What Do Professionals Need to Know?

Mental Health

Couple Counseling

Conflict in a relationship may be helped by couple counseling, even when the conflict is very bitter or involves some physical violence.  Counseling might focus on resolving specific conflicts, and also on ways that partners can communicate better, assert themselves, prevent arguments from escalating, and manage their anger and impulses.1

However, when one partner batters the other – that is, when there is an ongoing pattern of coercive controlling violence – couple counseling can be both ineffective and dangerous.  Resolving conflicts and learning skills will not stop one person from battering the other.

Why is couple counseling ineffective when one partner is a batterer? 

The victim can’t speak honestly about the real issues, which means the therapist can’t work on them, and may not even be aware of them.

The batterer is likely to attempt to continue his/her control by manipulating the therapist.  This can happen in a variety of ways.

• The batterer negotiates in bad faith – agreeing to make changes in exchange for changes made by his/her partner, without ever intending to make those changes. 
  
  
• The batterer uses the counseling process to manipulate his/her partner into staying with him/her.
  
  
• The batterer manipulates the counselor into identifying with him/her and leads the counselor to see his/her partner as the real problem.
  
  
• The batterer refers to violent incidents as arguments, and uses conflict to excuse and explain his/her abusive behavior.
  
  
• The batterer intimidates his/her partner into keeping silent about the real issues, or retaliates when they mention the abuse.  The therapist also cannot control whether the abuser retaliates or not – which is what makes couple counseling dangerous.
  
  

Because of these risks, clinicians should never agree to couple counseling without making a thorough assessment for domestic violence.  This assessment should include a private interview with each partner in which the therapist screens for coercive control. Screening should never occur in a joint session!  In the screening interview, the clinician must try to distinguish conflict from abuse, which can be difficult.  One major difference is that conflict happens between people, but abuse is something one person does to another.

There may be cases in which the batterer is demanding couple counseling, and the victim does not feel it is safe to refuse. The clinician may decide that abuse-informed couple counseling is the safest course in such a case, and should make sure the victim understands that there is always the risk of the batterer retaliating for what she/he says, and that the batterer may try to use the counseling sessions to extend his/her control. 

If screening reveals past domestic violence

If screening reveals ongoing abuse or intimidation by one partner, the clinician should refuse the request for couple counseling. If only the victim discloses the abuse, revealing the disclosure to the other partner can be dangerous. The clinician should give the abusive partner a reason for refusing couple counseling that is unrelated to IPV.

Even if the domestic violence is in the past (many months or years ago, not just a few weeks ago), couple counseling is unlikely to be safe if any of the following are true.

• The victim is still afraid of her/his partner. There is an ongoing custody or visitation case.2
  
  

• Such lawsuits are often a way for batterers to continue their abuse after a relationship breaks up. Communicating through an attorney is likely to be safer.
  
  
• There is an active order of protection.
  
  
• The batterer has not cooperated fully with all court orders or probation conditions, such as orders of protection, batterer programs, substance abuse treatment, or parenting classes.
  
  
• The batterer has recently completed a batterer program and is claiming that this proves he/she has changed.
  
  
• The batterer has ever committed felony-level assaults on his/her partner.
  
  
• The batterer does not take full responsibility – going way beyond lip service – for the abusive behavior.  (For instance, a batterer who insists that his/her partner also has to change in order for the abuse to end is not taking full responsibility.)
  
  
• The batterer abuses alcohol or drugs, or is currently in substance abuse treatment. Many batterers use their engagement in substance abuse treatment to manipulate their partners into staying with them – yet they seldom become less abusive as a result.
  

Questions for victims considering couple counseling

You should not have to attend therapy or counseling with someone who has abused you, just because that person is your partner. You should never have to give up your legitimate needs, change your own behavior or meet your partner halfway in order for the violence to end. That should be nonnegotiable. Ask yourself…

• Do you feel safe being honest in front of your partner?
  
  
• How does he/she react when confronted about unacceptable behavior?
  
  
• What has happened in the past when you’ve tried to work with your partner to resolve your conflicts?
  
  
• Are you afraid for your own safety or that of your children?
  
  
• If your partner was abusive in the past, but not currently, how confident are you that he/she has changed for good?  How long has the behavior change lasted?   

1. Kelly, J.B. & Johnson, M.P. (2008).; Differentiation among types of intimate partner violence: Research update & implications for interventions, Family Court Review, 46 (3), July 2008 476 –499.
2. For an excellent discussion of abusers’ tactics for sabotaging their partners’ parenting, see Lundy Bancroft and Jay Silverman. The abuser as Parent; (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2002).