The mic man killed the mic man all right. We ready for the jury. Okay, please man in the chat she under the stand. Now i don't think she, i don't think she'll take a stand today or tomorrow, but i think i'm i might be wrong.

People say tomorrow, i don't think it's gon na be tomorrow either. I don't think they wanted to take this time either right, i'm not signing up, listen man, all right! Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. All right be seated. All right.

The plaintiff has rested in the defense case, you're your witness your honor i'd like to call dr john hughes to the stand. Dr hughes. I've been subbed for 35 months, aware dr hughes, two years holy ye good afternoon. Chad.

What's your full name, i forgot is that debbie who's look! Is that your honor? Will you please state your name dawn hughes and what is your profession am a clinical and forensic psychologist and another one dislocated i practice in new york city. What is a clinical psychologist sure, so, a clinical psychologist is somebody who assesses evaluates and treats individuals who are suffering from a variety of ailments or problems that they have in their lives. It could be a major psychiatric disorder and it could be problems in living. Clinical psychologists also participate in training in education and in research ventures.

And what is a forensic psychologist? So a forensic psychologist is someone who applies the science and principles of clinical psychologists to a particular legal question at hand, and please describe your background in terms of your education. Please it looks mean so i received my bachelor degree in psychology from hamilton college, which is in upstate new york. I then received my master's degree and my phd from nova southeastern university, which is in florida. I then had to complete my year-long internship, and that was at yale university in the school of medicine in the department of psychiatry and there i did two full year rotations.

I did a year rotation in the substance, abuse treatment unit and another year rotation in the westhaven mental health clinic where we saw individuals suffering from a wide array of difficulties in psychiatry, not miss curry. I sleep after that. I had to complete my post-doctoral fellowship, which is another year, that's required in order to get licensed, and that was back in new york at cornell medical college in the anxiety and traumatic stress program. There.

Please describe your training and experience in psychology and trauma. So my experience in trauma has been predominantly throughout graduate school. I started at a domestic violence program that was housed within our community mental health center of the university and that program we saw both men and women who were coming through the program. The majority of the men were court ordered for batterers intervention programs to participate in mostly group therapy because of their behavior in intimate partner, violence, domestic violence.

We also treated the female victims who were victims of intimate partner, violence and mostly in individual therapy, but we did run some groups there as well. After that uh practicum experience, i went to work at the veterans administration in their outpatient, psychiatry clinic um in that clinic. I treated mostly um. This was florida, so they're much older adults, so we saw a lot of vietnam era veterans and actually uh world war ii veterans um in that program and a few of um veterans of russian combat in the first uh iraq war, um, sort of overlapping.

In that time, i also was the research coordinator for the child sex abuse, survivors program, the females, men and women who were coming for treatment um to deal with the consequences, the psychological aspect of having been sexually abused as a child um. After that, i completed internships. Yale at the substance abuse program, there's a high concordance, a high rate of trauma-based disorders. With substance abuse i um put together a group.

A woman's group of female heroines said most men that were ordered and a woman. I don't know if she said all the children would abuse histories, so we did adore the woman or uh the healing from the traumatic effects of of the violence that they experienced. Um. On my post-doctoral fellowship, i was in the anxiety and dramatic stress program.

As the name uh sounds. We saw individuals who were suffering from trauma-based disorders and anxiety, mostly late adolescents and adults, men and women from sexual assault, violence. Some were simple assaults on the streets being mugged and things of that nature. I also did teaching and training for victim services, which is new york, city's largest victim-based organization, who runs a lot of services for victims of domestic violence and shelter-based programs, and i did the some education and training for them for on teaching for a number of years.

Thank you. Let's talk about your current occupation. What positions do you currently hold? So i currently have a private practice in in manhattan um, and i also have a a faculty position at weill cornell medical college. I'm a clinical assistant professor of psychology in the department of psychiatry.

Here she goes again. This is what we call on the voluntary faculty, which means you don't get paid, but you participate in bringing in the interns selecting the interns for that year. In that program, i teach, i think, for the past seven, eight years, the ethics seminar to the interns and also participate in other didactics that they have i'm also called upon current position, and they should talk about issue difficult scenarios that clinicians either trainees or full blood. Clinicians might have um if there's an issue of intimate partner, violence or child sex abuse, and they don't really know sort of what to do in that situation.

I get consulted to do that and then most recently i was part of our program's covert response team, where in um pretty much march april may june july, uh 2020, where new york city was the epicenter. You guys get into the jury, voted mobilized and were really doing psychological first aid and helping our our hospital-based workers um deal with the stress and the trauma from seeing so much death and destruction because of covet in in those first months of new york, city's coveted Wave, i wonder if she's going to get the job announcement, what does your independent practice entail? No, i say three things um. The bulk is, i see individuals in therapy two and a half days. I see people who come to my office, who are mostly dealing from you, know the traumatic effects of victimization childhood abuse, rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment, domestic violence - and i see these individuals in therapy.

I do have a percentage of individuals who do not have a trauma. History and that's usually the anxiety disorders that they see, they may have panic disorder or generally look at these disorders or other difficulties and just relational difficulties or problems in living um. The second big part of what i do is is this guys guys. I was watching the behind the scenes uh today evaluate what happened is that we were involved.

