text:
Rethinking the Gender Paradigm in Domestic Violence Treatment - with John Hamel, PhD.
John Hamel, PhD, LCSW - Guest
has authored several books on domestic violence, including Gender Inclusive Treatment of Intimate Partner Abuse, Family Interventions in Domestic Violence, Intimate Partner and Family Abuse: A Casebook of Gender-Inclusive Therapy, and is currently editing the upcoming book, Beyond the Gender Paradigm: A Legal Primer on Evidence-Based Criminal Justice Approaches to Intimate Partner Violence. John provides therapy, oversees an anger management program, is an expert witness, teacher, and author. He has published numerous books, chapters, and peer reviewed research on the topic of domestic violence.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (00:21)
Welcome to Therapy on the Cutting Edge, podcast for therapists who want to be up to date on the latest advancements in the field of psychotherapy. I'm your host, Dr. Keith Sutton, a psychologist in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Director of the Institute for the Advancement of Psychotherapy. Today I'll be interviewing John Hamel PhD LCSW, who has authored several books on domestic violence, including gender, treatment of intimate partner abuse, family interventions in domestic violence, inner partner, and family abuse, a case book of gender inclusive therapy, and he is currently editing the upcoming book Beyond the Gender Paradigm: Illegal Primer on Evidence-Based Criminal Justice Approaches to Intimate Partner Violence. John provides therapy overseas, an anger management program, is an expert witness, a teacher, and an author. He has published numerous books, chapters, and peer reviewed research on the topic of domestic violence. Let's listen to the interview.
So thanks for coming and joining us today and we wanted to find out a little bit more about your work. I know we were talking the other day on the phone and it sounds like you are doing a lot of work, and a lot of expertise in the domestic violence field, and this is an area that also often brings up a lot of questions from a lot of therapists. Particularly even this week, I was talking with a client of mine and working with a family. There was some potential domestic violence in the couple, and then there's the question of, can we then work with them? Do we need to refer out? And particularly as an emotionally focused couples therapy supervisor and EFT, one of the things that they say is that it is contract indicated if there's domestic violence. But I think as we were talking that oftentimes, assessing for what's what, what allows one to do couples work or individual work or group work is very nuanced, and you had some really interesting perspectives on it. So I'd love to hear about your work and what you've been doing and your thoughts on all of this.
Dr. John Hamel: (02:22)
All right. Well, I'll start by saying that, the key consideration in trying to understand domestic violence is to understand that it's highly politicized. It's a highly politicized field. So in order to talk intelligently best practices, best policies, it's really important that we all, remain free of ideological allegiances, and that we look at the facts and we look at what the science tells us: what works and what doesn't work. In the 1970s and 80s in the United States, a number of states began to enact laws that made it a criminal offense for one partner to abuse their partner in a marriage. And at the time, even today, the primary consideration was protecting women from husbands who were quite violent and who weren't held accountable. It's not that no one was ever arrested for domestic violence, but it took a lot for someone to actually get arrested and convicted back in the seventies. Police sometimes were well-intended, but what they would try to do is mediate and tell the couples to work it out. Inevitably there would be cases where someone would be seriously injured. So, what happened was that there arose in the United States, a movement, the Batter Women's Movement that sought to protect women from being abused by their husbands and to hold them accountable. And that of course was wonderful. What happened, however, is the Battered Women's Shelter Movement, which was a grassroots movement of women who had been abused, along with their family members and friends really didn't have the political power and the resources to make the kind of changes that were necessary to call attention to the problem. So they came up with second wave feminists who were politely organized back in the seventies and eighties. Second wave feminists were fighting for the era and they were fighting for the political and social rights of women.
What happened was that domestic violence became subsumed as one of the causes under that broader feminist umbrella. Now that sounds fine, except that domestic violence became a political issue rather than, a therapeutic or an empirical problem to be resolved like any other mental health issue or substance abuse. And what's happened since then is we've had a series of laws and policies that for the most part, have done a lot of good but have had a downside. The downside is that because it's been so politicized and because domestic violence is associated with women's rights, what happens when you suggest that, sometimes women are not the victims sometimes they're the abusers. Men can be abused as well, and there's a huge impact on men's mental well-being and physical well-being of being battered.
