Childrens experiences of domestic violence and abuse: Siblings accounts of relational coping

This article explores how children see their relationships, particularly their sibling relationships, in families affected by domestic violence (DV) and how relationality emerges in their accounts as a resource to build an agentic sense of self. The ‘voice’ of children is largely absent from the DV literature, which typically portrays them as passive, damaged and relationally incompetent. Children’s own understandings of their relational worlds are often overlooked, and consequently, existing models of children’s social interactions give inadequate accounts of their meaning-making-in-context. Drawn from a larger study of children’s experiences of DV and abuse, this article uses two case studies of sibling relationships to explore young people’s use of relational resources, for coping with violence in the home. The article explores how relationality and coping intertwine in young people’s accounts and disrupts the taken-for-granted assumption that children’s ‘premature caring’ or ‘parentification’ is (only) pathological in children’s responses to DV. This has implications for understanding young people’s experiences in the present and supporting their capacity for relationship building in the future.

Beyond "Witnessing": Childrens Experiences of Coercive Control in Domestic Violence and Abuse

Children’s experiences and voices are underrepresented in academic literature and professional practice around domestic violence and abuse. The project “Understanding Agency and Resistance Strategies” (UNARS) addresses this absence, through direct engagement with children. We present an analysis from interviews with 21 children in the United Kingdom (12 girls and 9 boys, aged 8-18 years), about their experiences of domestic violence and abuse, and their responses to this violence. These interviews were analyzed using interpretive interactionism. Three themes from this analysis are presented: (a) “Children’s experiences of abusive control,” which explores children’s awareness of controlling behavior by the adult perpetrator, their experience of that control, and its impact on them; (b) “Constraint,” which explores how children experience the constraint associated with coercive control in situations of domestic violence; and (c) “Children as agents,” which explores children’s strategies for managing controlling behavior in their home and in family relationships. The article argues that, in situations where violence and abuse occur between adult intimate partners, children are significantly affected, and can be reasonably described as victims of abusive control. Recognizing children as direct victims of domestic violence and abuse would produce significant changes in the way professionals respond to them, by (a) recognizing children’s experience of the impact of domestic violence and abuse; (b) recognizing children’s agency, undermining the perception of them as passive “witnesses” or “collateral damage” in adult abusive encounters; and (c) strengthening professional responses to them as direct victims, not as passive witnesses to violence.

Analysing Police-Recorded Data

The quarterly bulletins on crime statistics in England and Wales are compiled from two sets of data: crime survey and police-recorded crime. Whilst the former is considered to give the most reliable trends, the latter has a greater level detail for a fuller spectrum of crimes types. This paper explores the advantages and problems of analysing police-recorded data for the insights they contain. This is illustrated by examples from an analysis of domestic violence.

Investigating Links Between Intimacy and Violence in Intensive Psychotherapy

This research examines links between intimacy and violence within the transference relationship of a three year old boy during intensive psychotherapy. Psychoanalytic clinical findings are used to examine triggers to violence that initially appeared to link with moments of emotional warmth. The research uses a retrospective single case study design. The clinical data cover a period of transition in the child's life from being a 'looked after child' in foster care to being adopted. There was a history of early trauma from neglect and domestic abuse. Clinical process notes from supervised sessions were coded using an adapted grounded theory approach to reveal complex interlinking themes of intimacy, violence, Oedipal issues, control and difficulties regulating affect. Data in this study show how intimacy and violence are linked when there is evidence of a separation between the self and the object of intimacy. Explosive violence is triggered by the threat of loss of the object and the rage is, at times directed towards the object of intimacy. The findings of this study support concepts identified by earlier research in the field about the impact of a lack of maternal containment on innate violence, associated struggles with the Oedipal complex and the impact upon the capacity for symbol formation and thinking. However, the research findings challenge Glasser's (1979) theory of the 'core complex' that suggests that intimacy triggers violence. The results of this research indicate that it is the threat to the loss of intimacy as a result of separation from the object that is the trigger to violence. I believe this study may, in a modest way, further understanding about links between violence and intimacy in human relationships. This may help other child psychotherapists be alert to certain dangers when dealing with violence in the therapy room.

“I just can’t, I am frightened for my safety, I don’t know how to work with her” Practitioners’ experiences of client violence and recommendations for future practice

To what extent is the therapist-client relationship damaged following client perpetuated violence and what steps can we take to diminish its impact? Much of the information we have on client violence comes from multiple mental health disciplines in the US and the UK over the last 20-30 years and has formed a useful, though sometimes dated and sporadic, quantitative baseline to delineate a range of issues. However, there is limited systematic research on how practitioner psychologists process the violence in the course of their everyday practice and how this impacts the therapist-client dynamic. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), we explored seven therapists’ experiences of client violence across a range of work sites – acute psychiatric hospital wards, forensic hospital wards and community mental health teams. Three main themes were documented: processing the moment-to-moment experience of client violence; professional vulnerabilities and needs as a result of client violence; and the ruptured therapeutic relationship. Strategies for supporting practicing psychologists and providing continuing professional care for clients include challenging self-doubt and re-energizing professional competencies as well as repairing ourselves and repairing the therapeutic relationship. Recommendations for credentialing and regulatory bodies in relation to client violence are also highlighted.

Killing animals: sociology, species relations and institutionalized violence

Influential voices have argued for a sociology which acknowledges the way we are co-constituted with a range of non-human species as part of the condition of life on this planet. Despite this, sociology has generally retained a conception of the social that is centred on the human. This paper argues for the inclusion of non-human animals in sociological agendas, focusing on the emerging field of the sociology of violence. It examines the institutions and processes through which non-human animals are subjected to different forms of violence, most notably, mass killing.The practice of killing animals is routine,normative,institutionalized and globalized.The scale of killing is historically unprecedented and the numbers killed are enormous. The paper argues that this killing of non-humans raises questions around inequal- ities and intersectionality, human relations with other species, the embedding of violence in everyday practices and links between micro and macro analyses. These are questions with which the new sociology of violence might engage.