The Mind of the Abuser
By: Dr. Sam Vaknin
First published on Spousal Abuse and Domestic Violence on Suite101
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Important Comment
Most abusers are men. Still, some are women. We use the masculine and feminine adjectives and pronouns ('he", his", "him", "she", her") to designate both sexes: male and female as the case may be.
To embark on our exploration of the abusive mind, we
first need to agree on a taxonomy of abusive behaviours. Methodically observing
abuse is the surest way of getting to know the perpetrators.
Abusers appear to be suffering from dissociation (multiple personality). At home, they are intimidating and suffocating monsters – outdoors, they are wonderful, caring, giving, and much-admired pillars of the community. Why this duplicity?
It is only partly premeditated and intended to disguise the abuser's acts. More importantly, it reflects his inner world, where the victims are nothing but two-dimensional representations, objects, devoid of emotions and needs, or mere extensions of his self. Thus, to the abuser's mind, his quarries do not merit humane treatment, nor do they evoke empathy.
Typically, the abuser succeeds to convert the abused into his worldview. The victim – and his victimizers – don't realize that something is wrong with the relationship. This denial is common and all-pervasive. It permeates other spheres of the abuser's life as well. Such people are often narcissists – steeped in grandiose fantasies, divorced from reality, besotted with their False Self, consumed by feelings of omnipotence, omniscience, entitlement, and paranoia.
Contrary to stereotypes, both the abuser and his prey usually suffer from disturbances in the regulation of their sense of self-worth. Low self-esteem and lack of self-confidence render the abuser – and his confabulated self – vulnerable to criticism, disagreement, exposure, and adversity – real or imagined.
Abuse is bred by fear – fear of being mocked or betrayed, emotional insecurity, anxiety, panic, and apprehension. It is a last ditch effort to exert control – for instance, over one's spouse – by "annexing" her, "possessing" her, and "punishing" her for being a separate entity, with her own boundaries, needs, feelings, preferences, and dreams.
In her seminal tome, "The Verbally Abusive Relationship", Patricia Evans lists the various forms of manipulation which together constitute verbal and emotional (psychological) abuse:
Withholding (the silent treatment), countering (refuting or invalidating the spouse's statements or actions), discounting (putting down her emotions, possessions, experiences, hopes, and fears), sadistic and brutal humor, blocking (avoiding a meaningful exchange, diverting the conversation, changing the subject), blaming and accusing, judging and criticizing, undermining and sabotaging, threatening, name calling, forgetting and denying, ordering around, denial, and abusive anger.
To these we can add:
Wounding "honesty", ignoring, smothering, dotting, unrealistic expectations, invasion of privacy, tactlessness, sexual abuse, physical maltreatment, humiliating, shaming, insinuating, lying, exploiting, devaluing and discarding, being unpredictable, reacting disproportionately, dehumanizing, objectifying, abusing confidence and intimate information, engineering impossible situations, control by proxy and ambient abuse.
(continued below)
This article appears in my book, "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited"
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In his comprehensive essay, "Understanding the Batterer in Custody and Visitation Disputes", Lundy Bancroft observes:
"Because of the distorted perceptions that the abuser has of rights and responsibilities in relationships, he considers himself to be the victim. Acts of self-defense on the part of the battered woman or the children, or efforts they make to stand up for their rights, he defines as aggression AGAINST him. He is often highly skilled at twisting his descriptions of events to create the convincing impression that he has been victimized. He thus accumulates grievances over the course of the relationship to the same extent that the victim does, which can lead professionals to decide that the members of the couple 'abuse each other' and that the relationship has been 'mutually hurtful'."
Yet, whatever the form of ill-treatment and cruelty – the structure of the interaction and the roles played by abuser and victim are the same. Identifying these patterns – and how they are influenced by prevailing social and cultural mores, values, and beliefs – is a first and indispensable step towards recognizing abuse, coping with it, and ameliorating its inevitable and excruciatingly agonizing aftermath.
This is the subject of the next article.
A critical reading of R. Lundy Bancroft's Essay – Understanding the Batterer in Custody and Visitation Disputes (1998)
Bancroft's essay is indispensable reading to anyone in the throes of separation, divorce, or custody proceedings.
Alas, Bancroft, like numerous other mental health professionals, fails to identify pathological narcissism when confronted with it. Astonishingly - and tellingly - the word "narcissism" is not mentioned even once in a very long text on abuse.
He concludes:
"Although a percentage of batterers have psychological problems, the majority do not. They are often thought to have low self-esteem, high insecurity, dependent personalities, or other results from childhood wounds, but in fact batterers are a cross-section of the population with respect to their emotional make-up."
Follows Bancroft's profile of a typical abuser in the very same article.
Doesn't it strike you as the description of a malignant narcissist? If it does, you are right. Bancroft, unwittingly, describes a pathological, malignant narcissist to a tee! Yet, he is totally blind to it. This lack of awareness of mental health practitioners is common. They often under-diagnose or misdiagnose pathological narcissism!
Bancroft's PROFILE of the TYPICAL ABUSER (actually, of a malignant narcissist)
"The batterer is controlling; he insists on having the last word in arguments and decision-making, he may control how the family's money is spent, and he may make rules for the victim about her movements and personal contacts, such as forbidding her to use the telephone or to see certain friends.
