The vicious circle of domestic violence
Schematically, it can be represented as follows: Violence - guilt - apologies - normal behavior - fantasies and planning - creating the right situation - violence.
Violence
.
Your spouse explodes, hits, humiliates, or insults you. This behavior is a game, the purpose of which is to show you who is boss. Guilt
.
After this, he feels guilty - but the reason for this is not his behavior. He is more worried about the fact that someone might have seen or heard it, and his outburst is fraught with consequences. Apologies and justifications
.
He realizes what he has done. After this, he may begin to make excuses, shift the blame onto you, or even apologize - in a word, do everything to avoid responsibility for what he has done. Normal behavior
.
He does everything to maintain his composure and prevent you from leaving him. He can behave as if nothing had happened, and can become extremely attentive and gentle. All this gives the victim false hopes that the rapist has reformed and now everything will be different. He makes you believe that only you can help him, that he loves you. All this makes leaving him difficult. However, staying with this person is dangerous. Fantasies and planning
.
He begins to think again about being violent towards the victim. He spends a lot of time counting all your mistakes and shortcomings and figuring out how to get even with you. After this, he begins to plan how to turn these fantasies into reality. Creating the right situation
. Guided by the plan, he builds a mise-en-scène in which he can finally begin to act again. The circle closes and everything repeats itself again.
Where to go for a victim of domestic violence
December 20, 2021, 11:38 — Public news service — OSN Every region has centers and departments to help families and children, but victims of violence rarely know about them. The director of the crisis center for children and women, Natalya Zavyalova, told where to turn to those who suffered at the hands of loved ones.
Where to go
Contacts of government and non-profit organizations can be found on the Internet. Often only the phone number is listed there. Crisis centers do not advertise their addresses because they fear that women will be persecuted by their abusers. Already over the phone, victims receive instructions on how to get to the place where they will receive help. If a woman does not want anyone to know about her location, the center staff maintains privacy.
If someone who seeks help is severely beaten, she is immediately taken to the emergency room to have the beating removed. This is necessary for further contacting the police if the victim makes such a decision.
For the first few days, the center’s staff, together with psychologists, bring victims out of shock and only then begin to act. They involve lawyers and help victims take documents and necessary things from home.
What does a woman want?
Zavyalova emphasized: first of all, the center understands what the injured woman wants to achieve. Whether she wants to get a divorce, change housing, or start a new life, she will always be supported.
– We have a large service of psychotherapists, psychologists and lawyers. If a woman wants to save her family, we help her in every possible way. Our first client wrote a statement, and a month later she took it back. I didn’t want the children’s father to have a criminal record. But we legally work with women. And we explain that there is no need to withdraw the application. And if there are doubts, then it is better not to write a statement at all,” the specialist explained.
Still, most women return to their families because they have nowhere else to go. And the work of the center’s staff is to ensure that loved ones learn to communicate without using violence.
There are secondary cases of appeals, but there are not many of them. According to statistics from the Moscow Crisis Center, over 5.5 years, only one woman came for help for the third time. When her husband broke her spine by throwing her out of the window. Only then did she find the strength to get a divorce, sell the apartment and move to another city.
Photo: dszn.ru
Men are victims too
The centers also work with men who have raised their hands against their wives. According to Zavyalova, in such a situation the domestic tyrants themselves suffer.
– If an offender comes to the center, it means he repents and can be helped. Our psychologists are ready to work with men. Moreover, in most cases, women decide to return home,” she explained.
On average, women live from 2 to 4 months. Serious rehabilitation is underway. Center employees help transfer children to the nearest kindergarten or school. Many mothers choose to homeschool because they are afraid of persecution.
There is security at the centers. The client will not go further than the reception. Employees are responsible for the safety of women who contact them.
“Men often come who would like to pick up their loved ones. Often these are wealthy abusers who share property and children. They think that if they come with lawyers, they will be allowed through. Sometimes they make trouble. But we are in contact with the local police, they know about our facility. Well, security. Four years ago, there was even an armed attack on a security guard at the Nadezhda branch. This is an isolated incident. We carefully monitor security, there are cameras all around,” said Zavyalova.
Psychological assistance to victims of domestic violence
Of course, psychological assistance to victims of violence will differ significantly depending on the situation of violence, its repetition, scale, the age of the person who survived the violence, and so on. However, in general, three stages of psychological work can be distinguished: urgent (or first) assistance, the stage of crisis work, and the research stage of work.
