterer programmes suggests that treatment reinforces processes that were initiated earlier (Gondolf & Hanneken, 1987). The men often became aware of their violence when their partner left them, joining the programme to change their behaviour and get their partner and family back.

Turning points and gendered narrative selves

As discussed, turning points have been identified as an important impetus for violent men’s willingness to change. They are generally described as either particular events that permanently alter how the man sees himself and responds to his violence (Sheehan et al., 2012), or as changes connected to life-course transitions (Laub & Sampson, 2003). Inspired by narrative criminology (Presser & Sandberg, 2015), I do not see turning points as actual events or processes, but as discursive resources used to account for individual experience in retrospect. Narrative criminology takes a constitutive view of stories focusing on how ‘people establish who they are – their identity work – by emplotting their experience’ (Presser, 2012, p. 6). Here, a turning-point story is understood as a script that influences (but does not determine) how changes and decisive moments in life are narrated. Although turning points may be initiated by external events, turning-point stories describe internal changes. External events create a sense of having a decisive impact on the individual’s life, which results in a redefined self (Bruner, 1994). A concept related to turning points is epiphanies, which are seen as interactional events and experiences that leave traces in people’s lives and transform their basic meaning structure (Denzin, 1989). An epiphany constitutes a ‘moment of problematic experience that illuminates personal character, and often signifies a turning point in a person’s life’ (p. 141).

Turning points often represent individual, distinct events. However, Mishler (1999) argues that turning points are not always clear-cut, but may be characterized by discontinuity and consist of detours and disruptions. In addition, life stories contain multiple and sometimes competing plots depending on where in life one narrates one’s epiphany. Life stories cannot be seen as narratives with clear beginnings and endings that may change direction after an epiphany, but rather as having several twists, turns and interruptions (Mishler, 1999). Accordingly, violent men’s stories of change are not always having single turning points connected to life-course transitions. Men trying to end their abusive behaviour will reproduce single turning points, but their stories may also be characterized by discontinuity (Hearn, 1998).

Turning points and epiphanies are key elements of the narrative self. By narrating experiences in different settings and for different people, life is given coherence at the same time as individual identity is produced (Riessman, 2008). Just as stories have contradictions, the narrative self is not coherent and stable, but dynamic and changing (Bruner, 1994; Mishler, 1999). Stories are not mere reports of past experiences or reflections of a ‘true’ inner self; instead the self is enacted and shaped through narratives (Butler, 2005; Foucault, 1988). Narrative production of the self is carried out in relation to different cultural discourses about, for instance, masculinity which constitute resources to give culturally acceptable accounts of one’s behaviour and oneself (Butler, 2005).

Turning points have been identified as central to violent men’s self-narratives, as they help these men differentiate between their present non-violent self and their past violent self (Maruna, 2001; Presser, 2008). Maruna (2001) argues that desisters present ‘redemption scripts’, portraying themselves as essentially ‘good’ people who have been exposed to negative life circumstances and therefore developed criminal careers. In her study of violent offenders, Presser (2008) identifies other narratives of change: stability, reform and elastic narratives. Stability narratives are similar to Maruna’s (2001) redemption scripts in that they are based on the notion that the man has always been good. In contrast, reform narratives consist of stories in which the perpetrator was once good, then was involved in violent crime for a period of time, but is now returning to his true self. Finally, the elastic narrative emphasizes both the narrator’s moral stability and change.

Against this background, an analysis of violent men’s turning-point stories is not only important for exploring how it is that they seek professional help, but also how batterer intervention programmes may be used as a means of presenting oneself as morally ‘good’ and fundamentally transformed.

Method

The present article draws on data from a larger qualitative study, conducted between 2009 and 2012, of men’s experiences of their violence against women (cf. Gottzén, 2013). I use a purposive sample of 44 men who participated in batterer intervention programmes at five different locations in Sweden. At some locations, the programme is one of several therapeutic IPV interventions, where abused women and children also receive help. Other programmes are part of general treatment and support for men in crisis. Like most voluntary batterer interventions in Sweden, they are all mainly inspired by Alternative to Violence, a Norwegian, half-structured treatment model that combines a feminist perspective with therapeutic and cognitive behavioural interventions (National Board of Health and Welfare, 2010).