He is manipulative; he misleads people inside and outside of the family about his abusiveness, he twists arguments around to make other people feel at fault, and he turns into a sweet, sensitive person for extended periods of time when he feels that it is in his best interest to do so. His public image usually contrasts sharply with the private reality.
He is entitled; he considers himself to have special rights and privileges not applicable to other family members. He believes that his needs should be at the center of the family's agenda, and that everyone should focus on keeping him happy. He typically believes that it is his sole prerogative to determine when and how sexual relations will take place, and denies his partner the right to refuse (or to initiate) sex. He usually believes that housework and childcare should be done for him, and that any contributions he makes to those efforts should earn him special appreciation and deference. He is highly demanding.
He is disrespectful; he considers his partner less competent, sensitive, and intelligent than he is, often treating her as though she were an inanimate object. He communicates his sense of superiority around the house in various ways.
The unifying principle is his attitude of ownership. The batterer believes that once you are in a committed relationship with him, you belong to him. This possessiveness in batterers is the reason why killings of battered women so commonly happen when victims are attempting to leave the relationship; a batterer does not believe that his partner has the right to end a relationship until he is ready to end it.
Because of the distorted perceptions that the abuser has of rights and responsibilities in relationships, he considers himself to be the victim. Acts of self-defense on the part of the battered woman or the children, or efforts they make to stand up for their rights, he defines as aggression against him. He is often highly skilled at twisting his descriptions of events to create the convincing impression that he has been victimized. He thus accumulates grievances over the course of the relationship to the same extent that the victim does, which can lead professionals to decide that the members of the couple "abuse each other" and that the relationship has been 'mutually hurtful."
It seems that CONTROL is the problem - not VIOLENCE.
Bancroft writes:
"A significant proportion of batterers required to attend counseling because of a criminal conviction have been violent only one to five times in the history of their relationship, even by the victim's account. Nonetheless, the victims in these cases report that the violence has had serious effects on them and on their children, and that the accompanying pattern of controlling and disrespectful behaviors are serving to deny the rights of family members and are causing trauma.
Thus the nature of the pattern of cruelty, intimidation, and manipulation is the crucial factor in evaluating the level of abuse, not just the intensity and frequency of physical violence. In my decade of working with abusers, involving over a thousand cases, I have almost never encountered a client whose violence was not accompanied by a pattern of psychological abusiveness."
"An abuser's desire for control often intensifies as he senses the relationship slipping away from him. He tends to focus on the debt he feels his victim owes him, and his outrage at her growing independence."
RIGHT vs. NEED
Bancroft says:
"Most batterers do not have an inordinate need for control, but rather feel an inordinate right to control under family and partnership circumstances."
But the distinction Bancroft makes between "need" and "right" is spurious. If you think that you have the right to something, you concomitantly feel the need to have your right asserted, accepted, and enforced.
If someone violates your rights, you get frustrated and angry because your need to have your rights respected and enforced hasn't been met.
I also strongly disagree with Bancroft - as does a huge volume of research - that control freakery can be limited to home. A control freak is a control freak everywhere! Control freakery, though, manifests in a myriad ways. Obsessing, acting compulsively, and being overly inquisitive, for instance, are all forms of exerting control.
Sometimes controlling behavior is very difficult to identify: a smothering or dotting mother, a "friend" who keeps "guiding" you, a neighbor who compulsively takes out your garbage ...
This is exactly what stalkers do. They cannot get someone to commit to a relationship (real or delusional). They then proceed to "control" the unwilling partner by harassing, threatening and invading his or her life.
From the outside, it is often impossible to identify many of these behaviors as abusive control.
NURTURE vs. CULTURE
Bancroft observes that "...battering behavior is mostly driven by culture rather than by individual psychology."
Culture and society do play an important part. As I say here:
http://samvak.tripod.com/abusefamily.html
"The abuser may be functional or dysfunctional, a pillar of society, or a peripatetic con-artist, rich or poor, young or old. There is no universally-applicable profile of the "typical abuser".
And here:
http://samvak.tripod.com/abuse.html
"Abuse and violence cross geographical and cultural boundaries and social and economic strata. It is common among the rich and the poor, the well-educated and the less so, the young and the middle-aged, city dwellers and rural folk. It is a universal phenomenon."
Still, it is wrong to attribute abusive behavior exclusively to one set of parameters (psychology), or to another (culture-society). The mixture does it.
Lundy Bancroft on batterers, David Hare on the subject of psychopathy (and, modesty notwithstanding, myself on pathological narcissism) represent a breed of mavericks, rejected by the "experts" and "professionals" in their fields. But they are both, to my mind, authorities. Their experience is invaluable. Whether they are good at constructing theories and generalizing their experience is a different matter altogether. Their contribution is mainly phenomenological, not theoretical.
RESOURCES
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Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Psychological and Verbal Abuse Resources
Verbal and Emotional Abuse on Suite101
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Also Read:
How to Spot an Abuser on Your First Date
The Toxic Relationships Study List
"Trauma Bonding" and the Psychology of Torture
Traumas as Social Interactions
Spousal (Domestic) Abuse and Violence
Verbal and Emotional Abuse - Articles Menu
Case Studies in the Narcissistic Personality Disorder List - Click HERE!
Ask Sam on the Narcissistic Personality Disorder Support Group - Part I
Ask Sam on the Narcissistic Personality Disorder Support Group - Part II
Domestic Violence and Abuse statistics - Click here
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