When you say things like that, you run that danger of coming off as though you're an anti-feminist or you're minimizing the problem. And, I'm pretty staunch feminist and have been since the 1960s. So most of my colleagues in the field who do research on domestic violence are women, and I'm pretty certain, they're all feminists. But they're also researchers, they're scholars. And we believe that it's perfectly compatible to champion the rights of women and at the same time, push for evidence-based practices that are free of ideology right? So that's the main thing I wanted to say. If you understand that, then I think a lot of the research you might come across, makes more sense. I started, as a clinical social worker in the early nineties in the San Francisco Bay Area, doing just regular therapy with a number of different types of clients and within six months of my practice, I had an opportunity to basically buy or purchase a colleague's therapy practice, which consisted of domestic violence treatment programs for offenders. And I just inherited several groups. These were men who have been arrested on a domestic violence charge and I was trained by my colleague who sold me his practice in what is known as the Duluth Model of Treatment. The Duluth model references, a program in the city of Duluth, Minnesota, where one of the first shelters was established for women and was one of the first programs for the men who battered these women that was established. A treatment program to help these offenders, become non-violent. And the central core of the Duluth model is that domestic violence is not a psychological issue.
It's a control issue. And furthermore, it's a societal issue. And that domestic violence is essentially the way that men maintain patriarchal dominance over women. So in other words, in the Duluth model, a man who hits his wife is not a man who has problems with anger or stress or a personality or grew to develop mental issues. Ordinary men use violence against women, because they believe it's the right of the man to control the women. This is second wave feminism or one faster, then second wave feminism. Well, it turns out that that's completely incorrect. Certainly a lot of men who are misogynistic or have strong views about the place of women in society, far less so in the United States and some other countries. But even in the United States, there are men like that.
I've had hundreds of those guys at my groups. However, my clinical experience and what the research shows is that, there are many causes to domestic violence perpetration and having, traditional views about marriage and the place of women in society is not considered to be a major risk factor. The major risk factors, what correlates most with domestic violence perpetration would be having an aggressive personality, which could be partly inherited genetically and partly learned. It's growing up in a family where there is violence and abuse. It's having problems with emotional regulation, the inability to manage strong impulses, substance abuse ; low income people who are poor, or are less educated, are more likely than others, and there's some parallels in a criminal logical research literature, that lower-income people tend to commit the most crimes. Lastly, being in a high conflict relationship, just being in a relationship with someone who is abusive themselves, predicts domestic violence.
So those are the main risk factors. Patriarchy really isn't a major risk factor. This has been demonstrated over and over again, in China and most of South Africa, in Eastern Europe, in many countries in South America and Central America, where we all know patriarchy is a lot stronger than in the United States in those countries, the domestic violence rates are pretty equal across men and women. So, the idea that domestic violence is a gendered crime is just not supported by the facts. When I was trained in the Duluth model, I found out within a few months afterwards, working with my clients for a while, getting to know them that the model wasn't sustainable. I wasn't going to be able to use that model in my practice very well. It would work for some of the guys, but a lot of them had no problems with their women working or their women having the same rights as them.
They just didn't know how to handle their anger impulses. They didn't know how to deal with stress. Furthermore, many of these guys had wives who were aggressive themselves, who were abusive themselves and that led me to do a lot of investigating and research on my own. Over a period of the last 30 years, I eventually got my PhD along the way. I have been working as the Editor-in-Chief of a scholarly journal on domestic violence. And yes, I can take you to this day to provide groups for men and women who abuse their partners. I no longer do individual work, I'm sort of semi-retired, but I do a lot of work for the court system as an expert witness. I testify on behalf of both, that are women and the men who were unfairly accused of abusing them.