I was playing the elite new boss of balloons and consult with. He got small he's putting money back in some uh, just something that has to do with the legal system and then the other smaller percentage is the engagement in in professional activities in the profession says me: do you have any areas that you specialize in? Yes, i specialize in interpersonal violence and traumatic stress and what is interpersonal violence, so interpersonal violence is the umbrella term, for when one person does something violent or abusive toward another, and that includes domestic violence, childhood sexual abuse, rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment, physical assault. All of those type of behaviors we understand as interpersonal violence and then traumatic stress, is the consequence of that. What happens to individuals when they experience these sort of life-altering events, these really adverse life events - traumatic stress, is one of the outgrowths and the psychological consequences that people have on when they've been exposed to these type of traumas, so intermittent partner, violence, rape and sexual assault Are major areas of your focus of practice? That's fair to say, objection, sustained injection, okay, um i'll, just move on what types of patients do you treat in your private office, so i treat adults, mostly men and women.

In my practice i sometimes will treat late adolescents. 17 or 18 and they'll come to me, usually after um a rape or sexual assault and i'll treat them in in short term. My brother, mostly adults, who are you know, have sustained some kind of traumatic event in their lives. Approximately, how many victims of interpersonal violence have you examined or personally interested, i mean chill out.

This is hard stalling, though hundreds upon hundreds and how many years have you been practicing well, i started practicing in graduate school in 1992 and i was licensed in 1996. So 25, 30 years. Okay, are you board certified? Yes, i am please describe to the jury, what board certification means and what you are certified in board. Certification is the highest degree of postdoctoral certification that a psychologist can obtain, and i am board certified in forensic psychology, and that means that i have just amassed a competency in the area of forensic psychology and are you licensed to practice psychology? Yes, i am, and in how many states are you licensed, i'm licensed in three states in new york, north carolina and connecticut, and then i have some temporary licensees in other states as well.

Have you published in the area of your specialization? This is an interview i have. I am not predominantly a researcher or somebody who writes i'm a clinician, i'm doing direct clinical service um, but over the course of my graduate school and postdoctoral time. I have published some things. Yes, and have you published a book chapter relating to this about this voice? Yes, i have rape and sexual assault in adult women and have you published any book chapters relating to structured or clinical assessment of risk or violence? Yes, i uh co-authored a book chapter entitled 1.5 star rating assessment of risk and violence.

Okay, have you given any other trainings or presentations to mental health professionals in the area of trauma and abuse? Yes, uh at national conferences at um legal conferences for attorneys for mental health professionals on understanding trauma and how trauma may show up in the courtroom on understanding what a victim of intimate partner might look. Violence might look like of understanding the difficulties that a rape victim might have to come into court to testify and training, just regular sort of mental health professionals on how to understand trauma how to look for trauma. What does it look like when it comes into your office? How do you treat it, how you assess it all of those factors, i've done a number of trainings on. Have you been invited at any on any occasions to train attorneys and judges on trauma and violence? Yes, i have, i was um invited by the uh judicial conference to oh training, correspondent to train our new york state, uh supreme court, justices on issues of intimate partner, violence and traumatic stress um, some of the things that i've just been talking to you here about How to understand what happens in those situations, how to understand the myths and misconceptions that may be that may abound in these situations and how you can sort of more accurately understand what a victim is talking to you about and telling you when they come into your Courtroom have you given any presentations to judicial symposiums on domestic violence? Yes, i've also been, you know, contacted by.

Sometimes judges will have symposiums in their courtroom. They will make a decision to hold a particular symposium on particular topics, and i was you know, asked to come to presentations for judges on on numerous occasions and what, if any, uh presentations did you do on understanding women's use of force in ipv um? That was a recent presentation and i think that was invited by one of the um one of the judges or the office on domestic violence in new york um. And what does that look like, and how can we differentiate if both people are fighting? How do we know that this is intimate partner violence? So what are the sort of? What does the research tell us about that? How do we understand that, and how can we really accurately assess that and that was sort of the bulk of what that training was about what professional organizations do you belong to? Oh, please, matt. I belong to a number.

I belong to the american psychological association, which is the largest body of psychologists um in the united states um over here headquarters in dc. I um because it's so big they're, not yeah they're, trying to calm down the psychological association. So i belong to the division of trauma psychology. I belong to the division of psychology and the law.

Um, the division of god knows she's thinking which, as the name um says, it's an international society where we are interdisciplinary, mostly psychiatry and psychology, researchers and clinicians to really understand and further our awareness about trauma and traumatic stress. I belong to the international society for trauma and dissociation. I belong to the anxiety disorders of association of america, i'm a fellow in the american board of forensic psychology. I don't know if i'm forgetting any okay are any of these specific to interpersonal violence or trauma.

Well, clearly, the trauma division of the american psychological association, the international society for traumatic stress studies and the international society for trauma and dissociation, and then also the anxiety disorders of association continues to talk about trauma because, prior to this new dsm-5, it was ptsd was originally Categorized under the anxiety disorders, so there are still colleagues and researchers in the anxiety disorders organizations who talk about ptsd and trauma. Do you hold any leadership roles in these organizations? Um? Yes, i am currently the president-elect of the trauma division of the american psychological association. That is an elected position. You have to be elected by our membership um and now i serve uh as with the presidential trio.

