For boys using violence/abuse, harmful behaviours are just the ‘tip of the iceberg’. For example, imagine an iceberg. How much of an iceberg is visible above water? About 10%, right? Imagine the 10% you see – the tip – are the harmful behaviours. Well, that tip doesn’t just float itself. To stay afloat, it needs the other 90% that is largely invisible.
So what is the invisible part of the iceberg, the stuff we don’t always see? It’s the things we deal with in therapy including shame, rejection, helplessness, family systems, trauma, adverse childhood experiences, exposure to domestic violence, gender, sexuality, inequality, disadvantage… to name a few.
But before we talk about changing boys behaviours…
Boys didn’t just ‘invent’ using violence/abuse, they are learned to use these behaviours to manage their ‘unmanageable’ inner worlds from relationships, society, and culture. As such, changing boys’ use of violence doesn’t just begin by changing the behaviours of boys. It begins by supporting boys, ourselves, and society to transform what we consider to be healthy relationships.
Taking our sons to counselling without further family and social support is asking boys to take collective responsibility for family, community, and societal/cultural trauma. It takes a village to raise a boy.
Beyond labels
Psychology has an important role in understanding gender-based abuse. However, traditional psychology and labels often cause further harm, omit experiences of trauma, and obscure responsibility. Ignoring the wider context is like studying a fish when it’s not in water.
Boys and society/culture
There are many troubling myths and attitudes that we hear about boy’s violence towards women including:
- Violence-supporting attitudes such as “boys will be boys”
- Blaming boys’ behaviours solely on parenting
- Blaming behaviours on an undiagnosed mental illness or quasi-medical labels
- Using mental illness diagnosis to obscure victims and users of abuse
- Ignoring concepts of gender and its intersections with wider social problems
Whilst parents have a key role to play with their teenager’s healthy development, we need to understand that teens are exposed to a milieu that directly impacts on their attitudes and behaviours towards women, others, and themselves.
Violence and culture
Supporting boys to lead safer, more respectful and more connected lives requires an exploration of societal and cultural influencers including:
- men and boys performing certain types of masculinities (using aggression and violence to resolve conflict, queer-phobia, racism, entitlement, etc).
- intersections of toxic masculinities with boys’ emotional regulation
- gender inequalities, particularly the sexualisation and objectification of women
- individualism, materialism, and competitiveness – “me, my, mine”
- attitudinal reinforces such as media, advertising, television, film and internet
- hyperstimulation and desensitisation from technology, social media, pornography, electronics, and gaming
Pyschological aspects of change
This looks different for every young person. Whilst harmful behaviours are a certainly a focus in therapy, behaviour change doesn’t happen without attending to what lays beneath the tip of the iceberg.
Therapy may begin by exploring what the young person values in life, explore contradictions between values and doing safer behaviours, and the things getting in the way of changing the attitudes and beliefs underlying their behaviours. This includes exploring all that phenomena at the bottom of the iceberg and in their social/cultural context, including trauma, shame, powerlessness, support systems, sexist attitudes, racism, capitalism, and entitlement.
Learning about explanations for abuse doesn’t provide an excuse for abuse. Therapy involves helping young people to understand personal responsibility, how this is different to what happened to them, what can be done about their pain/suffering, and to come up with safer possibilities for a better life.
Examples of therapy
Some general ideas explored in session might include:
- What have you learned about how men can show respect? Which ones are important and stand out for you?
- Have you experienced violence/abuse, or felt extreme unfairness and disadvantage?
- Does violence/abuse fit in with what it means to be a man?
- Why do boys/men who use power and control often feel powerless and out of control?
- What kind of man do I want to be, and how do I hold it close even when the going gets tough?
- How can I work on myself (trauma) whilst keeping those around me safe?
Keeping safe
It’s extremely important that everyone involved is kept safe. Safety plans are an integral part of knowing what to do and when. Safety plans include the person using violence, other family members, friends and community members, schools, family services, specialist women’s organisations, and Police.
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