APS research shows psychologists are deeply concerned about the impact of domestic and family violence, yet many feel they lack the confidence or training to work with perpetrators. Dr Peter Streker MAPS offers insights into how to approach this challenging task.
In Australia, close to one in four homicides is the result of intimate partner violence. Research for the year 2021-2022 showed domestic and family violence (DFV) had affected 2.3 million women since they turned 15, and 84 homicides were linked to DFV in the year 2022-2023.
Psychologists are well aware of the extent of the problem. In APS most recent Thinking Futures report, 85 per cent of surveyed psychology professionals surveyed reported that they were “very” or “extremely” concerned about the rate of DFV and sexual violence against girls and women, and 91 per cent said that people who are impacted by domestic and family violence need greater access to psychological services.
While many psychologists will encounter clients who have experienced DFV, they might feel more confident about working with victim-survivors rather than perpetrators.
Dr Peter Streker MAPS is a community psychologist who has worked in the DFV field for more than 30 years, predominantly with men who have perpetrated violence. In August and September, he will present a two-part APS webinar designed to help psychologists work more confidently and effectively with perpetrators of DFV.
APS spoke with Dr Streker to get a taste of the insights on offer in the upcoming webinar series.
A different approach
According to Streker, there are some fundamental differences in the work a psychologist does with perpetrators of DFV.
“As psychologists or counsellors, we're trained to often believe people at face value and trust that people are highly motivated to change,” he says.
“Many people who have used violence are not interested in changing their behaviour. They feel like they may have been mandated to attend these sessions, so they really don't want to be there, and they really don't want to talk about anything that might be potentially incriminating or humiliating.”
As a result, he says psychologists need to be aware of the importance of evidence-informed approaches. Self-awareness and ethical practice are particularly vital to ensuring safe and effective treatment for this challenging client group.
Although DFV doesn’t only affect women, gender is the most significant predictive factor, and research shows that women and girls are disproportionately affected.
“Typically, it's male violence against women, but not exclusively,” says Dr Streker.
For psychologists, understanding these dynamics, as well as the function and patterns of abusive behaviour, is essential for effective intervention.
“There's a tension between trauma-based therapy, which doesn't have that gendered lens, and traditional family violence work, which does,” says Dr Streker.
“But I think there's a sweet spot in the middle where we can get the best of both worlds and understand things from multiple layers – from the individual or intrapsychic layer and also from the social pressures that people are under that might shape their identity and their behaviour.”
A trauma-based approach, Streker explains, explores intra-psychic phenomena, focusing on the perpetrator’s thoughts, and encourages self-regulatory behaviour that helps people calm down when they feel like they're escalating into a violent state.
The traditional DFV approach, however, explores the cultural and social factors, such as gender, that might shape somebody's propensity to be violent or abusive. This lens focuses on issues of social power and social control, and explores how that dynamic plays out in a private setting.
“I believe there’s space for both of those aspects, but finding a neat way of stitching them together is something that has not really been done well, in my view,” he says.
To hear more from Dr Peter Streker about working with perpetrators of family violence, register for his two-part CPD-approved webinar session.
A broader scope of care
Often, a psychologist’s work with a perpetrator of DFV focuses on reducing harm and increasing the perpetrator's sense of responsibility.
“There are a lot of challenges that are very different to standard counselling,” says Dr Streker.
“When we're working with our clients, typically we put their safety as our number one priority, but in this case, we also have to have the safety of other people as our number one priority. It's a much broader scope of care than we typically undertake.”
Because of the risk to victim-survivors, Dr Streker says psychologists should pay close attention to the facts of a situation, not just what they’re told. He advocates a process called triangulation to help identify potentially dangerous situations.
That sees the psychologist liaising with third parties to better understand the events being discussed, he says.
He adds that gathering information from outside parties, such as a victim-survivor safety worker, doesn't guarantee that the psychologist will understand the whole truth, but it gives them more confidence that they can understand the situation as it unfolds.
“Ideally, we have a victim-survivor safety worker – somebody who's in contact with the partner – to make sure they're safe and that they're being supported by other services or other psychologists.
“That contract also gives us an insight into the behaviour from the victim-survivor’s perspective, which may not be what we're hearing from the person we're directly working with.”
Dr Streker says effective treatment requires looking at the underpinning causes and addressing those. For some people who use violence, that could involve a powerful shift in identity.
Streker says many perpetrators of DFV have learned that violence allows them to influence their world. They have found, over time, that if they intimidate others, people will be cautious about how they talk to them or how they behave around them. They discover that they can use threats to control people's behaviour.
“Many people are violent and abusive without losing their temper at all. They can be cold and calculated about what they do.
“The big thing that has come across this field in the past 15 years or so is coercive control, where people are controlling others’ behaviours through a range of different strategies, which won’t necessarily involve physical violence or anger at all.”
Self-regulation and accountability
When Streker works with people who have used DFV, he tries to help change the perpetrator’s perspective on a situation and encourage them to self-regulate their behaviour.
“Help people become aware of the early warning signs of when things are starting to escalate and become aware of their patterns of abuse,” he says.
“Understanding the impact of their behaviours on other people is a really critical part. Many people who are violent or abusive don't think it hurts others, or they think it's a noble gesture – that they're teaching them a lesson."
It’s also important to ensure the therapy has accountability systems built in, so the perpetrator remains responsible for their behaviour, says Dr Streker.
“The main thing is making sure the person is genuine about it, and it’s not just another ploy to avoid responsibility or to get out of the work as quickly as possible, then go back to their old ways,” says Streker.
“The second thing is that they learn to pick up the early warning signs, such as when they are becoming angry, so they've got more time to make a decision about what action they have to take; we've helped them become aware of body signs, for example, that lead up to the violence.
“The third thing is that we want them to have a range of different strategies to manage difficult situations and emotions. Many people I've worked with are violent because they say they are anxious, and I say to them, ‘I can give you 100 different strategies for managing anxiety. That’s going to be much better for you and much better for everyone else.’”
Hidden dangers
Because DFV perpetrators are not conventional therapeutic subjects, conventional approaches might not work. Sometimes, they can even be dangerous. DFV perpetrators, for instance, often first encounter a psychologist through couples’ counselling.
“A lot of couples’ counsellors are very well intended, but they can inadvertently make the situation more dangerous,” says Dr Streker.
For example, couples counsellors often aim to be fair and give equal weight to both sides of the story, he says, but that could inadvertently validate a fictitious account that covers up the violence.
“The other risk in couples counselling is that sometimes the person who has received the violence can disclose that in the session, and then they’re at more risk when they get home or when they get to the car park afterwards, because the [perpetrator feels humiliated]."
Psychologists have resources at their disposal to help their practise. Dr Streker recommends the Victorian government’s Multi-Agency Risk Assessment and Management, or MARAM, Framework.
“Lots of the tools in the trauma world will help people; tools like the Window of Tolerance and the Parts Approach to working with different defensive structures within people could be really useful.
“There are a lot of tools around, and, in my [webinars], I'll be giving people some direct links to those.”
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