Why do some people commit crimes while others become their victims? How do psychotherapists work with both? Their main principle is focused attention to the causes of violence and the desire to make it less.
Psychologies: As a forensic psychiatrist, you have worked with a lot of people who have done terrible things. Is there a certain moral limit for you — and for a psychoanalyst in general — beyond which it is no longer possible to work with a client?
Estela Welldon, medical examiner and psychoanalyst: Let me start with an anecdotal story from my family life. It seems to me that it will be easier to understand my answer. A few years ago, I left my job with the NHS after three decades of working at the Portman Clinic, which specializes in helping antisocial patients.
And I had a conversation with my eight-year-old granddaughter at that time. She often visits me, she knows that my office is littered with books about sex and other not quite childish things. And she said, «So you won’t be a sex doctor anymore?» «What did you call me?» I asked in surprise. She, I think, heard a note of indignation in my voice, and she corrected herself: “I wanted to say: will you no longer be a doctor who heals love?” And I thought that this term should be adopted … Do you understand what I’m getting at?
To be honest, not very much.
To the fact that a lot depends on the point of view and the choice of words. Well, and love, of course. You are born — and your parents, your family, everyone around is extremely happy about this. You are welcome here, you are welcome here. Everyone takes care of you, everyone loves you. Now imagine that my patients, the people I used to work with, never had anything like that.
They come into this world often without knowing their parents, without understanding who they are.
They have no place in our society, they are ignored, they feel left out. Their feelings are completely opposite to what you experience. They literally feel like nobody. And what should they do to support themselves? To begin with, at least to attract attention, obviously. And then they go into society and make a big «boom!» — Get as much attention as possible.
British psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott once formulated a brilliant idea: any antisocial action implies and is based on hope. And this same “boom!” — this is precisely an action performed in the hope of attracting attention, changing one’s fate, attitude towards oneself.
But isn’t it obvious that this «boom!» lead to sad and tragic consequences?
Who is it obvious to you? But you don’t do those things. To understand this, you need to be able to think, reason rationally, see the causes and predict the result. And those of whom we are talking are not too well «equipped» for all this. More often than not, they are unable to think in this way. Their actions are dictated almost exclusively by emotions. They act for the sake of action, for the sake of this very «boom!» — and ultimately they are driven by hope.
And I tend to think that my main task as a psychoanalyst is precisely to teach them to think. Understand what caused their actions and what the consequences might be. An act of aggression is always preceded by experienced humiliation and pain — this is perfectly shown in ancient Greek myths.
It is impossible to assess the degree of pain and humiliation experienced by these people.
This is not about depression, which any of us can fall into from time to time. It’s literally an emotional black hole. By the way, in working with such clients you need to be extremely careful.
Because in such work, the analyst inevitably reveals to the client the bottomlessness of this black hole of despair. And realizing it, the client often thinks about suicide: it is really very difficult to live with this awareness. And unconsciously they suspect it. You know, many of my clients have been given the choice of going to jail or to me for treatment. And a significant part of them chose prison.
Impossible to believe!
And yet it is so. Because they were unconsciously afraid to open their eyes and realize the full horror of their situation. And it’s much worse than prison. Prison is what? It’s almost normal for them. There are clear rules for them, there no one will climb into the soul and show what is going on in it. Prison is just… Yes, that’s right. It’s too easy — both for them and for us as a society. It seems to me that society also bears part of the responsibility for these people. Society is too lazy.
It prefers to paint the horrors of crimes in newspapers, films and books, and declare the criminals themselves guilty and send them to prison. Yes, they are, of course, guilty of what they have done. But prison is not the solution. By and large, it cannot be solved without understanding why crimes are committed and what precedes acts of violence. Because most often they are preceded by humiliation.
Or a situation that a person perceives as humiliation, even if in the eyes of others it does not look like that
I held seminars with the police, lectured to the judges. And I am glad to note that they took my words with great interest. This gives hope that someday we will stop mechanically churning out sentences and learn how to prevent violence.
In the book «Mother. Madonna. Whore» you write that women can provoke sexual violence. Are you not afraid that you will give an extra argument to those who are used to blaming women for everything — “she put on too short a skirt”?
Oh familiar story! This book was published in English more than 25 years ago. And one progressive feminist bookstore in London flatly refused to sell it: on the grounds that I denigrate women and worsen their situation. I hope that over the past 25 years it has become clearer to many that I did not write about this at all.
Yes, a woman can provoke violence. But, firstly, violence from this does not cease to be a crime. And secondly, this does not mean that a woman wants … Oh, I’m afraid it’s impossible to explain in a nutshell: my whole book is about this.
I see this behavior as a form of perversion, which is as common to women as it is to men.
But in men, the manifestation of hostility and the discharge of anxiety are tied to one specific organ. And in women, they apply to the entire body as a whole. And very often aimed at self-destruction.
It’s not just cuts on the hands. These are eating disorders: for example, bulimia or anorexia can also be considered as unconscious manipulations with one’s own body. And provoking violence is from the same row. A woman unconsciously settles scores with her own body — in this case, with the help of «intermediaries».
In 2017, the decriminalization of domestic violence came into force in Russia. Do you think this is a good solution?
I do not know the answer to this question. If the goal is to reduce the level of violence in families, then this is not an option. But going to jail for domestic violence is not an option either. As well as trying to “hide” the victims: you know, in England in the 1970s, special shelters were actively created for women who were victims of domestic violence. But it turned out that for some reason many victims do not want to get there. Or they don’t feel happy there. This brings us back to the previous question.
The point, obviously, is that many such women unconsciously choose men who are prone to violence. And it makes no sense to ask why they tolerate violence until it begins to threaten their lives. Why don’t they pack up and leave at the first sign of it? There is something inside, in their unconscious, that keeps them, makes them “punish” themselves in this way.
What can society do to alleviate this problem?
And that brings us back to the very beginning of the conversation. The best thing society can do is to understand. To understand what is going on in the souls of those who commit violence and those who become its victims. Understanding is the only general solution I can offer.
We must look as deeply as possible at the family and relationships and study the processes that take place in them more
Today, people are much more passionate about the study of business partnerships than relationships between partners in marriage, for example. We have perfectly learned to calculate what our business partner can give us, whether he should believe in certain issues, what drives him in making decisions. But all the same in relation to the person with whom we share the bed, we do not always understand. And we don’t try to understand, we don’t read smart books on this topic.
In addition, many of the victims of abuse, as well as those who chose to work with me in prison, showed amazing progress in the course of therapy. And this gives hope that they can be helped.