Abuse: kinds of definitions for different contexts - to condemn or to transform, in mutual or fiduciary relationships

Most of us have no trouble recognizing that we sometimes make choices which are harmful to others. It is not that we are bad people. It is just that we are careless or haven't fully considered all of the implications of a choice we are making. Perhaps we are doing what we thought was the right thing because this is how we were taught. Only later do we discover that we have harmed others.

But we resist calling this abuse. Abuse is what abusers do.

A few years ago I was asked to speak to a men's Lenten prayer breakfast at a local church. They knew that I was a minister and a pastoral counselor who works with men who batter. So I asked them, "How many of you are abusers?" There was a long pause and then one man sort of half-way raised his hand, sensing a trick. Then I asked, "How many of you are sinners." All of the hands immediately went up. They all, being faithful readers of the Bible, knew that "all sin and fall short of the glory of God." It is socially unacceptable in that context not to affirm ones own nature as a sinner. So then I asked, "What is the difference? What is the difference between an abuser and a sinner?"

Personally, I don't see much difference between sin and abuse. But in the popular imagination there is a huge difference. Sin is a term that is rarely used outside of a specific religious context and then most often the one who is seen as having been harmed is God by the fact that we didn't obey.

If we are to build healthy relationships we need a map which helps us see when we have made choices which are harmful to others, even in very subtle ways, even when we are acting in ways which are completely within the norms of our culture. We are looking for a map which helps us see these cognitive distortions and know how to address and correct them.

Abuse as a Quality of a Choice

As someone who has worked in the field of domestic violence intervention for the past 30 years I have had a particularly keen interest in understanding just what abuse is. I have found especially when working with offenders that it is essential to be very specific about what we are talking about when we use the term abuse. It may surprise you to learn that there is no clear and consistent definition within the field for such central terms as abuse, violence, and battering. I will save my thoughts about why this is so, but I would at least note that one of the reasons that domestic violence intervention is not as effective as we would all like it to be is that we are not all operating from the same map.

To that end I want to suggest a map for understanding abuse which I find to be helpful in knowing what is going on, what we would prefer to have happen, and how we might begin to get there. In the process I will look at some other maps for understanding abuse and consider the implications of some of their features.

Let us then begin our consideration of what we mean by abuse by looking in on the Johnsons.

For his third birthday, Jack got a tricycle. He loved it. The Johnson's house is on the corner, so Jack could go from property line at one end around the corner to the alley at the other end and then back. He would keep this up for hours while Joe worked in the garden.

Once Jack became really good at pedaling and steering he began to long for new places to ride. On the corner is a handicap access cut that is an attractive ramp. He rode his trike down the ramp and into the street.

Joe was on his feet and coming at a run as Jack turned around in the middle of the street.

"You may not ride your tricycle in the street!" yelled Joe.

Jack looked perplexed and Joe added, "You might get hit by a car."

Jack looked around and saw only parked cars and Joe realized that logic wasn't going to work with a three year old. "If you ride your tricycle in the street you are going to your room for 15 minutes," declared Joe.

Consider your own understanding of abuse and see if you think Joe's behavior qualifies as abuse.

Some definitions of abuse include making threats or scaring others. Some parenting experts suggest that a "time out" should not last longer that one minute for each year of age for the child. Some parenting experts caution against punishing children by sending them to their rooms as that will associate the room with punishment.

Jack indicated to Joe that he understood what the boundaries were and what the consequences would be. They went back to their activities.

Joe discovered that his yard work called for some supplies he didn't have and he needed to take a trip to the store. He let Jane know that he would be running an errand and to keep and eye on Jack.

As Joe returned from the store and came driving up the street he saw Jack ride down the ramp and into the street. Jack saw him and immediately got back up on the sidewalk. Joe knew that Jack understood what he had done wrong and decided to let it go this time. He got to work unloading the car saying nothing to Jack.

So, what do you think? Is it abuse for Joe to fail to implement the consequences that he set for Jack?

Once having set a rule, it is important for parents to be consistent with their children. Jack won't be able to tell when a rule is to be followed, and when it isn't, if rules are not consistently applied. It is more work for Joe, at this point, to invoke the consequences, but it is better for Jack if he does. It is important for Jack to know that what his dad says goes. It may not be abuse for Joe to ignore the infraction, but it is certainly neglect.

Or suppose instead that when Joe returns he finds that Jack has gotten tired of riding his tricycle, has put it away, and has gone into his room to start playing with his Legos. Joe finishes unloading the car and picks up the gardening tools. He goes in the house, washes his hands, grabs a beer out of the fridge, and sits down in the living room to read the paper.