Okay. Wow. Sounds like you're doing a lot of work. Now, one of the things you said earlier was that, some men also are abused and, physically or verbally, and that bringing that up, or that new point, might be non-feminist or so on. And it is that because in the feminist viewpoint, there's the focus on the power differential? And also as I'm hearing that, I'm thinking about, I know my training in, domestic violence that, from what I remember, I'm not an expert in this field, but that the percentage of women abusing men was very small. And I don't know if that's, because of the definition. So yeah, I would love to hear your thoughts.
You were misinformed.
My colleague, Donald Dutton at University of British Columbia, he's now retired, but he's very well known in the field. He actually worked as a consultant in the OJ Simpson case, working for the prosecution. He coined the term, the gender paradigm, the gender paradigm is a set of assumptions that permeate our society and that permeate domestic files treatment policies. And you just voiced some of that, the idea that most domestic violence is perfect created by men. So just to review what the research actually says, and it's not really open for debate. It's just the fact. When I talk about the research, I'm saying 30 years of numerous large scale national surveys and hundreds of smaller surveys, including university students, clinical populations, and so forth find that the rates of physical aggression between men and women are the same.
In fact, if you look, it's slightly higher for female perpetrators aggression, so there's physical violence, physical violence could be anything from grabbing your partner, throwing things at them all the way to shooting them or stabbing them or beating them up right? So women do all those things as well, as often as men in general. Women push, grab, punch, just as often as men do. The main difference is that because women are typically smaller, not as strong as men, and because men are better able to protect themselves, men cause a larger share of serious injuries. Three quarters of the partner homicides, involve female victims. I think the rates of women victims going to emergency rooms because of their injuries is about two to one or three to one over men. So, clearly men caused more serious physical damage. And also women report higher rates of psychological trauma compared to male victims.
It's not to say that men don't suffer psychological trauma. They do. And there are women who stab and shoot their partners and beat them up and do all those things. But on the whole, men, generally don't incur the same extreme levels of injuries psychologically or physically. The other psychological abuse and controlling behaviors again, are equally perpetrated by men and women. One of the big lies is that women aren't as controlling. Anyone who has ever been married, anyone who is just above the age of 18 and has been in a relationship, knows how absurd that statement is. And in fact, numerous surveys, including some that I've conducted on my own show, that women are just as capable and willing as men to be controlling of their partners. Now, there are some differences in the tactics used. Men are more able to intimidate. Women are better at withdrawing sex and affection and certain other things, but in general, men and women psychologically abuse each other and physically abuse each other at comparable rates.
Aside from the impact that these behaviors have on the victims. The other main area where there's a lack of symmetry, where there is a major difference is with sexual abuse. Where a man clearly sexually abused women, much larger extent than the other way around. Right? But in almost every other aspect of domestic violence, whether it's the impact on children, whether it's the motive, the reasons for why people are violent, the risk factors, the rates, aside from those caveats that I just mentioned, domestic violence is not a gender problem. It's a human problem. And there are explanations for that when people say to me, when I pointed this out is, well, how can that be? Men perpetrate the vast majority of violent crimes. And if this is true, men are more aggressive than women in general.
Men do perpetrate the vast majority of homicides and violent crimes in general, but in the home women have more of a vested interest in advancing, their interests. There are evolutionary and there are social reasons why women are as violent as men in the home. I read articles on that, that go into a lot of details, but, because a lot of people want an explanation they just don't understand. How can that possibly be? Men, engaging in trafficking of women. They rape them in war, they kill each other in war. But in reality, women are just as angry as men. Studies show that when asked about the amount of time during the day that they feel hostile or feel angry about something, nailing female subjects report equal rates of anger. It's just that women have not had permission to express the same level of aggression outwardly in society over the centuries as men, but behind closed doors, women are free to express themselves and they do.
So now this brings us to the issue of treatment and what does all that information mean in terms of your treatment models? If you're a psychotherapist and you're working with a couple and they come in, and you ask them about their conflicts, and it turns out that, there's been some domestic violence and, by domestic violence, I mean, grabbing, pushing anything well, then you should take it seriously. Right? You should look into that because if there's any domestic violence there is a possibility that things could get out of hand and someone could get seriously hurt.
