You have a choice. You can carry this cancer into old age where it will eat at you until you die, or you can break the pattern that has spread possibly through generations in your family. Unless you decide to do something about it, future generations will be infected, and many more people hurt. Are you ready to face your abusiveness? Are you ready to be vulnerable? Are you ready to face the long hard road of confronting and controlling this cancer? Are you ready to make the decision that you no longer want to be an abusive person? If you are, you will not only help to heal the hurts you have inflicted on your victims, but your own hurt will be assuaged, and you will break the cycle.
I believe that you cannot do this work on your own. Every country has its own specific organisations dealing with people who abuse. There are many battering programmes in the United States. The National Institute of Justice, which is part of the Department of Justice, is heavily involved in such programmes. It also publishes research on how effective they are. Lundy Bancroft, already mentioned in relation to the abusive personality, has twenty years of experience in devising programmes for men who batter. The fundamental aim of these programmes is to offer support to women and children who are victims of abuse. Bancroft trains professionals on best practice for intervening with male batterers, and becoming involved with the victims of these abusers. Bancroft was also a former Co-Director of Emerge, the country’s first counselling programme for men who batter. Founded in 1977 it is now a leading organisation working to end violence in intimate relationships.
There are three organisations in Ireland providing a service to deal exclusively with abusive men. These are MOVE (Men Overcoming Violence), MEND (Men Ending Domestic Violence), and MODV (Men Overcoming Domestic Violence). They are voluntary organisations supported by the Department of Justice Equality and Law Reform. They work in co-operation with each other, and do not encroach on each other’s geographical areas. All three have representatives on the Domestic Violence Intervention Programme. You should find a branch (listed on their websites) within reach of where you live. Their services are free, and their aim is to support the safety of women and children by having what I imagine are very challenging group session for abusive men. In these sessions, you will be challenged to take responsibility for your violent behaviour and to change your thinking and behaviour. They also provide specific and effective behavioural programmes to help perpetrators to cease abusing. Their belief is that violence is a learned behaviour. The conclusion would, therefore, be that what is learned can be unlearned.
I could not trace any organisation that deals with abusive females, but there may be some.
Adapted from Jim O’Shea’s book Abuse. Domestic Violence, Workplace and School Bullying published by Cork University Press
THERAPISTS IN TIPPERARY
PSYCHOTHERAPISTS IN TIPPERARY
COUNSELLORS IN TIPPERARY
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
ABUSE
DEATH OF A CHILD