Violence within the couple: an interview with Santiago Luque

Psychologist Santiago Luque Dalmau talks to us about conjugal violence.

Violence in the conjugal sphere is a reality that has been lived normally for centuries and has only come to be questioned in recent decades. This has led psychology in general and psychotherapy in particular to include this type of problem in one of its priority areas of intervention.

For an expert's perspective on intimate partner violence we spoke with psychologist Santiago Luque Dalmauof the Barnapsico psychology center, located in Barcelona.

Interview with Santiago Luque: violence in the conjugal sphere.

Santiago Luque is Director of the Barnapsico center, psychologist at the Fundació Assistència i Gestió Integral and specialist in reintegration of men who use aggression in their family or couple relationships. In this interview he talks about the way in which intimate partner violence develops, and about how social and cultural aspects affect this phenomenon.

What can psychologists do about intimate partner violence?

The first thing to consider is what causes this phenomenon. One of the key elements to consider is that when violent strategies are used, ranging from physical to psychological, all of them pursue a common goal: to control, change, annul the will or ideology of the other party.

This is due to several factors, but the most important is the inability to accept the other party's discrepancy, the fact that the other party has other ways of doing and/or thinking, and that on many occasions these divergences are experienced as a provocation (without necessarily being so). Those who attack tend to justify their actions based on the reasoning "I am obliged to correct or punish the other party for his mistake".

To this can be added other factors of personal skills, such as lack of communication and negotiation strategies, distorted ideas about the affective world and the couple, or learned gender roles, among the most common.

There are many resources that psychology offers to people who suffer these problems, but in each individual case, the intervening professional should direct his or her efforts to explore what values or beliefs move the subject and from which learning is activated the frustration that the discrepancy or difference of action or opinion entails.

It is often said that victims of intimate partner violence are dependent on the aggressor as if this only consisted of a kind of "brainwashing". Do you agree with this view of the problem? Is there not often a material dependence caused by the lack of resources of many of the women who are abused?

Many relationships try to be maintained at all costs. When the expectations and illusions clash with the reality that the other party proves to have, it is when they usually try to change the other or try to influence the other to transform him/her into what the "I" expected him/her to be.

When this is prolonged in time and there are no concessions, because both parties may think that their points of view are the only possible ones, it is when a conflictive relationship is created, either by both parties (mutual reproaches, arguments), or by means of a power relationship, if it is more unilateral. If no decisions are made in any aspect and the relationship is persevered in maintaining is when a relationship of dependence can be generated.

In the case of the aggressor, generally his inability to make his positions more flexible maintains his dissatisfaction, and this in turn increases even more. From there arises violence towards the partner, since he feels legitimized by considering her guilty of his discomfort and suffering, because he understands that she does not meet his expectations. The irrational fantasy is, in this case, to endure until the other changes according to his ideal.

What are the ways in which aggressors play down the importance of their attacks and make it seem that everything is normal?

In the human being it is usual that when a behavior is exercised that is socially unaccepted or goes against the values of those who exercise them, they tend to develop the so-called defense mechanisms, introduced and developed by different referents of psychology. In this way one avoids being the target of criticism or creating a discordance with one's own values,

The usual mechanisms are the following. On the one hand there is denial: one directly denies that something bad has happened. "But how can I do that", "I have not done anything", "I am accused of something that is not true", "Someone else did that"....

Secondly, we have the alibi, which consists of seeking cover to prove that the action could not have been carried out by the subject. "I was working all day", "I was sick and I couldn't even move", "If I had really hit her, I would have killed her", etc.

Then there is blaming. With this mechanism, responsibility is shifted to the other, who is considered to be truly guilty of what happened. "Let them ask her, who is to blame". "She keeps provoking me". "She asks for it", etc.

There is also minimization: the aim is to play down the importance, transcendence or seriousness of the events. "It's no big deal, they are exaggerating", "I only insulted her, I have never laid a hand on her", "These are fights like those of any marriage".

On the other hand, we have the justification. The fact is recognized, but it is believed to have a reasonable explanation for it. "It was unintentional", "He was overdoing it", "It's the only way to get him to listen to me".

Through contempt, the victim is discredited, the subject believes he is more justified in his negative action. "Without me, she would be nobody", "She's careless and doesn't take care of the house", "She's crazy".

Dehumanization is something similar to the above. Contempt goes to the extreme of forgetting human qualities. "They are like animals", "They live like dogs", "They put up with whatever is thrown at them", "She is crazy as a goat".

We also find "Yes, but I had no choice". It refers to the impossibility of the subject to act otherwise, to the conditioning to which he was subjected and to the lack of freedom of choice. "He could not do otherwise", "He had put himself into a plan... that was impossible", "Words are not enough for him".

Finally there is "Yes, but he didn't want to do it". The subject dissociates himself from his action in terms of his will "I had an outburst", "I didn't mean to hurt her", "I just wanted to scare her so that she would learn from it".

In domestic violence, as it could not be otherwise, the same thing happens. The individual who exercises violence against his partner, uses most of these mechanisms, mainly motivated to avoid guilt and avoid having to face a reality that the subject, in most cases, does not know how to manage.