So there's three of us, you serve with the immediate past president, the current president and the president-elect. So it's a three-year term, and now i'm just very curious what kind of strategy you're going to use to bring her in here disseminate best practices in trauma, psychology and also interface. I feel like the larger they're going to cook her logical association organization, my prediction: she gets absolutely freaking cook on the flip side, just a voice for trauma psychology with our larger body and policy, making i've been involved in the trauma psychology executive board since its inception. I was a founding member of that division.

I served as a membership chair a program chair and a wars. Chair um, i was the apa accountant, she is elected and she shows up psychology, so the division of trauma, psychology or psychologists who who come together, who want to disseminate best practices in trauma psychology. We want to make sure that we have our finger on the pulse of research and evidence-based interventions for people who are struggling with traumatic events that have happened by time for ought to get on stand. Have you served in leadership positions of other professional organizations uh? Yes, i was uh, there's a new york, city-based organization, it's called the women's mental health consortium and that's also an interdisciplinary organization.

It's psychology, psychiatry, nursing social work, and this was formed in order to give women um sort of a referral base and more information about mostly what reproductive psychiatry. We know that certain difficulties and psychological difficulties that you have can erupt when you're pregnant or postpartum. So we wanted to have a number of resources available to women in the new york city area. I was a membership chair there for a number of years and then i was the president of that organization.

I think 2009 to 2017.. I don't have my cv, but i think that's about right. Why is participation in professional organizations important in your field? Well, it's important to me because i do believe very much in service. I do believe very much and giving back.

I do believe that it's important as a psychologist who believes strongly if she believes in giving back apology, then why don't you tell amber to donate the through my bill, push to get policy and understanding, especially with the insurance companies um, to make sure that people are Getting you know the appropriate care that they deserve, so it's something that um. This has always been part of my life and varying degrees, and, as a psychologist i feel like it's a you know, a very rewarding uh nice. Drawing look at this. Do you attend professional conferences? Yes, i do um typically moving here, of course, yeah um.

Why do you think that's important it's important to stay abreast of developments in the field, it's important to meet with your colleagues across the country and see what they're doing and what they're hearing and what's working and what's not working um. So when you're done presenting newer novel research, then you can take that information and that bring that back to your clients and bring that back to my forensic work. So it actually absolutely enhances the work that i do have you ever been qualified to testify in the field of psychology as an expert witness. Yes, i have how many times i was first qualified in 1998.

So since then, um about 50 times and how often in that 50 times has the specialty been in interpersonal violence and traumatic stress, probably more than half okay or testified for the prosecution and criminal matters like the district attorney's office, u.s attorney's office. Yes, i have frequently. Okay, do you testify for both sides in lawsuits, plaintiffs and defendants? Yes, i do have you ever worked on other cases that didn't go to trial? Many okay. Have you ever? Okay, stop! Okay, stop! Stop! Jesus christ does not suffer from the effects of interpersonal violence, guys i thought it would be.

I guess i thought you guys were only linked with you ever. What is wrong with you guys? Why are you guys in that in court, where you have been proffered to qualify as an expert in the court guys your honor? I would at this time i'm not encouraging you boys, as an expert. Don't do like that college with the specialist league said. Interpersonal violence said it: he linked it straight up.

No objection too. It looked fine more specifically forensic psychology with a specialization in interpersonal vocabulary. It was good content. I pulled it up.

It changed by excels all right, so moved. Thank you, your honor, dr hughes. Please tell the jury: what domestic violence intimate partner violence means lower movement sure, so i'm probably going to be interchanging the language, domestic violence and interpersonal violence and for purposes here. These are the same thing, so intimate partner.

Violence is a pattern of manipulation, fear and coercive control that happens within an intimate relationship. It constitutes using a variety of abusive behaviors and that can be physical violence, sexual violence, psychological aggression, emotional abuse, stalking or surveillance, behaviors and economic abuse. That's violence. The abusive behaviors occur over time, um, i'm just asking normal times times without violence times with love and happiness, positioning of the violence with the love and the abu with the love and the care that makes it very difficult for a victim to extricate herself.

From that situation and from that relationship fair enough - and what would you say is the overarching dynamic of these relationships? So the overarching dynamic is the um abuse of power and control of one person wanting to have dominance in that relationship say over most things, the couple's economic abuse. Please tell the jury. What coercive control means. So coercive control is a tactic of victimization um.

The goal of it is to establish dominance. What coercive control does is that it imposes negative consequences for non-compliance with your partner's expectations or demands, and what that does is it erodes away at the victim's autonomy and her independence? What is physical violence, so physical violence is when one person uses their body against the body of another, with the intent to cause injury or harm um, throw slam into a wall push into something hard that you could hurt yourself clearly use of a weapon. Um would be a physically violent act as well does size and strength matter between the parties. Nope.

Yes, very much, so i really think it's very well documented in the literature about violence and abuse and relationships, and and that's just um - that's just physics - that's just proportional. I was saying that violence is violence. 185, pound man is going to push 120., that's going to feel quite a violent advice, i'm 120 pound woman, pushing 185 pound man and it's just about proportional force and the size and strength differential, and that is why, specifically, if you look at wrestling or boxing, they Match weight classes and they do that for a reason, because they know that it's not fair if somebody is bigger and it's not fair. So it's certainly not the only factor, but it is a factor that one has to consider.