So, what do you do in a situation like that? Well, you were probably trained, you're a psychologist, but whether you're a social worker or a licensed professional counselor or a psychologist, you probably were trained by people who were up to their necks in the gender paradigm.
You probably learned that you just don't do couples counseling when there's any kind of domestic violence because of this differential power situation. Right? Well, again, that was an extreme reaction to actually a serious problem, which was that up until the seventies and eighties, when we learned about domestic violence and the fact that some domestic violence was perpetrated specifically by men to dominate their partners. Because some of these men who went into counseling would punish their wives for disclosing any violence during the sessions. Because in those situations, there was a power differential, it became sort of a standard for therapists to say, you just can't do any kind of couples counseling. It was gross reaction for a number of reasons. Number one, that kind of domestic violence where one person really dominates the other with serious violence and threats of violence is just a small piece of the pie. Most domestic violence occurs very infrequently. It's reactive. We would call it expressive violence where someone is angry, they're stressed out, their partner yells at him and he shoves them. And they feel really sorry afterwards. That kind of domestic violence is not the kind you've seen in the movies. It's not the kind that you should be concerned about where the police need to be called in. It's just high conflict couples who occasionally allow themselves to get physical with one another. That's not a good thing. And it needs to be addressed, but that's more amenable to therapy than it is to legal interventions. And what's been happening is that we've confounded serious domestic violence where a legal response is required. Shelters are required to protect victims, usually women from normal couples, conflict that get out of hand and sometimes it leads to physical aggression.
So if it's the emotional reactive type of domestic violence, usually couples counseling is a great vehicle for that. In fact, it's probably the best modality of treatment because you get a chance to work with both people. Most domestic violence is bilateral. Both partners are engaging in it. And if that's the case and you lump both parties to be in the therapy session with you, right. That's not to say that group isn't also useful for lower level violence as well. But what I say is that, for most domestic violence, the therapist should have the option of the best treatment based on the needs of the client.
I'm wondering, as you're talking about the reactive and the expressive kind of anger and the later remorse, back in grad school, I was doing research, I did my dissertation on bullying. I was looking at aggression and particularly, I know on some of the Gottman research, they looked at the more reactive, aggressive, versus the proactive kind of instrumental aggression, or they called it. I think it was the cobras versus the pit bulls, where the pit bulls were more reactive and the cobras heart rate decreased. And then would be more proactive in their use of aggression.
So let me clarify that. I think we're confirming a couple of things here. First of all, Gottman, when he was talking about pit bulls and cobras, he was talking about the more serious offenders. He was only talking about men. He wasn't even mentioning women at all. He was talking about men who engage in serious violence, serious injury, producing violence. That he called batterers. Another term is controlling coercive violence, and he was saying that there were two major types of serious offenders and his typology consisted of cobras and pit bulls. Others have formulated similar typologies. Holzworth Monroe came up with a typology where she separated the serious offenders into two camps. One would be the equivalent of the pit bulls, which she called borderline dysphoric, or dysphoric borderline. Borderline personality individuals are very needy and when they feel abandoned, they lash out, and the more extreme man will stalk their partners and pose a real danger to them.
Whereas what she'd call the antisocial type or the generally violent type, similar to Gottman's cobras. These are individuals who don't really have a lot of sympathy for the victims. Not necessarily psychopaths, but they tend to be very controlling and their violence is more instrumental. What I was talking about earlier was the difference between more common domestic violence and more severe violence. I was talking about the difference between conflict that escalates to get to the point where there's physical aggression, where the intent is not to dominate the partner. The intent is to protect oneself from hurt, to get a point across. Maybe it's retaliatory, maybe it's jealousy, but that's known as common couple violence or situational violence. Situational violence is just that, it arises in the situation.
