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7:49am June 18, 2014

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like, there’s a level of ‘hurting each other’ that can actually be helped by relationship or family therapy, and a level where it can’t be, and I tend to define abuse as on the ‘can’t be’ line because abuse is usually intentional and involves heavy power imbalances and manipulation, for instance.

slashmarks:

like, there’s a level of ‘hurting each other’ that can actually be helped by relationship or family therapy, and a level where it can’t be, and I tend to define abuse as on the ‘can’t be’ line because abuse is usually intentional and involves heavy power imbalances and manipulation, for instance.

I think it depends on the context of the abuse.  Sometimes abuse happens because someone has a problem controlling their temper, even though they don’t actually want to be abusive.  Sometimes someone realizes that they’ve been doing something utterly horrible and wants to stop.  Sometimes someone is motivated to stop by other means.

Like when I was molested, my molester successfully went through therapy, and then we went through therapy together to reunite us, and we now have a decent relationship with each other even though it’s not what it used to be.  And that goes against every rule that supposedly says child molesters never change and can’t be helped and should be locked up and thrown away, but it worked for us.  But he had to want to stop badly enough, and he did, for a variety of reasons (some of which were conscience-related, some of which may have been fear of being turned in).

I don’t think you can really make generalizations about abuse or abusers.  Or therapy, for that matter.