If a relationship is fine who the is boxing, what is psychological aggression, so psychological aggression is threats and the imposition of threats with the intent to control someone's behavior. So it's doing it's doing a threat so that you will modify she's told that he is what your partner wants. Um, some psychological. I don't know i don't have intimidation, i'm slamming your hand on uh on a table punching a wall, throwing something and mumbling under your mouth, cursing something i'm wrong sort of these to describe something as physically violent size.

Violence where that contingency has already been established, that this person, your partner, has said, okay, i will not only have the ability to use violence against you. I also have the willingness to do it. The intimidating tactics take on greater flavor, they take on greater salience because you know take five punches because they're 83 pounds lighter so almost now strike back unfairness bangs. What is that worth and their their self um perception? It's about name calling small person being very mean all types of behaviors to really make a person feel less than they um actually should, and what is sexual abuse.

So sexual abuse in an intimate relationship functions to establish dominance and dis established power um. What it is simply in the psychological and psychiatric communities is forcing someone to do something: sexual against your will. When you did not want to um, it can be forced sex either. Forced vaginal oral anal sex and be forced to engage in any other type of sexual act that you may not want to do and when i say force it doesn't mean it has to have physical force.

There's a lot of psychologically coercive tactics that are used that many times when violence has already been established in the relationship. The victim often feels that she can't say no for fear of reprisal for fear of retaliation for saying no to those acts. So sexual abuse. You know does happen in intimate partner relationships, a lot of people don't want to talk about it and they don't want to ask about it because it makes people very uncomfortable is digital penetration of the vagina sexual abuse she's leading she said she uh.

I think my role does digital this. I think penis penetration or third time. She does this say our third. If it is non-consensual, then it is abusive.

I don't want to be. I don't want to be just andy, but i mean inanimate objects into the vagina. Plays a role in sexual abuse again, the operative word is consensual. If you are not consenting to those acts, then it is sexually abusive.

Is there a distinction between sexual violence and sexual abuse? Not really sexual violence is a term of art. It is the overarching umbrella that we in the psychological and psychiatric communities talk about. So if we are looking at our diagnostic and statistical emotions, and so what are the traumas that could cause ptsd, it's listed as sexual violence, so it's an umbrella term that allows us to understand it could be childhood sexual abuse. It could be a rape, a sexual assault; it can be sexual abuse in an intimate relationship.

So it's really just an overarching term um that we use in the field, i'm sorry so it doesn't mean. I think people often mistake it to mean that when you are being sexually abused, that someone's punching you or someone's hitting you or someone's doing something like that, because you hear the violence, it does not mean that that could happen, but that term does not require that. Nor does it mean that what are stacking or surveillance behaviors, so stalking and surveillance behaviors are a common tactic of of typically men who use violent behaviors in an intimate relationship. What they do is they allow the woman to know that wherever she is wherever she goes, he's going to know, um i'm going to maybe look at your phone, see who you're talking to track you on find my iphone instagram.

Look i'm actually impressed with that. You guys don't get mad at you, guys, don't get mad at her for pulling up steps if the stats aren't wrong. I just i'm impressed that. I didn't know that again erodes the victim's autonomy and it erodes her sense of privacy.

She doesn't feel that wherever she can go, i would have thought 50. 50 is going to be um part of her life in an in a very objectionable way. Sometimes there's the pop-ins they'll show up at places that they're not supposed to be and that we don't want them to be just as a way of checking. Sometimes they'll have friends or family check out their partners to make sure where they are.

What time did you get home, but you didn't turn off your phone at this time, but you came in the door, it's harder for the dialogue, because the dish and other behaviors that aren't stalking it so some apply to women more, which is true, so economics, but Then the worst is swapping over it's kind of hard to follow, control over they're, just holding information about the finances of not letting you have access to the finances. If you can't have access to a credit card or a checking account or you know, apple pay on your phone, then you're rendered usually much more economically dependent on your partner and that limits tangible options for you, um for individuals where that sort of tangible options isn't There we see the economic abuse or the economic restriction when one partner refuses to share any information about the funds. So it's not like. I can't go shopping because i won't have money, but i don't have any decision making in our family money.

I don't have any idea of what we're doing in our family vis-a-vis our finances, so it's a way of definitely keeping that very separate and not in a consensual. Some couples make that choice. One person does all the money, that's fine, but when it doesn't come from a place of of consensual choice, making it can be um abusive. So you you just described a number of these abusive behaviors are all of them present in every uh domestic violence relationship.

No they're not all present in everyone and that's why it's very important to do a thorough assessment of a relationship that may be mired in violence to see which ones are present and which ones have a great impact in the relationship which ones are sort of making. The structure of this relationship after a sexual assault in an intimate relationship, how might a victim in those circumstances, interact with her partner? So so this is one of the myths that people say well. If she was sexually assaulted by her partner, she would have just left um and nothing could be further from the truth. That's not what happens um, especially when it's your your husband or your boyfriend, or your partner um.