Now, if the violence occurs frequently, and it's accompanied by a lot of overt attempts to control and dominate the partner, threatening the partner, keeping them from leaving the house, hyper jealous behaviors, those kinds of things. Now you're getting into what we call battery. Now you're getting into more serious domestic violence. There's no perfect line. It's a gray area between situational violence and the kind of violence that Gottman was talking about. Gottman did a lot of things right. But he was also politically motivated. His book When Men Batter Women mentioned nothing about female on male violence, but if you read his research papers, as I have on domestic violence, you'll find that in the footnotes and in the tables and the appendices in his research papers, he acknowledged that when the men - well, let me put it this way. He acknowledges that about 40-50% of the cases where he's reporting on these couples, the women were also violent, so he acknowledges this, but he never really talks about it. I could be wrong. I love Gottman. I love his marital techniques. He's fantastic. He's done a lot of great work in the field, but I think he was really motivated by political considerations. Up until about 15 years ago, there were no books, and I mean, no books on domestic violence that were written in a gender inclusive way. Not since the early 1980s and in the early 1980s, a guy named Peter Knighted, a psychologist wrote a book on couples therapy for Navy men and their wives. Between 1985 and 2005, when my book came out over a period of 20 years, there were zero books, pre-planned books, on domestic violence that acknowledged that women could be offenders. So there's only one explanation for that, you know, and that's political consideration.
So Gottman, as great as he was, devising some wonderful marital and science-based marital intervention techniques, unfortunately played the little of the game. Also I must say that the idea that calling clients cobras and pit bulls is rather offensive. I think earlier, Keith, you were asking about what kind of work I'm doing these days. I'm doing a lot of different things. I'm editing a new book on the criminal justice response, to domestic violence. My other work is on treatment. What are the best approaches of working with domestic violence offenders and probably the most important lines of research have to do with client centered, motivational interviewing approaches. Where in order to get clients, especially court mandated clients to change their entire worldview about relationships and about violence, you really have to get their buy-in. You have to get them to trust you, and you're not going to do that when you call them cobras or pit bulls or batterers. So I really object to the term. It's like calling a substance abuser, a slime or a lizard. We have substance abusers who do heroin well they're lizards and the ones who drank well maybe they're I don't know, pick your term. ...
So I've done a lot of different research projects and what I've been focused on more recently is weaving together lines of research based on interviews with men and batterer intervention groups, getting their input. Ethnographic study of men and better intervention, getting their input on what works for them. Along with lines of research on motivational interviewing and other client centered approaches. That's been a big emphasis of my trainings recently. 10 years ago, 15 years ago, I was doing more of research on family interventions that we're talking about now. Couples counseling, I've kind of veered away from that a little bit only because in reality, I get very few couples referred to me for domestic violence. If you have a couple that are engaged in situational violence, then it's best to work with them as a couple, if they're willing to do that.
For yourself, how are you assessing whether or not you're going to do couples or individual or group, what are the lines? And I know, I think for some therapists I imagine, and even myself, when I've worked with clients, it's trying to understand where that line is, how risky things are. And I think oftentimes the concern that this has happened and like you're saying that the men ended up inflicting more damage. And so there's also the concern that once that line has been crossed, then in an instance of kind of explosiveness something happens and somebody usually in a heterosexual couple, the woman gets hurt. So trying to evaluate that with whether working with the couple, and again, many people ask me when I do EFT trainings and so on. I don't do much work with domestic violence, but they asked, what is the treatment? And it says well, emotionally focused couples therapy, and by the way, this might be updated now. I'm not totally up on the latest with EFT, but that it's contraindicated. And so then they say, well, what else do you do then? And then I'm not so sure at that point. Love to hear your thoughts on that.
It's like saying that with alcoholics, CBT is contraindicated, and you should go to AA. No! AA works with some people and doesn't work for other people. It's just lazy thinking. There's no substitute for a good assessment. There are some sort of guiding principles. Let me just say this. If you have a couple, and if she's afraid of him, you can see that in the session, but she's afraid of him and she's reporting serious violence. You shouldn't work with them as a couple. Work with her separately, try to get her to establish some boundaries, provide her a safe Haven, safe resources. Try to induce him to come in separately and work with them separately. And if you can do that, then maybe at some point down the road, they can come in as a couple.