To be eligible for participation in the study, men had to be in treatment (or to have completed treatment during the past 3 months) and to have been physically violent towards a female partner on at least one occasion. Programme participation was ‘voluntary’, that is, the men had not been sentenced to treatment but began on their own initiative. One should be cautious making too strict distinctions between participation in ‘voluntary’ and court-mandated programmes as men in both forms of intervention may feel that participating is a good solution to their problems and, as will be shown, may participate in voluntary programmes for a range of reasons, including social pressure and to make a good impression in case of trial. In fact, 12 men reported having previously been convicted of or reported for assault and battery. All of the men reported having been emotionally abusive and having used ‘moderate’ physical violence (shoving, slapping, grabbing hard, etc.); about one third had also used severe physical violence (strangling, kicking, punching, use of a weapon, etc.). The majority of the men (n = 29) had been physically violent on five or more occasions. At the time of the interviews they reported not having used sexual or physical violence in intimate relationships during the three last months or more. In other words, these men could be regarded as at least temporarily desisting from violent crime. However, I have no knowledge about what happened after the interviews and in the interviews, some acknowledged that they still had issues with emotional violence.

About one-third of all participants had a college degree, two-thirds a high school diploma, while four men had only completed primary education. About three quarters of the men were from the ethnic Swedish majority, some (n = 7) were born in Sweden but had at least one foreign-born parent, and only three were foreign-born. Participants were between 17 and 66 years of age; the average age was 36 and most men (n = 33) were between 25 and 45 years.

The present study takes a narrative approach. This implies that I have conducted teller-focused interviews (Hydén, 2014), which are similar to semi-structured interviews but slightly more open in character. The researcher’s role in a teller-focused interview is to facilitate and enable the informant’s storytelling. The interviews covered a range of topics, including participants’ reasons for joining the programme and their experience of the programme. The interviews lasted between 1 and 2 h and were conducted at the various treatment units. Sampling continued until the point of data saturation, that is, until no new information emerged. The interviews were transcribed and then coded thematically, focusing on their content, in order to give an overview of the data. For the sake of anonymity, all names have been anonymized.

Interviewing the men posed some challenges. On the one hand, I was critical of their abuse and how some men minimized their violence. On the other, at times I felt empathy for some men due to their difficult circumstances (e.g. addiction, depression, poverty). I also found some informants likable since they were reflexive about their behaviour and seemed honest in their attempts to change. My aim in the research process has been to always make the men and their behaviour intelligible while never obscuring or minimizing their abuse. I have also reflected on how the encounter affects me and how my research enables me to present myself as a non-violent, progressive and profeminist man (Gottzén, 2013).

The narrative approach has also influenced the data analysis. Following Riessman (2008), I conducted a performative narrative analysis, which implies focusing on the structure and content of the narratives, as well as on the narrative production in the research interview, particularly on how interviewees construct narrative identities. Consequently, I analysed how the men presented gendered selves through their accounts of starting treatment and of their treatment experiences. When analysing the data, I identified three types of turning-point stories that were somewhat different in structure. Turning point and epiphany are not terms that the men used themselves, but when they talked about why they had started treatment, most retold a particular event or process that had led them to the batterer programme. I conceptualize these narratives as epiphanies prior to treatment. Others recounted epiphanies that occurred during treatment and that tended to be more cumulative. Finally, some men with epiphanies prior to and during treatment also recounted how they had been in treatment previously and were now returning to treatment. The excerpts and cases presented here are representative of the sample and illustrate the three types of turning-point stories identified in the data.

Epiphanies prior to treatment

When explaining their motives for starting treatment, the majority of the men presented epiphanies prior to treatment; they reported having joined the programme due to a sudden or growing awareness of their violence or due to aggression issues they were unable to deal with on their own. For instance, 26-year-old Filip had recently begun treatment after having been physically violent towards his girlfriend. On three or four occasions, he had grabbed and shoved her causing her to fall backwards onto the floor. The last time, however, she had questioned his actions, which made him think.

I came to my senses or however I should put it and started ‘Oh fuck, what have I done?’ It felt unreal. And ‘damn’. And so I thought, ‘No, it’s not fucking okay. What have I done?’ […] I felt like ‘What the hell is this? Have I become a woman batterer? What the hell is going on?’ I felt really like, [it was] a very scary feeling. And the thing is that similar things had happened a couple of times before, but after those times. I don’t know really, but I don’t think they were as intense as this. But the big difference was that afterwards we, me mostly, came up with all these excuses.

