In life, many men and women simply crave to set up a life-long caring partnership, to build a home together and to live securely, happily ever after. The expectations and pressures on relationships and families are so enormous that simple love and caring run the risk of being compromised from the start.
#Power and control wheel how to
The clamouring media, Hollywood and television reinforce so many of the negatives in mythical playouts that distort how it is to be a man and how to be a woman. The testosterone effect is distorted and groomed within peer groups, on sports fields, school playgrounds, corporate boardrooms, and political institutions. The wheel I created captures the notion that our wider culture breeds, reinforces and supports the male imperative the notion that men have rights over women. It’s a secret world of mind games – where physical violence is not necessary to gain control – but people are coerced, wretched and wrecked nevertheless.Īfter conducting my own research and reading other research papers and books about thousands of women’s crazy-making experiences of being psychologically controlled, I saw a need to expand upon the Duluth wheel. Though he never physically harmed her she lived submerged in a toxic soup of his incessant, haranguing abuse and psychological imprisonment.
#Power and control wheel free
When I told her that family violence counselling was my specialty, she beamed joyfully, telling me how free and happy she feels because her husband had just died, freeing her from 40 years of being held hostage by his tactics of power and control. One day I was chatting to an older woman in the changing room at the local swimming pool and, as she was drying her wrinkled skin, she asked what I do for a living.
BUT … psychological abuse and control underpin the fabric of many men’s abuse against female partners – physically violent or not. It also suggests that psychological abuse is effective because of prior physical violence, or the threat of it that psychological abuse is only a transitory, temporary stage leading to physical violence as the end result. The idea that physical violence and sex abuse reinforces psychological abuse suggests that physical, sexual and psychological abuse operate together to establish domination and control. Patterns of tactics are depicted in each spoke of the wheel and the rim, representing physical and sexual abuse, is what gives it strength and holds it together. The centre of the wheel is labelled ‘power and control’ which is the goal, or effect, of all the abusive tactics. The creation of the Duluth Power and Control wheel has positively transformed our understanding of the dynamics of domestic violence. It may include threats of violence, but not always. It is not the same as occasional outbursts of anger. I have never met a woman, yet, who says otherwise.Ī determined long-term campaign of psychological abuse is about dominance, not about conflict of interest.
But these women report that ongoing psychological abuse is experienced as more mind-twisting, more painful and damaging than physical violence. Many women experience both physical violence and psychological control. The wheel is a summation of violence based on women’s experiences and is a visual tool to help practitioners understand family violence, and to help effect constructive change for both men and women.īecause not all women who experience psychological abuse and control by their male partner are physically hit by him I wanted to create an additional wheel (on the right below) that captured some more of the non-physical tactics of control and highlighted the reinforcing role society plays in this problem. You may recognise the Duluth ‘power and control’ wheel (on the left below) … it has been hanging around noticeboards at women’s centres, doctor’s rooms, and various other crisis places where women seek answers and shelter from violence perpetrated by their partners and spouses. I’d like to introduce you to the ‘power and control’ wheel I created after researching and interviewing women who had been psychologically abused and controlled by their male partners.
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