The Mind of the Intimate Male Abuser

Appendix 4

Brainwashing Scale

How well does he control you?

When we can expose what these men do and the effect it has on the women they target, we may be able to eliminate the tolerance that inhibits our response.
Hopefully we will learn from our response to paedophilia and transfer our experience to working with adult intimate abusers.

From working with male intimate abusers it is clear that these offenders are more skilful and more devious than the sex offender who confines his abuse to children. The offender who can develop and sustain a long-term adult abusive relationship with his intimate partner is extremely skilful and determined. He also has the advantage of the tolerant attitude of the community.

In almost all of the cases we encounter, the offender still has some form of access to the victim. Telephone calls to the refuge, messages through friends, and contact during child access have all been used to intimidate the victim. Even when the offender is in jail, threats have been issued. The target woman remains a victim until such time as the abuse stops. It is only then that she becomes a survivor and can begin to recover from the effects of the abuse. Yet many of us get conned into accepting that the offender will stay away from the woman and will stop the intimidation by agreement. Many skilled abusers can even convince the courts that they are men of their word and that they will stop the abuse without the need for a court order.

Psychephiles who have murdered their partners have said sorry when facing the consequence of their actions. From sitting with groups of these men it has become apparent that even their apologies are a tactic designed to minimise any sanction they are facing.

Because talk therapy has been found to be ineffective with these men, it might be honest to admit that we can do very little with them.

The offender will always want us to understand him and to have sympathy for him. He will also want us to distinguish him from any other violent man that we would have worked with.

But a belief that her partner would never do a lethal act needs to be challenged. All skilled offenders are capable of killing. What saves some women from being murdered is not some respect for her life but a concern that the consequences of the killing would outweigh the benefits to the offender.

To anyone who had been hospitalised if they had previously refused the sexual demands of their intimate partner, the lack of resistance makes complete sense. The issue of consent within an abusive relationship needs to be understood within the context of the negative and sometimes lethal consequences of saying no.

Victims of abuse respond instinctively to the level of risk within any context. So a woman who has been raped may submit to sexual activity even though she does not wish to do so.