From what is known, is it true that there are differences between women and men when they adopt the role of aggressor or aggressor in partner violence?

This topic has always generated much debate and controversy. Aggressiveness, whether we like it or not, is common to the human species, as a model for managing conflicts, to defend or impose in extreme cases, and when other resources fail. What the statistics do make clear is that the most serious, most extreme and most frequent violence is mostly perpetrated by men. Researchers on the subject show this in their investigations.

A simple fact: who occupies the majority of prisons? There are more and more studies that attribute this fact, and others like it, to the so-called machismo. Machismo itself also affects women, because from this model they are told how to behave. Both men and women who do not assume the traditional roles will be criminalized by the macho system itself. Machismo on the other hand is not a static concept, it is also prey to fashions and the social moments through which it passes, but in essence it reserves the same basic roles for each sex and what changes are only the forms.

The ostentation of masculinity is often perceived as something admirable from the masculine world, which is not necessary to review. But if we make a deep analysis of what it really implies, we can find real surprises, and discover that it is a dogma that enslaves the subject in an unattainable and unrealistic ideal for most men and that does not connect with the real essence of it.

It is from this phenomenon and from these roles that violence is admitted as proper and natural in the masculine role. And until not so long ago, it was legitimized by society (which has traditionally had a masculinized vision as a whole), as an ultimately acceptable method to resolve conflicts (wars themselves are an example of this).

From this social reality it is reasonable that a context such as the home was managed in a similar way, and with the power granted to the man, he used the resource that since childhood he has seen reproduced with excessive naturalness and that few dared to question, as a model of resolution to maintain order and authority.

In this sense, there has been a change of perspective in recent decades, although in the male world there are still some historical inertias. How can I maintain "order" without using force? What do I use then, how do I act?

There are also those who have internalized violence as a style of conflict management because they have not learned other more prosocial resources in their experiential baggage. Men are the ones who have internalized and legitimized this violence as justifiable. From a young age, men absorb the patriarchal model as their own, which legitimizes violence as the ultimate strategy to achieve their goals. In women it has traditionally been frowned upon. Even so, there are women who can use other strategies with more psychological overtones. It is less common for women to use physical violence.

Is it common for a person who has been a victim of intimate partner violence to recover quickly and almost without help once the aggressor is no longer part of her life?

Normally this factor depends both on the degree of violence experienced and the length of time the person has been subjected to it, including the experiences that have been had prior to the episodes of violence. Often it is not so much the physical violence (although it also weighs evidently), but the psychological violence exerted on the victim, or the psychological consequences that the physical violence itself has on the victim.

On many occasions, in the most extreme cases within these variables, the person may be affected for life at an emotional and self-esteem level. Let us not forget that the main consequence on the victim is the alteration of his or her mood and self-concept (self-esteem), to the point of feeling annulled as a person.

The victim becomes blurred in relation to the aggressor. So to speak, he loses "the north", does not know how to defend his criteria because he comes to believe that they are wrong, to the point that his own will or capacity to react is annulled, as well as his capacity to differentiate between what is right and what is adequate, or that his criteria can be as valid as those of another person. Often this state of mind is used by the aggressor himself to legitimize his actions, without being aware that he has probably generated it himself over the years. Of course, to a greater extent these extremes are not reached, but the truth is that if this process is not stopped, it can reach them.

In general, and fortunately, in most cases that are treated with adequate psychotherapeutic treatment, the victim usually recovers. However, it can be a slow process and requires perseverance and involvement on the part of the victim, as in most psychological affectations.

Do you think that the visibility of intimate partner violence as a serious problem has helped to combat this phenomenon?

Undoubtedly, any aspect that is made visible allows a debate and possible solutions. What is not made visible is simply experienced as something that does not exist. Society tends to ignore what is not evidenced to exist, to be important, to be understood and to really have any impact on the victims, and myths and urban legends tend to be created due to lack of sufficient information. Another issue is whether, even if there is information, the solution is quick or sufficiently effective.

Regarding programs for the reintegration of abusers, is there anything in particular about the functioning of the prison system that you think is acting as an obstacle, making it difficult for these people to stop attacking their partners?

It is difficult to influence the human mind, and even more so when the aspects of personality depend on so many factors, personal, social, circumstantial and above all by the set of beliefs that move the individual and that interrelate to determine their actions. The real change (or rather, "evolution") of a person depends on his or her commitment to himself or herself. Throughout my professional career, I have seen very interesting changes in people, but mainly because they have realized that they were suffering themselves and making others suffer, and from that reality they have had the courage and perseverance to rediscover themselves.

Rehabilitation programs will always be conditioned by the involvement of the subjects who participate. What is certain is that the more time and dedication, the greater the achievement.

And what are the most powerful tools we can give victims to help them see that getting out of this situation is a realistic option?

There are many, although one that comes to mind at the moment is to see similar testimonies with which the victim can identify, and to see that these people were at some point in their lives going through a similar process. Seeing that other people feel similar things helps them not to feel so "helpless", because the victim is even a victim of their own blame for the problem, even if they are not the victim. The fact of seeing that these people got out of the hole gives them hope.