So what women do? Is they see? Yes, yes, four times four times they they put it away, they avoid it because then they continue to to reach out to the kind and the loving man that they got into this relationship with you know the problem is that it does fester belief and causes more Sort of psychological distress um in the victim. What if any role, can shame or humiliation play in this coercive dynamic? So so that's one of the emotions that um the victim is usually trying to to suppress and compartmentalize and avoid and put away. One of the most you know frequently felt feelings after something. So incredibly, humiliating and violating is shame and shame is a very sort of difficult emotion for people to have to live with and to have to experience and then a lot of times what we see in in these relationships, especially ones where sexual assault is perpetrated.

There's typically, the emotional abuse as well, so now, if you're be you're called names like a and a and easy and fat and you're feeling the shame from the sexual assault that justice. These are all. These are all terms that apply to them: sort of kind of slowly deteriorates the psychological functioning of the victim and, where they're, just really trying to get back to the good guy. That's a good guy to come back, but they're suffering these symptoms.

Underneath what about intimidation? What role does intimidation play in the coercive control? Dynamic intimidation is one of the the huge um yeah but she's right that we see in coercive um against simple concepts to get your partner. It's how leaning she is and how often she's doing establish that you can use violence and other sexual violence and physical violence slamming your hands on a table, throwing a glass breaking a door. You know throwing anything causing a fit yelling and screaming. You know that can rise the fear level in in a victim that she may modify her behavior quicker and he might not need to use physical violence because he's already established that that fear is there.

What, if any role, could writing obscene messages? Uh play being considered intimidating, behavior leading, i said christ she is uh. I i'm i mean. Certainly writing obscene messages to your partner could absolutely be an intimidating behavior. What if any role, does emotional abuse or degradation play in the dynamics, so emotional, abuse and degradation? As i stated before, functions to decrease your sense of self-worth, it decreases your sense of agency.

It makes you feel bad about yourself and when you feel bad about it, you're left with all this and what you're saying you see: options from the thing about yourself, fairness and violence, now kind of this dynamic of abuse, it's kind of where it's kind of worrying. Now i feel like to believe this is this is the word is telling you about so you know. Maybe i am not talented and fat and lazy and stupid interferes with that ability to problem solve and figure out. You know, can i get out of this relationship, and sometimes you feel you don't even deserve to get out of the relationship.

My abuse is so iconic and so repetitive, what role does surveillance as a means of control play in that dynamic, so surveillance surveillance functions to let the victim know wherever you are there? I am um, so it makes her feel not secure in her movement feeling that she has to restrict her movement. Her movement is not hers alone. Um, it usually increases hyper vigilance. Who said hear her fear.

It increases um the need to uh for yourself, i feel, like you've, been in what you've done, so that you can go back and prove it to your partner, because you know that there is going to be an interrogation later when this this pattern has been established. Show receipts, you know, show me your iphone: where were you what's your google location at you know those are some types of surveillance, behaviors um? How is she right of anxiety and trepidation? What role does possessive jealousy play in these relationships? So possessive jealousy is a very um difficult dynamic in intimate how hard is it in situations of coercive control it's rooted in in possession the stats? Don't matter, gentleman feels that he can possess her. Men and women are both so they're continuing in this dynamic, where she's trying to prove i i didn't do what you said this didn't happen and then no, fortunately it doesn't apply to the situation or the case she's being asked questions unrelated to the case that are Black on the wall of obsessive patterns unrelated very difficult on man, penetrate um that often these type of conversations lend themselves to physical and sexual violence. Does this dynamic happen overnight? No, it doesn't happen overnight.

It happens over time and we don't um. You know woman doesn't get into a relationship with a man, who's beating her up and sexually assaulting her and calling her names and doing all that you know she gets into the relationships for all the right reasons. Just like we all get into relationships for love for companionship, for kindness for a future um, but then slowly. You know all of these behaviors start to take form, and i say it's sort of like sucking the oxygen out of the room and then before you know it you're suffocating yeah.

Now i'm getting annoyed, i can. I can only imagine the jury next question. What uh? What role do physical abuse and coercive tactics play interspersed with normalcy and positive moments? Objection compound i'll sustain the objection. Okay, i'll figure this out some way.

What role does love and normalcy play in these dynamics? You've been describing objection compound overworld. Thank you, so love androsy are almost always in these relationships that you know when you are in a lull and the violence is not happening. You're back to sort of the the loving man that you wanted, the person who you wanted to be with um and when you pair sort of this um this violent, dynamic, physical, sexual violence with love and attachment, it creates a trauma bond dude. What the is happening.

An emotional dependency is created, so it makes it very difficult for the victim of the abuse to extricate herself from that relationship and for her to even believe. Frankly, i mean that takes a lot of time to even believe that she can she that she should and what, if any role, does that dynamically describe? What have you guys? Am i crazy thinking they could you guys? Am i just being ignorant about something that i don't know? That's happening, she's being like this research with working with battered men who come into treatment? Is that the only person who can change the abuse is the abuser? So, no matter what the tactics that the woman uses she's trying to do, all these different things to fix him to have him not be violent to have him not be sexually violent, have him not be obsessively jealous and all those things don't change his behavior, because It's up to him to change his behavior, and this was played out a million times in the batterer's intervention groups that i led and the the men would tell us it doesn't matter what she does uh-huh. I don't know it's going down, so the problem is is that the woman continues to think that she can fix it um, and yet she can't this is disgusting sort of helpless and hopeless, because everything that she's trying to do is failing she's disgusting. So the cycle of violence is one way to describe this domestic violence pattern um.

