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What is least understood by mental health professionals about this area? My own work and research has led me to believe that we cannot ignore the childhood traumas that many men who use violence have experienced growing up. The best way to hold a person accountable for their actions is within a context of support. My belief is that men who use violence have lost sight of who they are. A damaged, toxic male identity is often formed as a result of their victimization. The research supports that the vast majority of people who are offenders have experienced some sort
of childhood trauma. Most commonly, individual traumas, including neglect, sexual abuse, and family violence. Most commonly, collective traumas include colonization (Indigenous peoples), racism (toward racialized people), and poverty. If we want men who use violence to stop using violence, we have to help them heal. Helping someone heal does not let them off the hook for acting violently. Support can be offered without making excuses for harm.
For therapists working with offenders and their families, what referrals and resources should they be ready to offer?
Research on desistance (getting people to stop committing crime) is clear (Lauwaert & Aertsen, 2015). The best way to get someone to desist from crime is to help them find meaningful employment and help them find/create quality interpersonal relationships. If
a therapist is only focused on talking it out with a person who does not have a job or who does not have good quality interpersonal relationships, positive outcomes will be limited.
When it comes to talking about violence, I have relied on the work of Alan Jenkins (1990) and others in Australia who use narrative therapies with men
to encourage accountability. Jenkins and others round out what is typically used with men who use violence (cognitive- behavioral therapy, and/or Duluth model programs that focus on power/control tactics) by also engaging men about their ethics and values. Furthermore, with dads specifically, some basic training about child development goes a long
Research supports that the vast majority of people who are offenders have experienced some sort of childhood trauma
ways to helping them understand their
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children’s behaviors. For example, temper tantrums are often thought to be a form of defiance, when in fact temper tantrums are a normal part of childhood development. When a dad is able to shift from “my kid is doing this on purpose,” to “my child is learning and developing,” it often shifts them away from punitive or violent control tactics, towards more nurturing, patient approaches.
Finally, therapists should be aware
of their own limitations. In Canada, where I am based, we have a significant overrepresentation of Indigenous peoples behind bars. This is primarily an outcome of Canada’s violent colonization of Indigenous peoples. Part of Canadians, like me, feel that taking responsibility
for this is to return what we have stolen. It might sound strange to say, but I am convinced that this also means justice and healing processes. If an Indigenous person is Ojibwe, I should connect them with an Ojibwe elder or community that can better support them. Otherwise, my own treatment work could simply be another version of colonization.
For therapists working with offenders and their families, what areas of knowledge are most helpful, in particular for general practice therapists who might not have anticipated working in this area?
As mentioned earlier, I have found the narrative therapy work of Alan Jenkins (1990) and Tod Augusta-Scott (Augusta- Scott, Scott, & Tutty, 2017) in Canada to be very helpful. I would also recommend therapists have a good base in trauma- informed approaches (making sure they are doing no further harm), critical feminist approaches (making sure we are treating male violence as a gendered phenomena), and attachment theory (making sure the focus of therapy is helping people form, find, and/or create quality relationships).
At the structural level, I have
found critical race theory (Delgado Bernal, 2002) to be very helpful for understanding intersectionality—or how multiple layers of oppression can be present in one person’s identity. White supremacy in Canada and the United States has morphed over time—slavery may be abolished (USA), residential