If the violence is low level, but he has a history of serious violence with other women, then again, there's a history of serious violence. If you're going to do emotionally focused couples therapy in particular, where you're really focusing on emotions, which could lead to volatile reactions in the therapy session. No, you wouldn't have somebody in the session who can't control their impulses, doing emotionally focused therapy. If you were focusing simply on ground rules for engagement, if you were focusing on safety, basic communication skills, time-outs basic anger management techniques, then maybe you could do that. So that's what would guide me. The history of violence, the propensity for violence in the background of either partner. And then, when was the last violent incident, if he had shoved around, five years before and now he's yelling again.
Does that mean that he's going to be hitting her? Well, you don't know that. I would say, give her the option, tell her, well, what do you think? The victim is generally best as to whether their safety is threatened or not. So I would love to guide you. But I think that there's another consideration. I have colleagues who actually believe as I do that couples counseling is probably indicated almost all cases. Just think about it. Logically, if you decide that you're not going to see this couple, because he or she is too violent and they're not making enough progress, then what are your options? What if the victim doesn't want to continue seeing you? Then what? Then who's going to work with that couple?
Nothing kind of thing.
If it looks like there's serious, domestic violence, you don't see the couple together initially. You would see the person that appears to be the primary victim. You would see them separately first. We would do an assessment and they tell you, I'm really afraid of him. He's just beat me up last week. You're not going to do couples counseling, but if it looks like, okay he was violent in the past, he's doing better. He seems to really mean business. He wants to come in with me. The victim is okay with that. Then you see the couple, you continue your assessment along the way. But let's say you get to a point where he's still grabbing and shoving her occasionally and feels bad about it. Do you just discontinue couples counseling at that point? See that's where I have an issue with the doctrine errors. The people who say it's contra-indicated my next response is okay, then what? What if she says I'm not going to come in here without him.
And maybe she's saying that because she's afraid or he's kind of dictating that. So what I'm saying is if I have a couple where it's clear that the man is the more dominant partner, the only way he's going to get any kind of help is to come in with his wife. Maybe, the reason for that is because he wants to show that she's partly to blame. Most feminists would say you don't do couples counseling there because you would be allowing him to dominate her. And what I would say is, well, don't underestimate my abilities as a therapist to figure out what to do here, because if he's willing to come in under those circumstances, he'll come in with her that's better than him not coming in at all. I'm not going to do emotionally focused therapy or in depth psychotherapy with this couple, I might, the first 12 weeks just focus specifically on anger management and establishing ground rules.
Furthermore, I'm not going to necessarily make it about him, even though it may be about him. It may be that he's the dominant aggressor I'm going to act as though they both have a stake in this. What I'm saying is that it's better to avoid early confrontations. What's best? Telling the client that they're a jerk and they're responsible so that you feel better? Or is it better to work with the couple and make them a four functional unit? Because what I'm banking on is that, a lot of these guys and women who are abusive, they may objectively be the dominant aggressors. They may objectively have more of a problem with their anger than their partner, but very often the partners are engaging in all kinds of abusive or unhealthy behaviors. So why do I need to split hairs and point out that while they're the real abuser, when there's enough going on in a relationship that would warrant a more objective view of it.