Typically, what we see in the cycle can be different in a variety of reasons, but typically what we see i don't have to be the first, i'm not a lawyer or an expert. Four phases: in the first phase, there's a tension, building phase, you're sort of starting to feel that that apprehension he may be throwing his papers on the table a little more. He may be slamming. This is civil court door a little more.

He may be moving. There's a jury under his mouth. A little bit grab a glass a little more forcefully than he normally is, and then there's the incident phase. Then there's the blow-up where the violence her examples, males and females like violence 99 to zero.

All that occurs, then we come to the contrition phase. I'm sorry i didn't mean it, it wasn't me, i'm not going to do it again, the promises for change and then we sort of slide into the calm phase. Where you know this isn't going to happen again. I'm back to stable ground.

I want to live in this place, this sort of honeymoon place. You know the problem in the calm phase. Is we often see the rationalizations and the justifications for the behavior? It's not like. Typically, the man is taking full responsibility for what he did, but it's calm because there's no, you know violence and no sort of tension at that moment, um and then it recurs, and then it recurs um so you're stuck in this vicious cycle of trying to figure Out how can i be with this man who hurts me, and yet i love him so much and what, if anything, does the term love bomb meme? So so the love bombing is um, it's more of the colloquial term for for the younger folks here, but you know where you shower someone with with affection and love.

You know in this contrition and calm phase, where you know your everything about. You is special you're. The best thing in the world, i'm never going to do anything to hurt you again. I would never let anyone help you.

It could be selling sending flowers and buying gifts or going on trips or your favorite restaurants, um, and that is you know, a way of where the man is trying to make those amends um, and then it gets the woman hooked. So they get hooked on the kindness they get hooked on the love they don't get hooked on the abuse. I've never met one woman in the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds that i've evaluated, who was not concerned about the men and the woman, not the violence, but they go for the love guys. Only men can love bomb women don't do that.

They just don't your experience. Expert here is telling us that, thank you. I'm learning today does the victim ever yell at her partner. Absolutely why we knew from the research.

Are you an expert? She is. She knows better verbal and physical acts of aggression. Yes, i was joking, of course, that's not uncommon. This has been researched for five decades um and a woman may yell at her partner because she's angry and it anger, is a very normal emotion to having been abused.

She can also be afraid, but they don't have to be mutually exclusive. We can absolutely, as human beings feel two or three or four different. This is worse than because um. What are you saying if this is what she says she knew he was going to publicly.

Imagine the way that she conducts herself and that's just not true. It talks in private research and that's not supported in my clinical practice. You know the problem is, there's a classic double bind and the violence has been so normalized in the relationship. Now she gets hit.

If she does yell, she gets it if she doesn't now so for women who feel at certain moments that they need to preserve some sense of their autonomy and their independence and stand up for themselves, they will yell and they will fight back. Even though the risk of violence is there, so it doesn't mean that she's not afraid and that she's not concerned about the violence, and it doesn't mean she doesn't also use placating and compliance strategies most of the time as well. Oh, my god does does. In the cases that you haven't in your experience, does the abuse typically take place in front of others where they don't talk about behind closed doors, most of the intimate partner, violence, the domestic violence? Sorry mom is good quality.

Unless unless violence happens, you know in the privacy of your own home, so sometimes we see the remnants of it, the after effects or victims talk to their friends or family about it. Um, but very rarely are you seeing it happen. The actual blow-up days happen in the middle of witnesses and other people. What's the term bystander effect mean so why standard effect is what happens when people are aware that domestic violence is happening? What happens when they're aware, even if they're not seeing it um that it could be happening and what happens is we know that's very difficult for people to stand up and say something? It's very difficult, especially in situations where um there's a larger community of folks and the person who perhaps is perpetrating the abuse is the leader of that community.

Um. You become very difficult to go up against that to go against the sort of the headquarters of the community. Um people are very fearful of losing their jobs. Um.

I've seen this time and time again and in the cases that i work on now, it's gon na calibrate boy scout cases or the clergy abuse cases. You know all of those type of cases where the usa gymnastics where, when we go back - and we look, we see people new, but the secretary doesn't want to lose her job. She has kids to feed the guy who you know checks you in. He doesn't want to lose his job because he has a mortgage to pay, so people are quiet and they don't say anything um.

You know and then other people are very um. It's a very worrisome dynamic. They don't want to put their foot out there if they're wrong. The only heat that we finally get is the one where the the guy should report um.

If i don't really know what happened behind closed doors, even if i see a trash room or a bruise and then people still believe it's a family matter, you know it's between amber and johnny. Let them figure it out. You know i'm not going to get in the middle, so those are dynamics that happen. What's the objection motion to strength, what's the objection, we identified two names in the answer.

Overall, thank you. Did you finish your answer? Yes, i believe so, okay, what about mutual abuse? What is that? What role does that play? So mutual abuse isn't really a term of art that we use. What we look at is situational couple violence and intimate partner violence, and when we look at situational couple bonds, that really does characterize the majority of types of violence and abuse that happens in relationships. That's when a couple gets out of hand, they may push shove slap yell, say some things that they don't want, and it's not that those behaviors are okay, but those are sort of what the our larger sale community-based studies say happens in these relationships.