Urgent psychological assistance to victims should be aimed at stabilizing their current mental and physiological state and restoring the safety of their life. It is important to remember that urgent help does not imply deep psychological research, experimentation, and so on.
In crisis work with victims of violence, the main goal of the psychologist is to reduce and eliminate traumatic experiences, feelings of inadequacy, inferiority, and the formation of adequate self-esteem. At this stage, it is important to give the victim the opportunity to experience the difficult feelings that arose in the situation. This stage of work can be carried out both individually and in group format. The individual format allows for a safer environment, while in a group format the survivor can receive more support and see that they are not alone. At the same time, it is important to remember that the goals of crisis work are better served by small homogeneous groups (that is, consisting of participants with similar issues) that exist for a short time (about 2 months).
"Bad Wives"
Whenever human rights activists talk about domestic violence as a form of discrimination against women and a systemic phenomenon, there are those who want to say that women also beat and kill men.
Candidate of psychological sciences, employee of the “Crisis Center for Women” Natalia Khodyreva from St. Petersburg explained how women’s violence against partners differs from men’s violence against women: the degree of cruelty (lower), the duration of violence (less) and the consequences of violence (murders and serious bodily cases, there are nine male cases for every one female), as well as initiative (in the overwhelming majority of cases, men are the initiators). The prevailing motives for women (in descending order): self-defense, revenge, jealousy.
In the photo: psychologist Natalia Khodyreva, photo from user Oksana Zam’s Facebook page
Judicial practice on partner violence demonstrates double standards. Women are judged more harshly. When a woman becomes a victim, there is little sympathy for her, her complaints are questioned and they tend to accuse her of “pushing the man herself.” If a woman resisted and killed or maimed her tormentor, they will try to assign her the maximum sentence as for premeditated murder.
Experts tell us how to help victims of domestic violence
Matvienko noted that domestic violence has a cyclical structure.
“Tension accumulates in the family, which requires release. Then a discharge (beating) occurs, which can last from an hour to a day. Next comes the “honeymoon,” when the man asks for forgiveness and gives gifts and flowers. Indeed, in every family where violence occurs, this cycle occurs,” she explained.
Thus, it is difficult for a woman to leave this relationship. She thinks that the man loves her, since he asked for forgiveness, and will never beat her again.
“In addition, a man often uses various methods to keep a woman from leaving this relationship, making threats. Sometimes a woman is reproached and blamed, asked why she endures for so long, why she doesn’t leave her husband. This is very difficult to do because the man does not want to get a divorce and uses different methods to maintain this relationship,” she said.
According to Matvienko, children also live in this cycle. “Even if the violence is not directed at them, they are witnesses. The psychological trauma in this case can be even more serious and profound than when the child himself is subjected to cruel treatment,” the expert added.
Don't need any help?
According to Matvienko, if the victim finds the strength to seek help from loved ones or specialists, this is the first step towards success.
“As a rule, women do not turn to anyone for help if their husband beats them. They feel isolated. They think that no one can help them. If a friend was suddenly able to tell you and asked for help, that’s already half the battle,” she explained.
The next step is to contact a specialist. According to Matvienko, there are now helplines on the problem of domestic violence, including the All-Russian one - 8-800-7000-600 . However, so far there is no single organization or department in the country where victims of domestic violence can turn for help.
“This problem is widespread throughout the world, even in countries that already have laws in place to prevent domestic violence. Russian society does not yet understand how to respond to such cases, how to help women. Our legislation is aimed at the consequences of violence, when there are already fractures, concussions, and so on. But we need to work on prevention,” said the psychologist.
The law is coming
Last year, a working group was created at the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, which is preparing a bill “On the prevention and prevention of domestic violence.” One of the amendments in the bill allows police officers to issue protective orders to victims of violence.
“These orders are letters of protection for potential victims. And, if a man violates the order, then the penalties will be criminal. The victim of violence will also be able to apply to the court for a protective order. It is expected that the court will have more opportunities: for example, to prohibit a rapist from purchasing weapons,” Mari Davtyan, a lawyer at the Moscow Legal Center, told RIA Novosti.
It is planned that these instructions will be issued as soon as possible. In order to obtain it, you will not need a large evidence base; witness testimony or a medical certificate about the beatings will be enough.
In addition, the bill provides for the creation in the country of a system for registering victims of domestic violence, as well as the development of a network of crisis centers throughout the country where women can receive social, psychological and legal assistance.
“The text of the bill has already been formed; it remains to make the final touches in order to send the document to the State Duma. We hope to do this before the end of the spring session,” the lawyer added.