Filip’s narrative epitomizes the basic structure of turning-point stories that include epiphanies prior to treatment. First, Filip had used physical violence towards his girlfriend on several occasions, but presented different excuses for his violence, including being ‘pressured’. In the interview, he said that such accounts were ways for him to condone his own violence. Similarly, after previous discussions about the events, he ignored and denied his violent behaviour. Second, his girlfriend had condemned his violence and this, third, had made him aware of his behaviour; he had experienced an epiphany. He came to his senses and started questioning his own actions. Filip agreed with his girlfriend – he had acted improperly, which, fourth, gave him the motivation to seek professional help. A few days later, he accompanied his girlfriend to her therapist to talk about his violence. In the waiting room, he found a business card with information about the treatment programme. When the therapist mentioned the programme, Filip picked up the business card and asked, ‘“Is this the place?” And she said, “Yes, that’s it”. So I called the next day’.

Filip’s epiphanic experience not only concerned his actions, but also his self. He had been physically violent towards his partner, but, more importantly, these actions seemed to have turned him into a violent man. He started asking himself if he was becoming a ‘woman batterer’. In the narrative, it is not his awareness of having done wrong that is essential, but rather his realization that his actions had fundamentally changed who he was – or who he believed he was – that motivated him to seek help. The ‘woman batterer’ is a reoccurring figure in the men’s narratives and is seen as a morally problematic masculine subject with low social status. To some extent, the ‘woman batterer’ can be understood as a stigmatized masculinity, as assaulting women is considered to deviate from ‘proper’ masculine behaviour. Being a woman batterer is something that the men were ashamed of and, consequently, they were generally reluctant to associate themselves with this deviant masculinity (Gottzén, 2016, 2017).

One might assume that Filip’s initial ignorance about his violence is related to him being violent on only a few occasions and to the fact that this violence was relatively moderate, but even men who reported having exercised severe physical violence for many years produced similar narratives. When asked why he had joined the batterer programme, 45-year-old Daniel recounted the breakup of his previous relationship.

Daniel: We dated for two-and-a-half years. I grabbed her three times during that period. No punches, no shoving, nothing, but I grabbed her. And I remember right after the first, the second time she said that if I ever did that again, ‘I’ll never talk to you again. I’ll leave right away. I’ll report you to the police and everything’. And the third time I did it, she was sitting on a chair and the chair tipped over and Lovisa got up and walked past me and out through the door. And I’ve not seen her since that day.

Lucas: How did that make you feel?

Daniel: Ouch. It really fucking hurt. I called my best friend Peter two days later, and I remember I was a wreck. Bawling. And I told him ‘I can’t stand myself anymore. I can’t live like this anymore; I need to get out of this shit’.

Peter told Daniel that he would help him on the condition that Daniel followed his instructions carefully, or else Peter would turn his back on him. First, Daniel was to contact the batterer programme. Second, Peter told him to clean his apartment thoroughly while listening to atonal and ‘horrible’ music. Daniel followed his advice, ‘scrubbing by hand, and each spot you see has to go and if it didn’t disappear with the cloth, you had to use the green sponge, you know, and if that didn’t work, steel wool’. Getting treatment and cleaning the apartment can be understood as ‘technologies of the self’ (Foucault, 1988), that is, practices aimed at working on and (re)shaping the self. As with other therapeutic interventions, most men in this study entered the programme with a desire to change. But in order to do this, self-awareness is considered necessary, and this is practiced by exposing and examining the self and exercising self-control. Narrating previous violent events in detail, discussing emotions and behaviours on a weekly basis, as well as learning how to recognize and stop aggression at an early stage are central to the batterer programmes the men attended (National Board of Health and Welfare, 2010). As another man put it, ‘Here you go with the violence issue, to get rid of it. So here you have confessed, of course. I’m prone to violence, I want to get rid of it, or I want to learn to control myself’ (Andreas, 34 years of age). Participating in a batterer intervention programme is thus presented as an attempt to ‘transform oneself into the ethical subject of one’s behavior’ (Foucault, 1985[1992], p. 27). Similar to therapy, Daniel’s cleaning of his apartment becomes a purification ritual that implies self-examination and reflection about his self. His physical removal of stains symbolizes his abuse and cleaning the apartment becomes an analogy to purifying the soul: ‘you’re cleaning your insides at the same time’, he said.