So what I'm saying is that I'm not diluting with anyone. If I'm agreeing with them, that their partner sometimes does things that really piss them off. If Mrs. Andrews tells her partner that he's lazy and useless because he hasn't found a job and he slaps her around, he's engaging in a criminal act and abusive behavior that cannot be in any way justified. But in order for me to help that couple work out their issues, I cannot ignore the fact that she verbally abuses him or treats him like he's a lowlife. My line of questioning and my interventions will be based on a number of factors, including not just who's the more dominant aggressor. I always know that I keep that in the back of my mind, but it's also their level of acceptance of their problems, their motivation, the safety factors. And if it looks to me like it might be worth exploring her undesirable behaviors for a few minutes to get him to think like I'm being fair, then that's a small price to pay for him perhaps listening to the next 30 minutes as she explains how much he's hurt her. Right. So what I'm saying is that if you know what you're doing, if you're a good couples therapist and you know something about systems and you know something about domestic violence, and you're careful, then you could work with couples even when the violence is pretty pervasive. I would agree with the victims advocates, however, couples that don't have a lot of experience working with the high conflict couples therapists, who don't really know much about domestic violence dynamics, especially a battering dynamics, then they probably shouldn't be doing couples therapy. So that's the caveat. It really needs to be done by someone who knows what they're doing.
Yeah, I agree. I think that that is really important. That therapists that are able to hold and contain a high conflict couple because some therapists hands, and they are not as kind of involved in holding. Sometimes if you just let them go at it, things will escalate. I think the way that I conceptualized it is that if there is, that incidence of aggression or violence or so on, most of the times in the couple of times I've worked with it it's been reactive and part of conceptualized with the emotionally focused couples therapy, cause actually the EFT does great and looking at the primary more vulnerable emotions that are leading to these more secondary emotions like anger or so on. I think the concept has been around not necessarily getting the victim vulnerable and being more, I think like you're talking about safety and so on.
And ideally I'm building enough rapport and relationship to be able to help talk to the, if it's a heterosexual, couple, the male and sending a woman out and talking about like that, it's not justified. It validates that it makes sense of why they'd be so angry, but then it crosses that line and there's really no justification for physical violence, physical threats, those kinds of things pushing or so on, even the emotional abuse and then beginning to help them contain some of that and work on all the other stuff. Because I feel like sometimes that there is that potential for crossing that line into violence then it it's harder to do any of the other work. A lot of times the clients are responsive to that and kind of getting that. I'm not working in the more severe domestic violence situations, but that's kind of the way I conceptualize it. I don't know if that's correct way or so on, but that's my reaction.
Well, let me just say something else here. There's not such a clear cut difference between physical and psychological abuse. Victims of domestic violence, male and female victims of serious domestic violence will tell you most of them that the psychological abuse is worse than the physical abuse. Not always, but I would be careful about explaining to a couple that you're working with, or giving the impression that you can never push or grab the other person ever and even if they do, I'll kick you out of therapy and you'll go to jail. But if you're allowed to yell at your partner or to treat them like crap because they know that a reactive grabbing or shoving is very easy to forgive, but calling your wife, a c**t in front of your friends or her telling you that she's going to divorce you because you have a small penis. Okay. Think about that. Well, it's far more devastating than someone touching your shoulder, right? So let's be clear that when we're talking about crossing that line, it's not necessarily crossing the line into physical aggression. Although I agree psychological abuse is harder to define whereas physical aggression is much more clear cut. So that's helpful to setting limits, but I just want to remind you Keith, that couples can wreck huge devastation on each other psychologically.
Yeah, definitely. That's a huge piece. I think that in my mind I can work with that, the emotional abuse in a way that yes I'm concerned that something's going to get so violent that they're going to physically put the other person in the hospital or something that. I have to focus on safety. But, I was wondering about, and actually we've been talking a lot about heterosexual couples and I was wondering do you have any knowledge about gay, transgender, lesbian couples, bisexual couples and what that looks like with the domestic violence? Whether it be physical aggression or emotional and how that plays out?
Well, if you understand that domestic violence is a human problem, it's not a gender problem than research on LGBTQ populations will make sense. So the rates of domestic violence are very similar across all human beings. Yes, there's higher rates of domestic violence amongst African-American and Latino populations. That's a function of their lower income status overall. It's not a function of their skin color. Rates of domestic violence are actually highest, amongst lesbians than they are amongst heterosexuals or gay men. No one really knows exactly why, but the rates overall are very similar between heterosexual and gay and lesbian domestic violence situations. Gay and lesbian victims, report experiences, same types of power control behaviors, jealousy, threats, economic abuse, and so forth as their heterosexual counterparts. I don't see a lot of difference.
