Wheel Of Power And Control

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

In one of the models for explaining domestic violence, called the "Wheel of Power and Control," the author of violence retains power and control over his partner, using multiple forms of violence, only occasionally resorting to physical violence. And this can be observed in any relationship where there is a disposition of power, incl. and in children and parents.

This understanding of the situation, more complex, allows us to design a slightly different type of work with the authors of violence - not only at the level of tracking behavior (in search of a cycle of violence, which is also very valuable in itself), but also at the level of an alternative in all spheres of life. Those. instead of threats - support, instead of devaluation - respect, instead of economic violence - sound agreements. This all becomes possible when you understand the value of relationships with your partner and your own children. That, for the sake of which the author of violence is ready to work on reevaluating a huge layer of his personal history.

The motivation for a change for the sake of a partner or for the sake of children cannot be completely supportive, since it is rather external. Intrinsic motivation is the search for the value that underlies the preservation of specific relationships. You can ask yourself a question - why is it important for me to maintain or build my relationship with the child / children? What happens next if I leave everything as it is? How can this affect our relationship in a month, a year, five, ten years? Is this really the future I want?

Today I saw a picture: my mother was leading a two-year-old baby by the arm, catching up with his older brother, four years old, who rode ahead on a bicycle. The kid, as it happens, went ahead, not looking back, and not knowing that he was heading in the other direction, and his mother was calling him back. At some point, his mother, obviously on emotions, caught up with him and first scolded him, then hit him several times in the face. I am not condemning and discussing this situation now, but about what happened next. A familiar situation, even painfully familiar to some.

Then my mother told her son to follow them, and went ahead, and the son, getting stuck on a bump with a bicycle wheel, began to shout to her, probably to wait (in a non-Russian language, I don’t know what he was shouting exactly). I turned to the baby and saw his face, distorted by hatred. So, meeting such a person in relation to yourself, meeting an appropriate attitude towards yourself, meeting indifference or cruelty towards yourself, and then, in the future, recognizing in your grown son a domestic tyrant - is this what we want? Of course not. As parents, we want to be loved, appreciated and respected, to listen to opinions and experiences, to take into account our needs and desires.

Therefore, one of the areas of work with authors of violence is the transformation of all patterns of interaction, in the center of which will be the strengthening of good enough attachment and good enough relationships.