Forty-one–year-old Christian mentioned two former girlfriends as crucial in making him aware of his violence. After breaking up, his last partner asked him whether he had been violent in any previous relationships. Christian assured her that he had only been physically violent once, toward the mother of his daughter.

Christian: Then I said ‘I’ve only beaten someone once’. And then I start thinking, so I actually called her and asked. ‘What was it like, it was only one time, right?’ ‘No Christian’, she said, ‘it was more than once’. It was probably more than ten times. But I had repressed it. And it had always happened when I was drunk. So somehow when I woke up the next day we didn’t talk about it, it just disappeared. And after all these years, I had sort of let go of it. You have the ability to repress, or I have the ability, I’ve almost been forced to repress all the misery, otherwise I’d have given up a long time ago. But that was a pretty big shock for me.

Lucas: The phone call?

Christian: That it had been more than once and that I was lying to myself. That it was so horrible. And soon after that, I went to the movies […] and I saw this ad they had for the batterer programme. And I just sat like this. ((Opens his mouth wide)) ‘Tomorrow it’s you calling this place’. I decided there and then and that’s what I did.

Unlike previous narratives, in which the men presented themselves as relatively suddenly being informed of the ‘truth’ about who they were, Christian portrayed himself as a man in search of the truth. He initiated the quest himself to be able to assure his girlfriend that he had only been physically violent once in a previous relationship. He called his former partner to confirm, but he did not get the expected answer; instead was reminded of what he had done and what he had ‘repressed’. Realizing that he had been more violent than he thought disturbed him, particularly because he had been lying to himself. Thus, Christian’s epiphany was not only a matter of new knowledge about the extent of his violence, but also about him recognizing his self-deceit.

Epiphanic experiences during treatment

A small group of men told turning-point stories in which their epiphany was positioned as occurring during treatment. The structure of the stories was similar to those including epiphanies prior to therapy, but there was a somewhat different sequential order. The men recounted how they had used violence for shorter or longer periods of time, but were not aware of their abusive behaviour. Then, some kind of external force, most often a partner or the police, denounced their violence. Unlike the other men, this denouncement did not lead to recognition of their abusive behaviour; instead they joined the programme to keep their partner or receive mitigation in case of a trial. Once in treatment, however, they learned about their violence and wanted to change. While the men with epiphanies prior to treatment tended to recount distinct events, these men’s turning-point stories primarily consisted of cumulative epiphanies in which they gained insight into their abuse over time (cf. Denzin, 1989).

Lars, 31 years of age, illustrates this narrative structure well. He reported having been arrested by the police after being violent toward his girlfriend. At the station, he found a folder with information about the local treatment centre. He decided to contact them, but not because he needed help with his abusive behaviour.

My first thought was, if I was convicted I might get some mitigation, because I’d started coming here. That was my thought, maybe the first two times I came here. It was just because it would look good during a trial. But then, the case was dismissed for some reason. But I kept coming, because I like it here.

During treatment Lars had started to recognize his violent behaviour and assume responsibility for it. He felt the programme had taught him ‘to manage my anger’ and he related well with the other men in his group. Lars did not begin treatment due to any new insight into his violence or flawed character, but rather as a result of external pressure. Christer, 66 years of age, reported having a similar experience. ‘I guess I didn’t have the same need in the same way as I imagine the others realized they had a need’, he reflected. He started treatment to please his wife and his awareness of his violence came gradually, learning ‘to not use violence at all and […] the meetings have made me realize that violence is not only hitting, but violence could also include just saying something verbally’. As a result, he reported having reinterpreted how he has acted towards his wife, now seeing much of his previous behaviour as abuse.

Patrik, a 39-year-old, also argues that he started the batterer programme due to his partner’s demands, ‘Today, I’m happy that Sara gave me an ultimatum. So, the main reason I came here is I love Sara’. He had not reflected on his violent behaviour until she told him he either had to start therapy or she would leave him. Therefore, at her request, Patrik contacted the treatment centre and made an appointment. But receiving professional help for his abuse was challenging.

