Sept 18 Tip: Psychologist: Some Domestic Abusers Want To Change — And Can

Psychologist: Some Domestic Abusers Want To Change — And Can

(The September 18 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2013/09/16/domestic-abuser-education

One in four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime. Psychologist David Adams has made it his life’s work to help abusers change their violent behavior.

In 1977, Adams and a group of friends founded Emerge, the first education program in the United States for perpetrators of domestic violence.

“What we had in common was that we were friends of women who had started the first battered women’s hotlines or shelters in the Boston area, and they had been getting calls in their hotlines from men asking for help for themselves, and the women who were working for these battered women’s programs did not feel it was their mission to really help the abuser,” Adams told Here & Now.

“We loved the idea — the whole idea of, why should the burden of change be on the victim, to disrupt her life and her children’s lives? Why shouldn’t we expect the person who is causing the problem to take responsibility?”So these 10 men, ranging from social workers to cab drivers, decided to take on the task and created a program to help the men who were willing to admit they had a problem abusing the women in their lives.

Some men who attend Emerge’s 40-week program are court-ordered to be there. However, “some of them are coming on their own accord and so, fortunately, I think it’s a good sign there’s a higher proportion of those men now too,” Adams said.