CONTENTS

About This Course

Table of Contents

1. Getting The Basics
2. Substance Abuse
3. Violence Against Women
4. Violent Men
5. Alcohol and Violence
6. Alcohol, Drugs and Sexual Assault (Date Rape)
7. Preventing Sexual Assault
8. After a Rape or Sexual Assault
9. Assistance - Women
10. Assistance - Men
11. Legal Options

Supplements
Resources
Glossary
Fact Sheets

It Won't Happen to Me:
Substance Abuse-Related Violence Against Women for Anyone Concerned About The Issues

Programs For Abusive Men

These programs try to teach abusive men how their thoughts affect their behavior.

In 1977, EMERGE, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was the first program in the United States to develop a component for male batterers. They recognized that men needed to be taught how to change their behaviors and live nonviolently. Similar to counseling for abused women, violent men seem to improve the most when they participate in support groups of other male abusers.

Run by a trained male counselor, batterer groups focus on identifying certain beliefs each man might hold (for example, that a man must rule the household). They then help the man to see that these beliefs, when taken to the extreme, are not healthy. The men in the group hold each other accountable for violent actions (physical, sexual, or verbal) that happened in the past and those that continue today.

There is not one standard by which support groups for violent men are run. Most programs that have counseling for men use some combination of approaches to help the men learn new behaviors. The most widely used approach is the cognitive-behavioral approach.² This intervention tries to teach each man how his thoughts affect his behavior.

For example, if a man convinces himself that his partner is cheating on him when there isn't really any evidence, he will become angrier and angrier. Eventually, he will express his anger with violence because that is the only method he has been taught. So part of the therapeutic work would be to see why the man feels so insecure in his relationship and to teach him other ways to express his anger (the behavior part). Each man has his own triggers, and it is helpful for each man to learn what they are and how to control his angry response to them.