Jack comes bounding into the room with something he has just made out of Legos. "Daddy, Daddy, look what I made," he says as he tries to climb into Joe's lap. Joe pushes him away and says, "Give me a break, I'm tired. Go to your room for fifteen minutes."

So what do you say? Is this abuse? Some of you may say that it depends on Joe's tone of voice. Some may say it depends on whether this is the way Joe always treats Jack or if this is the first time. Most agree that this is not good parenting, but we may not see this as rising to the level of what we would call abuse.

Nearly everyone agrees that abuse is behavior that causes harm. If we are hurting people we are abusing them. Most folks are aware that there are many ways we can abuse. There is physical abuse, of course, but there is also emotional abuse, sexual abuse, verbal abuse, even spiritual abuse. But what if the action was accidental or, at least, that the harm was unintended? What if it wasn't very harmful? What if this is the first time it ever happened? What if the person harmed doesn't think it was abuse...or believes it was? What about the power the action has to control another? Does that make it abuse? Let's look at each of these and see if they help build our map for making sense of abuse.

I want to be clear about the purpose of this map. It is to help transform our own behavior such that we can build healthier relationships. This is not about deciding who should be punished; who should go to jail. That is an important map, but it is a different one. That is the map built by our criminal justice system.

It is hard to conceive of a definition of abuse that isn't about harmful behavior. But we want to make a distinction between hurting someone and doing harm to them.

My friend, Bob, is a salesman. He makes his living meeting and greeting. But he doesn't have good oral hygiene. His breath is bad. If I tell him his breath stinks, it will hurt his feelings. If I don't tell him, it will hurt his business. So if I don't hurt him, it will harm him.

Let's make a distinction between hurt and harm and shape our behavior such that we are acting genuinely in each other's behalf, even if it is not what others may feel good about. We make our kids go to bed even when they don't want to and are hurt that we won't let them stay up and watch TV because we want what is best for them more than we want what pleases them.

There are many ways we have power over each other. Each mode can be an avenue for abuse. We have physical power and we can use it to harm others. We have economic, sexual, emotional, and social power. We can construct acts of abuse using any of the forms of power we have. Just because there are no bruises doesn't mean there has not been abuse.

What if the harm isn't very big? Maybe anything under a certain threshold shouldn't be considered abuse. Wouldn't it be better to reserve the term abuse to refer just to the big things?

We live in a society defined by certain limits. We have limits to personal behavior and corporate behavior which are defined by our laws and customs. Sometimes these limits are violated. We preserve our social fabric by constructing and maintaining ways of identifying when boundaries are transgressed and having consequences for those transgressions.

If we are looking for a definition about who we are going to send to prison, then we certainly don't want to have to address the little things. Intervention costs too much to do it when the harm is small. But since we are looking to transform our own behavior and, thus, the relationships we build with others, why not include the smaller things. Let's address all of it.

Also, sometimes we may think that some event is not that big a deal and we discover that it really is more harmful than we first suspected. We explore this circumstance more in Chapter Nine.

What if the action caused harm, but it wasn't the intention of the perpetrator to do harm? What if the actor just didn't know any better? Should we label behavior as abuse if it was just a lapse of judgment... or even an accident? Does this mistake make someone an abuser?

If we are concerned that we not label the behavior abuse because we don't want to label the perpetrators as abusers, then we are using a 2° map. At 2° there is no distinction between the one who acts and the action. Anyone who commits abuse is an abuser. Someone who commits a crime is a criminal.

But if we are going to construct a 4° order map, we want to begin to make that distinction. We are not vilifying someone. We are simply getting clear about the qualities of certain choices.

Some readers may begin to get uncomfortable at this point. If we are going to include even accidentally harmful behavior, we might come to include even the choices that we ourselves make. We are mostly pretty keen to protect ourselves from being seen as bad people, so we wouldn't want anyone to think of us as an abuser. Then again, we certainly have made choices from time to time which are harmful to others. Was that abuse?

It is important to pay attention to how our behavior affects others and especially if it causes them to feel abused. If they are feeling abused by us, the relationship is getting damaged. Still, we can be making perfectly appropriate choices but others may not like our choices so much that they allege abuse.

If I am sending my seven year old daughter off to bed and she throws a fit because she wants to see the end of the TV show and I hold my ground and she says she is being abused and is going to call the child abuse hotline on me I am likely to say, "That is fine, but you will have to do it tomorrow because right now you are going to bed."

Labeling another's behavior is a form of power. When my daughter claims to be abused by me she is looking for a power to counter my power to send her to bed. There is a certain power in being a victim. Any power can be used to abuse another. She can abuse me by claiming to be abused by me.