I was terrified, really terrified. And I felt like a failure, that I can’t cope and solve it myself, it’s sort of male vanity that ‘I manage my problems on my own, I don’t need any help’. But when you cross the threshold and sort of dare to accept the help and dare to admit that you need help, then you grow a bit.

Patrik’s account of joining the treatment programme illustrates the somewhat contradictory relationship between help-seeking and dominant discourses of masculinity. Patrik realized that he was unable to change his behaviour on his own and that he needed outside help. But not managing to solve his own problems was a personal failure and a threat to his ‘male vanity’. In his account, he emphasized masculine independence and self-sufficiency, even in the face of problems (cf. Courtenay, 2000); the threat to his ‘male vanity’ consisted of needing professional help.

Another obstacle for seeking therapeutic help, and particularly joining group therapy, was that you are expected to talk about your abusive behaviour and thus to confess that you are a violent man. Patrik again:

I met […] the therapists and they both thought I should join a group. And I did, the same day I had that meeting. I was nervous. You’re supposed to sit there and talk about how you’ve beaten your partner, they’re all sort of strangers. But at the same time you realize it has to be done.

In addition, attending group therapy implies being intimately connected to ‘real’ criminals who have assaulted and beaten their partners severely, while the men did not see themselves as such. As 43-year-old Tomas put it, ‘The first time I thought there would be a bunch of aggressive criminals here’. But in the programme he learned that, ‘They’re all regular people, you know. People like me’. Getting to know the other participants and learning from their experiences helped him realize that he also had issues with his violent behaviour.

Like the men who had epiphanies prior to treatment, these men’s epiphanic experiences primarily concerned the relation between their violence and their self. The difference between the two narrative structures concerns where in the turning-point story the man gains this knowledge. The men who reported having epiphanies during therapy were particularly reluctant to join treatment, because they looked down on the other men, seeing them as ‘real’ violent men or criminals, and did not want to be associated with them. But through therapy – and particularly through encounters with these Other men – they came to recognize their own abuse.

Returning to batterer treatment

While many turning-point stories follow a relatively straightforward pattern, some men presented more ambivalent and contradictory stories of change. What at first glance seems to be a turning-point story could also be seen as a returning or revisiting story, and rather than consisting of a single epiphany and neat stages of change on the way to complete cessation, these men’s narratives take different turns and detours (cf. Mishler, 1999). For instance, after the arrest, Lars attended the programme for some months but did ‘for some reason’ not continue. The group leaders tried to get hold of him for long time and after almost a year finally managed to convince him to return to the group. Similarly, while the story Daniel produced follows the general pattern of ignorance, epiphany and treatment, in the interview he also reported having tried to get into therapy previously. Prior to the relationship with the woman who left him after he pushed her off her chair, he had been married for several years. Daniel recounted how he contacted the police after assaulting his wife.

Daniel: The third, fourth time, I called the police and reported myself because I felt I had to deal with this. The police referred me to psychiatry. Psychiatry referred me to the police. So, well, in the end I reported myself, and then Therese reported me as well in the middle of our marriage, so we got two reports.

Lucas: And what happened to the report?

Daniel: I had to pay 6,000. Which is absolutely fantastic. No, no court, no nothing. Just something like, don’t know what it’s called. Summary judgement. You accept the sentence with no discussion. But there was nowhere to solve it.

Lucas: And no therapy?

Daniel: Nothing.

Daniel sarcastically described the small fine (approx. US $1,000) as ‘fantastic’ because it did not lead to him receiving any treatment. His attempts to receive professional help were in vain, and he did not deal with his issues until several years later.

Other men talked about how they previously had been in treatment and had stopped their abusive behaviour, but had to come back to treatment because they became violent or were afraid of becoming violent again. Although Pontus, 40 years of age, had been sentenced for aggravated assault twice, he argued that he had not been offered any therapy. Five years ago, he finally felt he needed professional help for his recurring violence, so he convinced the probation services to let him join its court-mandated programme for perpetrators. Pontus felt that this therapy has helped him, even though he has continued to be emotionally abusive. However, in his current relationship, he reported feeling increasingly stressed and like his violence was on ‘its way back’. He therefore returned to treatment to prevent further abuse.