That's distinguished from intimate partner violence. What i'm talking to you about that? Has this constellation of symptoms and is rooted in um. The abuse of power and control. Is there research that addresses this mutual abuse, yeah? There's research that addresses what does um gender symmetry look like male and female? Are they the same um and there's, certainly, as i said, research that on the um, the largest types of violent behaviors push shove slap.

You know we may see similar rates between men and women in psychological aggression, yelling name-calling, putting down in some of our big community scale studies. We may see similar rates of perpetration in those behaviors, but then there are, you know, other situations where we don't have gender symmetry and what the research talks about very clearly is you have to examine context. You have to examine the differential of power and control and coercive control in the relationship to make a full determination. Do women use violence in relationships? Absolutely again, we've known this for five decades in our research we've been studying this since the 70s, and when we look at what happened, i pulled her back and do report their use of violence.

The majority of violence that we do see is what we call reactive violence or self-defense act, violence or sometimes violence. That's perpetrated independently of of an assault of something that's going on, but mostly that when the partner begins to come violent, then she may become violent and fight back. And that's not an uncommon dynamic that if somebody is being pushed or shoved or hit that a person would fight back that has been established in the research and what, if any effect does that have on changing the power dynamics or the structure? Well, you have to find out, does it does her use of violence, change the overarching power structure of coercive control and violence and abuse in this relationship, and you have to examine those variables to see? Does it or does it not? Can men be victims of intimate partner violence? Absolutely certainly. We know that we have to be careful of gendered stereotypes.

We can't go in and think. Oh yes, and only the man is the perpetrator that just does not comport with the research. We know that uh the research also shows that we can have domestic violence and same-sex relationships. My very first case was the same sex domestic violence, homicide in brooklyn um, so i've been that was in 1998, so i've been examining and treating individuals and recovering types of violent context.

So we have to be careful that that bias doesn't get in our way when we're evaluating a particular situation. In a particular case um. That said, we do know that there still are differences. You know in a heterosexual couple in a male female diet.

The research still is clear that there are differences. Men still perpetrate more severe acts of violence. Women are still more likely to be injured. They are much more likely to suffer sexual violence at the hands of their partner, they're, more likely to be intimidated, afraid and they're.

Much more likely to be killed, so we know that those differences exist, but we do examine you know in those individual circumstances, knowing that either one could be a perpetrator or a victim. So how are you able to determine whether a relationship is a situational violence or intimate partner violence? So i thoroughly examine all of those other variables. I look for the coercive control who holds the power stats are right yeah. She is right, it makes sense.

The problem is, whenever you put in her perspective on that, if you don't follow from earlier the decisions, that's the word that is sexual violence. Is there intimidation and fear? Are there statistical factors? Oh a sloppy, defining yeah, oh and lethal domestication? If the fight is is unfair, yeah you can punch up your children, you can use substance, use cause people to be violent. Oh, it certainly doesn't cause people to be violent um. We have plenty of people who can be.

You know struggling with substance, abuse and addiction and they're not violent, but when you have a substance, abuse an addiction and you perpetrate domestic violence, it does create a a much more disastrous effect. It is a co-occurring variable, and we know that also from the research that the majority of the women will report that when their partner is drinking, the physical violence goes up. So a lot of the times when he's physically violent is when he's been consuming drugs or alcohol. When he's not consuming drugs and alcohol and he's not violent yeah, his other behaviors continue to persist.

I mean the coercive control. This is only it's of domestic violence. Real is there research that looks at how women cope with the violence and abuse in their relationships? Yes, there is, please tell me about it. What does it say? So, there's been a lot of research to talk about what do women do? That's the question that everyone wants to know: why doesn't she just leave um and in asking that question, why doesn't she just leave? We actually are able to say well, let me tell you what she does do and what the research shows is women do a lot of things in that relationship, so sort of three main categories, one of the formal responses, the formal things that she does call the Police participate in prosecution of your partner, go see a therapist go to a shelter go to a hospital.

These are sort of the very formal strategies that women can use. Then they're the informal strategies and that's talking with your best friend talking with your mom talking with your friends, trying to get that emotional support from your social network, but the most common one is these personal strategies and the personal strategies are really talking with your partner. They're trying to fix the relationship from within the confines of the relationship you know trying to get him to go to counseling. Try to get him to go to church, try to get him to understand his ways.

Try to get him to get into aaa or sober counseling a harm reduction model to help with his addiction. Compliance with his demands, anticipating his demands, all these coping strategies that are sort of you know, embedded within that intimate relationship. Let's talk about the calling the police is that a common response? It's not a common response. Many women do not want to call the police on their partners.

You know using criminal justice interventions in crimes of women and children are the least likely to be called into law enforcement, and most of the time when the police are called it's because a particular incident has got out of hand and she feels unsafe and the only Way that she feels i can get this incident to end and stop is by calling law and if police are called, does the woman typically participate in the prosecution? I mean this has been a a problem and a difficulty for prosecutors across the country. Um she's been doing this work. I'm actually frequently called by the prosecutor to testify about a fact pattern, because the victim won't come in and testify um, so dropping restraining orders not participating in the prosecution is a very common dynamic in in situations of intimate partner, violence, domestic violence, um and and what We know - and we know from our law enforcement data and colleagues, is that when you get when, when you get that 9-1-1 call they're very specifically trained to say, that's likely not the first episode the chances are, there have been more severe episodes before you get. This call so you can't go on the scene and think that this is the first episode of violence and that's why a thorough assessment is supposed to be done when police officers arrive on the scene um.

