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The Mind of the Abuser

© Sam Vaknin

To these we can add:

Wounding "honesty", ignoring, smothering, dotting, unrealistic expectations, invasion of privacy, tactlessness, sexual abuse, physical maltreatment, humiliating, shaming, insinuating, lying, exploiting, devaluing and discarding, being unpredictable, reacting disproportionately, dehumanizing, objectifying, abusing confidence and intimate information, engineering impossible situations, control by proxy and ambient abuse.

In his comprehensive essay, "Understanding the Batterer in Custody and Visitation Disputes", Lundy Bancroft observes:

"Because of the distorted perceptions that the abuser has of rights and responsibilities in relationships, he considers himself to be the victim. Acts of self-defense on the part of the battered woman or the children, or efforts they make to stand up for their rights, he defines as aggression against him. He is often highly skilled at twisting his descriptions of events to create the convincing impression that he has been victimized. He thus accumulates grievances over the course of the relationship to the same extent that the victim does, which can lead professionals to decide that the members of the couple "abuse each other" and that the relationship has been "mutually hurtful."

Yet, whatever the form of ill-treatment and cruelty - the structure of the interaction and the roles played by abuser and victim are the same. Identifying these patterns - and how they are influenced by prevailing social and cultural mores, values, and beliefs - is a first and indispensable step towards recognizing abuse, coping with it, and ameliorating its inevitable and excruciatingly agonizing aftermath.

This is the subject of the next article.

For a critical reading of R. Lundy Bancroft's Essay - UNDERSTANDING THE BATTERER IN CUSTODY AND VISITATION DISPUTES (1998) - click here:

http://www.suite101.com/discussion.cfm/s...

More about this topic here:

http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com

http://www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/npd

http://www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/verb...

http://www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/spou...

http://www.healthyplace.com/communities/...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/narcissist...