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Anger Alternatives - A Fresh Approach to Partner Abuse Intervention
George Shull
Anger Alternatives
415 Chelsea Avenue
Rockford, Illinois 61107
(815) 399-5534
Partner abuse will not end until we focus more resources on effective abuser education. Domestic violence advocates are
locked into teaching abusers about power and control issues, when the root problem is confronting their fear of losing
power and control.
When a person owns their anger, violence will not occur. Anger is about blaming others for causing our feelings of losing
control, which may lead to violence. When the focus is drawn to the physiological symptoms of anger, the pounding pulse,
anxiety, tenseness, hot feelings, we can begin to understand that these are the same feelings associated with fear. The abuser
is taught to question the feelings by asking "What am I afraid of?" When the fear (loss) is identified, anger evaporates.
There is no incentive for violence.
Unlike anger, fear motivates the person to remove themselves from the threat, to find solutions, to take responsibility to
change the current course of action.
Most anger management programs teach coping skills. This is not effective because it assumesthat someone or something
else is responsible for causing our anger, and we have to control and direct this energy somewhere else.
Anger only occurs when we feel out of control. There is no need to teach coping skills to persons who are ready to take
responsibility for changing their situation.
Unlike other abuser interventions, we strongly encourage the abuser's partner and family members to be involved. The
whole family has learned abusive interactions from their primary role model. This must be addressed and changed. It is
exciting to see families so in tune to their new skills that even a ten-year-old member is able to help everyone to stay on
track. When the abuser learns new skills alone, role reversal often happens. His partner is less afraid, and dumps years of
resentment on him, triggering another violent episode, and the cycle starts over again.
In our class, the partners are unanimously supportive of this approach. A few weeks into the program, they are ready to
admit that they also have an anger problem. We focus heavily on nonviolent communications: Stating specific observations,
feelings, affects, and needs, in that order. Identifying destructive communication is a major step in changing their behavior.
Our program is 12 weeks, and we see significant changes within 8 weeks. If your abuser intervention program is
considering expansion to 24 weeks, perhaps it would be better to look at what is not working, instead of doing more of the same.