Lucas: How did you end up here?

Pontus: Well, it was the whole situation at home right now, it’s a bit stressed since we’re moving and I have a temporary job that will end […] Well, and we were pretty stressed at work, very busy right now, has been for a while, so I’ve felt bad. That was really why we came here […] this time.

As noted previously, joining batterer treatment involves being aware of one’s abusive behaviour as well as realizing that this behaviour affects one’s identity. This connection between behaviour and identity also applies to the revisiting stories. Erik, a 38-year-old, narrates how he came into contact with the treatment programme after being arrested for assaulting his former girlfriend and for breach of a restraining order. The police encouraged him to start batterer treatment. But this was not his first time in treatment for his violence. He had turned to psychiatry approximately 10 years previously after having tried to strangle a former girlfriend.

Then I turned to psychiatry and said that I don’t feel well, I have a tendency to be violent, and I want to understand what’s wrong and what I can do to make myself better. And I started therapy with a psychiatric nurse and went there for over a year and talked and became a whole different person and got an understanding of various events and actions and [it] made me a better person. And I carried that with me for many, many years.

According to Erik, therapy changed him profoundly and he was not physically abusive for several years. But at the end of his last relationship, he started threatening his girlfriend. He was afraid he would soon also start being physically violent and therefore joined the batterer programme.

I want to have a tool where I feel that when I’m getting annoyed I don’t, don’t let it escalate, I want to have a lid so I can put a lid on it all, ‘Okay, I’m annoyed right now, but let’s keep it there’. Rather than becoming verbally aggressive and threatening and ending up in the same shit again.

The notion of being able to ‘put a lid on’ one’s emotions bears a great resemblance to the ‘pressure cooker’ metaphor that is commonly used to describe men’s violence. This metaphor depicts men building up their anger and aggression and finally exploding in a violent eruption, like an over-heated pressure cooker (Hearn, 1998). Erik argued that, thanks to his previous treatment, he was able to get ‘a lid’ and learned to control himself. However, in his last relationship his ‘lid’ disappeared.

I’ve failed somewhere along the way, from having been a good person, a reasonable person to an unreasonable person who can’t take it easy. But now it’s like a pepper mill comes flying, so to speak. I think it’s a failure. And that’s what I want to find, I want to get back to who I was, when I had a lid. And I know I’m going to get that help here.

According to Erik, becoming violent again is a failure, not only in relation to his partner or because of the violence per se, but because his abusive behaviour has turned him into someone he does not want to be: an ‘unreasonable person’. For him, the aim of getting treatment is to modify his behaviour and turn himself into the sort of person he wants to be, a ‘good person’ (cf. Maruna, 2001; Presser, 2008).

Discussion

In this article, I have presented three different types of turning-point stories that violent men produced when recounting their path to batterer treatment. Epiphanies prior to treatment depict a man who is first ignorant of his violence, but who becomes aware of his actions and is therefore motivated to join therapy. Epiphanies during treatment reveal a man who is initially ignorant of his violence, but who starts therapy in order to please his partner or as a mitigating factor in the case of a trial, and who later has an epiphanic experience during therapy (cf. Denzin, 1989). Some men in the study also presented narratives of returning to treatment because they were afraid of becoming – or already had become – abusive again. These stories could be understood as consisting of detours and disruptions in the narrated desistance process.

The role of others is evident in turning-point stories. Community forces, such as social services, therapists and the police, are common agents in the men’s narratives. They either intervened and initiate epiphanic experiences or informed the man about treatment options. Friends and family are important in enlightening the man about his behaviour, but more often they are the ones who first learn about the violence. Sometimes they explain to the man what he has done and that his actions are wrong, and this becomes a wake-up call (cf. Dobash et al., 2000; Silvergleid & Mankowski, 2006). In other cases, the man tells friends or relatives about his violence and seeks social and emotional support (Gottzén, 2016; cf. Hearn, 1998). The perhaps most central figure in turning-point stories is the man’s female partner. Laub and Sampson (2003) identify marriage as a central factor in triggering turning points among criminal men, arguing that marriage increases social control and conformity. The present study also suggests that intimate heterosexual relationships are crucial in turning points stories, but in a very different way. It is instead the risk of a relationship break up – that the woman threatens to or in fact does leave the man – that is presented as crucial to the epiphany, as also demonstrated by Gondolf and Hanneken (1987). In addition, since IPV is carried out in close relationships, narratives of desisting from partner abuse therefore seems to have a different trajectory than other crimes and not necessarily something that the perpetrator may move away from through changes in the life course. In fact, most of the men in this study told about being abusive in stable relationships or after becoming fathers. Moreover, and in line with a ‘subjective model’ of desistance (LeBel et al., 2008), the present data show that while external forces are important, the men portrayed themselves as the main agents in their turning-point stories. Although individuals and agencies are essential, they emphasized how they had acted to change their behaviour.

