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Herb Cannon says the thread of family
history is one that ties together the stories
of every man he’s ever counselled about
domestic violence.
“What is truly alarming, and what
probably goes a long way to explaining
why we struggle to shift the needle on the
statistics, is how much domestic violence in
one generation plants the seed for another
round a generation later,” he explains.
“When we see someone, it’s always there,
always, in their history.
“People will often say in therapy that
they had a perfect upbringing, but I can
tell from the behaviours that their family
experience isn’t actually as they’re
remembering it. We all maintain some
degree of denial around family, because
to acknowledge it is a direct attack on
our sense of identity. So we distort our
perception, that’s what denial is.
“And sometimes guys will say there was
no physical violence in their upbringing,
but it doesn’t mean there wasn’t emotional
trauma. The most profound form of abuse
is neglect – and it’s the most common act
of abuse that parents do.”
The damage being done, every day, to little
kids who grow up in houses where they see,
hear and feel violence, is what psychologists
label Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE).
Cannon says it’s vital to remember that a
child’s brain is self-referencing, that kids
believe they are what they feel.
“If kids are under too much stress or
duress, particularly in the first six or seven
years, what we call developmental trauma,
the hormones – cortisol and adrenaline –
start to interfere with the pathways being laid
down in their brain.
“Their developing neural networks, the
ability to feel empathy, to socially engage, toregulate emotions, those pathways are being
affected – and they’re going to be at a
disadvantage, and prone to a whole range
of emotional disorders.”
Cannon says there are ‘mountains’
of research showing that our brains are
significantly impacted by these Adverse
Childhood Experiences, as they’re known,
particularly if domestic violence is happening
in the home.
“And society is under aware of this. My
experience is that there is a lot more domestic
violence going on than our statistics reflect,”
Cannon says.
“And the sneaky thing is we look at it on
a spectrum, up the high end is the physical
abuse, the highest risk of homicide. But if
you go right down the other end – a person
being abusive and yet never physically violent- it’s still abuse. You’re talking about really
controlling behaviours, limiting access to
friends, or to religion, restricting access to
finances, cases where the man demands to
pick the clothes his wife wears every day.
“Then you move up through stonewalling - you can hurt a person profoundly with
silence, and I’ve seen cases of silent treatment
that goes for months – to criticism, yelling
and screaming. They’re all forms of abuse
and when they become a pattern, that’s
domestic violence. Psychological injury is
the undeniable, consistent result.
“You can be at the low end of the
spectrum for years and yet be just as equally
damaged, mentally, as someone who’s been
physically injured.”
Kay says the domestic violence he admits he
was guilty of never involved actually hitting
his wife – though he did kick a wall once, so
hard his foot got stuck in the Gyprock.
“In my case, I would just react and we’d
just have some sort of heated argument,
and my way would be to scribble down
something, something emotionally
manipulating, and just chuck it to her,
and then walk out,” he says.
Those scribbled somethings included
threats to take their children away and
flee to Nepal, knowing that his wife’s
overwhelming fear of flying meant she’d
never be able to chase him. She kept
the notes, of course, and they formed
a centrepiece of the extensive two-and
-a-half-year court battle that eventually
ended with Kay being removed from
his family’s life.
The more you hear about domestic
violence, the more you read and think about
it, the more it makes you wonder – am I
missing something? Could I be doing
something? Should I be doing something?
You might not be able to see it, or suspect
it, in your friends or colleagues, but those
who know what to look for state that it’s
all around us.
“In marriage or relationship education,
there are some practitioners who say that
within two minutes of watching a couple
interact in a restaurant, they can make a
strong assessment about what’s going to
happen in the next five years,” says King.
“It’s not about what the man looks or acts
like, it’s how the pair interact together and
respond to one another that predicts the
likelihood of violence in relationships.
Putting someone down is a very strong
indicator: ‘you can never choose the right
meal,’ that kind of thing, that’s probably
number one, you’re at first base. But there
are other tell-tale behaviours – not really
listening or responding to the other
person, putting them down – these are
very likely indications that the relationship
won’t su r v ive.”“It came down to a toasted sandwich and putting
butter on the right side. And it started going
around, and around, and it just all becomes about how
she wouldn’t listen to me, she wouldn’t hear me.”