So usually that episode that calls the police is just meant to stop that incident in that moment to get a sense of safety, but most women don't want to participate and go forward with restraining orders. Why do women in violent relationships stay in the relationship when the man's hurting them? I mean they stay for all the reasons we talked about in the cycle of violence they stay for for the loving man, they say for the man, who's kind. They say for the man they decided to marry and had hope and promises for their future um. So there's a lot of sort of love and attachment is why they're connected to their partner? Some people stay because they have economic reasons and they don't have tangible resources to leave.

Some people have children in common and they don't want to deprive their children of a father. So some people fear retaliation. If i leave i'm going to, i feel like they she's a victim, however, and then it's really hard to recover um, so there's usually a whole a multitude of factors of why a woman decides to stay in the relationship and again, as i said previously, it doesn't Mean she's unconcerned about the violence, just she hasn't figured out a way out. Yet what if any role does emotional attachment and love play in that? That's, you know, probably the biggest one is that you you have this.

We talked about that she's. Not that giving that up just feels like a threat to your integrity, you're, just sort of and a threat to his um, because you're just so intertwined and it is horribleness, but you get what i mean you know the world is home. You get one, you get. What i'm saying, hope and optimism are really what keeps uh victims alive in these situations guys.

This is what gets them going? One episode to the next to get up the next day and maybe he's not gon na drink today, maybe it's gon na be on his good side. Maybe he's gon na come home and not disappear for three days, continuing to hope that some type of change is coming down the pike. Now you mentioned lethality a little earlier. Can you please explain to us what that means? So lethality is um means death, means fatality, and we have um very well validated instruments and data that looks at what factors happen in a relationship where a woman ends up dead and we do that through looking retrospectively saying you know here's you know this person ended Up um dead, killed by her partner in a homicide and let's see what factors were there so that we can work at preventing it um.

It's very methodologically sound over different case control, designs over multiple cities, viewed by the fbi and law enforcement um. So these are a number of factors that men tell us. Somebody isn't it. Thank you.

So some of the factors are an increase of frequency and severity of the violence, threats to kill, choking behavior sexual assault, obsessive and possessive jealousy controlling behavior, the perpetrator's use and abuse of substances, alcohol and substances. The perpetrator, one point to be threatened. Men can suicide himself right. Those are some of the top factors um, and there are more that are, are very um, very dangerous.

When we hear that - and we hear a woman is in a situation where those are present, then we are moving out of a situational couple violence. What if any role does destroying property and destroying property destruction of property? Personal property is also one of the risk factors. Uh for danger and and fatality, and what, if any role does leaving threatening messages play? That's also a risk factor for for lethality? What are the psychological and traumatic effects that such interpersonal violence has on victims? Injection compound psychological and traumatic effects are kind of interchangeable. I'll sustain the objection: what are the psychological effects that such interpersonal violence has on victims? So these have also been well researched and they are wide and varied.

We see depression and depressive disorders, sometimes with suicidality. We see anxiety and anxiety disorders. A lot of stress we see post traumatic, stress disorder, we see substance, abuse and substance abuse disorders, we see trust difficulties and difficulties in interpersonal relationships. As a result, we see a lot of shame and humiliation.

We see anger and rage a whole sleep disruption, a whole host of um, difficult psychological consequences having sustained a relationship of intimate partner violence. What if any world is low, self-esteem play well low self-esteem is a very common after effect, and and that you know when you're embedded in the relationship. It also makes it just very difficult for you to climb your way out what is emotional, dysregulation emotional dysregulation. So it's a dys, dysregulation um is when you sort of don't feel that you have control of your emotions, you feel like you're fluctuating.

You know from one to the is one to the next. It's not the same as a bipolar disorder. It you know, can happen in short moments that you know it's really, because your central nervous system is so out of haywire from um being exposed to so many traumatic events that you may feel things deeply and with a short trigger in a very quick time. In your experience, is there a particular way, victims of intimate partner violence? Remember the violence they endured well.

Memory for uh traumatic events is something that has been well researched. Sometimes people have um what we call dissociative amnesia where, because of the physical or psychic pain like a portion of the memory, either gets blocked, so i've been having like whatever it is, whether it's stored or retrieval we're, not really sure um, but most of the times. The memory is really about when you have multiple repeated events of the same type of thing. So if you are abused multiple times and the abuse is very similar, it's very common for the victim to lose discrete details of a particular incident.

They may not retain the memory for the complete incident and that might not be to dissociative amnesia that just might mean to forgetting, because you have so many chronic events that have happened to you. Are there common myths or misperceptions about domestic violence? There are, i hope, i've dispelled some of them here already, but i mean the myths you know certainly are that women understand what's going to be the strategy here right, you understand correct, i'm letting the abuse happen that women don't fight back, that women um, don't yell Back that they uh some old ones that they, like the signing of the jury concerned, for when, whenever she cuts his finger off, it was too crazy.