To some extent, the narratives in the present study follow the pattern described in stages-of-change theories (Scott, 2004) – from ignorance to crisis and (attempts to) change – but, in contrast, the men also gave accounts in which achieving desistance requires many years of commitment and includes setbacks, detours and hiatuses. More importantly, the men’s motivation to change does not seem to be connected to an awareness of the costs of violence (Dobash et al., 2000) or to a realization that one is becoming like one’s father (Sheehan et al., 2012), but rather to seeing the intimate connection between their violence and their self. Central to the turning-point story is the epiphanic experience of becoming a violent man or a ‘woman batterer’, which the men see as a deviant and morally problematic masculinity. In order to prevent this, in order to change and not be (or not become) violent men, they joined, continued with, or revisited the programme.

As discussed, the men’s narratives about participating in a batterer intervention programme not simply concerned being aware of one’s abusive behaviour, but realizing that the behaviour affects one’s identity. In the turning-point stories, getting treatment consequently appears as a technology of the self (Foucault, 1988) where the men attempt to change both their behaviour and their identity. This is carried out through a ‘disclosure of the self; examination of self and conscience, including a review of what was done, and what should have been done’ (Foucault, 1988, pp. 34–35). For the men in this study, using violence towards a female partner is a sign of having lost self-control. Through confession and self-examination, they learn how to moderate their aggression and enact the restrain that their culture demands of respectable masculinity. Through working on their selves, they attempt to become the ‘good’ and ‘reasonable’ men they long to be.

It is not only in the content of the turning-point stories that highlights technologies of the self, but the act of narrating them in the research interview could also be seen as such. The storytelling took place in a setting where the men were expected to give an account of themselves and make their responsibility visible (cf. Butler, 2005). In contrast to therapy, the men did not discuss how they should have behaved but through recollecting things said and done they nevertheless constituted their identity and manifested themselves to the interviewer (Foucault, 1997). I would argue that the particular identity produced when narrating turning-points is a self-conscious self. Self-consciousness is not only a mental state, but also a narrative presentation of oneself as an individual who turns his gaze towards his self, manages his self and turns himself into a project. In many ways, the turning-point stories presented here are similar to redemption scripts (Maruna, 2001) or reform narratives (Presser, 2008), in which the men described themselves as having been abusive but now changed or trying to change. But by narrating turning points and epiphanies the men did not only present themselves as reformed, but also as being aware and conscious of their abusive behaviour (cf. Gottzén, 2016). These offender narratives could therefore also be seen as self-conscious narratives. Presenting ourselves as self-conscious positions us as individuals who are able to place ourselves beyond oppression (Ahmed, 2004). The men in the present study did this by historicizing their abuse and placing it in their past as well as by denouncing their previous behaviour. Turning-point stories were instrumental in helping the men display that they ‘really’ realized what they had done and that they had become violent men or ‘woman batterers’. However, at the same time, they were able to move away from this deviant masculinity by narrating how they turned away from violence by joining therapy. They acknowledged having been violent while distancing themselves from being deviant violent men. This does not necessarily mean that they condoned their violence, but rather that they presented it as the actions of a violent man placed in a historical past, while the man after the turning point and the epiphany was presented as essentially non-violent.

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Margareta Hydén and Linn Sandberg for providing invaluable feedback on earlier drafts of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This research is part of the Men’s Violence Against Women in Intimate Relations: A Study of the Perpetrators’ Social Networks Project (principal investigator: Margareta Hydén); Forskningsrådet för Arbetsliv och Socialvetenskap [2010-1382].