But, ultimately, I have more power. I can make her go to bed. I can control her. As much as she may not like it, it is still in her best interests. On the other hand there are circumstances in which it is not appropriate for me to control another. I have the right to control my daughter at bedtime because as her parent I have a fiduciary responsibility for her welfare. I do not have a right to control my partner as we have a mutual relationship. While exerting control in a mutual relationship is a kind of abuse, it is a bit different from the kind we are talking about at the moment.

A Definition of Abuse

Given these considerations I suggest that we understand abuse to be any action by which one exerts power over another in which the intent is to get what one needs and in which the effect is to harm another.

We all have power over each other. We all make choices which affect those around us. Sometimes those choices can harm others. We can also make choices which are harmful to ourselves. Harming ourselves is not what we generally mean by being empowered. For the most part, we don't commit abuse by actions which are characterized by power with or empowerment. We abuse with power over.

Any choice we make is motivated by self interest. We do what we do to get what we need. It is entirely appropriate for us to use the power we have to construct circumstances in which we get what we need. Indeed, not acting to construct what we need is neglectful of ourselves.

The problem is not that we are powerful or that we act to get what we need but that we use that power to meet our needs at the expense of another. When we take from others what is rightfully theirs or hinder them from getting what they need or acting on their own behalf, we are abusing them.

Reservations about This Way of Defining Abuse

I have been promoting this definition of abuse for many years now. While this definition is often well accepted, just as often it is met by startled resistance. The concern is that it is too broad. "By this definition everyone is abusive." There are some things we lose when we adopt a map that includes so much of what we all do and doesn't focus more on those actions which are more dramatically harmful. And there are things we lose when we define abuse as only something others do.

This brings us back to the question of whether abuse can be understood as a kind of "going too far." We may say about someone that we know he was just teasing, "But he took it too far." By this we are saying that this instance seems to have risen to the level of abuse.

When Child Protective Services visits a home following allegations of child abuse the workers are assessing the degree to which the conditions of the home are harmful to the children. Is the home clean? Is there food available? Are there marks on the children? Do they get to school? These are among the questions the evaluators answer in an attempt to come to a decision about whether to "substantiate abuse." If they come to a finding of abuse, there may be a range of interventions from getting the assistance of Intensive In-home Services to placing the children in foster care.

But how do we draw the line? In the case of Child Protective Services, the line may move depending on the availability of funding for services. Who gets to decide when someone has "gone too far?"

In the case of speed limits, they are all clearly posted. So if the speed limit is 55, how fast can you drive? If you are only going the speed limit during rush hour you have people on your bumper and on their horn. The police don't usually intervene unless you are going 10 mph over. So the effective speed limit when 55 is posted seems to be 64.

How about in the ways we address conflicts with our significant others? What is the line when our speech or behavior becomes abuse? I often have guys in my program for men who batter tell me that they never abused their partners. That is, what they have observed themselves doing during fights did not rise to the level of what they consider to be abuse. A couple of times I have even heard men say, "I never abused my wife. I always hit her with an open hand. Abuse is when you use your fist."

So, yes, we need a system which defines clear limits around harmful behavior and intervenes when those lines are crossed. This is the criminal justice system which interprets and applies the law to protect people from actions we have determined to be crimes. There is an awful lot of harmful behavior which is not criminal.

So, then, what if abuse is something everyone does? Doesn't that mean that everyone is an abuser? Doesn't that trivialize abuse? Doesn't that let abusers off the hook, allowing them to say, "What's the big deal? Everyone does it!" We do seem to need to say that there are some who are abusers and some who are not and that "I am not an abuser."

One of the things that almost always comes up in my program for men who have committed an assault in the context of an intimate relationship is their wish to appropriate this definition to justify themselves.

"Well, given this definition," he says, "I am getting abused by my girlfriend."

"Yes," I reply, " so what will you do with that information?"

"Well, I'm going to tell her that she is abusing me."

"Yes, and that would be abuse."

"What? It is abuse for me to tell her that she is abusing me?"

"Yes, exactly! When you use the power you have over her to label her behavior, in a manner that gets you what you want (to be shown to be right and righteous) in a way that makes her lose (makes her the abuser) you are abusing her."

"So, it is abuse to tell someone they are abusing you?"

"Yes! So are you going to use her abuse of you to give yourself permission to abuse her?"

If everyone is abusive from time to time, what would it take for us to end the abuse in our lives?

see http://www.creativeconflictresolution.org/jc/maps-1/abuse-allows.html