There just isn't a lot of difference. The only difference would be in the specific types of controlling behaviors that are available to certain groups. For example, women who want to control their partners are going to be much more effective in threatening to take the kids, withdrawing affection, as compared to say threatening, physical harm. Because women, generally, there's exceptions, are not able to control men in that same way. Gay men will threaten out their partners.They'll have unprotected sex. If you think about different groups, there may be certain things that controlling people in those groups can do, as a function of being in that group. But in general, there aren't a lot of differences. The vast majority of gay or lesbian intimate partner violence is low level, just like with straight people, it's situational.
Yes, there's been investigations into the psychodynamics of lesbian battering and theories around that may explain some of this phenomena of lesbians. Women are more relational, women are more emotive than men, the lesbian community is kind of a small community. Traditionally has experienced homophobia. That might account for the more intense relationships amongst lesbians. Those are some of the theories that we have. So, it's not like there aren't any differences at all, there may be some dynamics that are somewhat different among heterosexual populations. But, in terms of the frequency of the violence and the general motive, the risk factors they're very comparable.
Sure. Now I want to go back to something that you said earlier too, you were talking about that Duluth model and that idea of the patriarchy and the men having collared with the women, and that was not actually one of the central pieces. I was just thinking, almost devil's advocate, that they may not be saying that they're doing this, but is there some unconscious gender norms, some privilege. Particularly, I also think about, socio-politically with white males, feeling marginalized or demonized. Right now we're doing this interview in January 2021 and a lot of the stuff with the Trump presidency and so on.... I think it'd be interesting if you have any thoughts on that. It sounds like explicitly they're not saying I'm doing this to dominate because of my gender or so on, but has that been looked at whether it's unconscious or implicit or something they're not even aware of because of their privilege.
Well, this has been explored in different ways. Let me just say this. When large scale surveys have been conducted, where women have been asked about the violence that they perpetrated and receive, when they'd been asked about their violence, and there's about 15 studies I'm aware of, where they were asked when you were violent with your partner, what percentage of the time did you initiate the violence as opposed to respond to your partner? Women are just as likely as men to say I initiated it. So we know that women initiate violence by their own accounts, it has nothing to do with what men believe subconsciously or unconsciously, and what men have been indoctrinated with in terms of white privilege or male privilege or anything like that. Women, when they're asked about violence in their relationships, say that they initiate at least half the time. Women, who were asked about their motives for their violence in their relationship, rarely say it's in self-defense.
When I say studies, I mean hundreds of studies. Maybe four or five dozen studies show almost all of them, when women are asked about their motives for being violent towards their partners it's very rarely self-defense. It's usually either jealousy, retaliation to control the partner. Very often, it's reactive. It's to punish them, a tit for tat. So women tell us that their violence is done for purposes other than self-defense and they initiate it. So that pretty much negates theories that women must be just defending themselves and so forth. Studies that have been done that tried to correlate gendered attitudes about relationships with domestic violence, find that there is no correlation. So men who believe in the kind of traditional arrangement, the woman works in the home, I work outside the home, she raises the children. Those men are not statistically any more violent than men who have egalitarian relationships. The woke-est guys in Berkeley, California, right? They're not any more or less violent than those guys. The key is the personality. What my colleague, Don Dutton pointed out is that men who are violent towards their partners have aggressive personalities, just like the women who are violent towards their partners. Sometimes they use male privilege as an excuse for their behavior. In other words, I'm the man of the household.
You see the difference there? The difference is highlighted when you look at another comparison group. Men, and women who are religious, who have religious merit arrangements, they read the Bible. There are millions of these people. 70 million of these people voted for Trump. They're not any more violent than anybody else. So if patriarchy and male privilege was the cause of domestic violence, you'd find a lot more domestic violence amongst these Christians and you don't. They're not any more violent than your woke couple in Berkeley.
If you know that aggressive personality, poor impulse control and growing up with violent role models are some of the major risk factors you'll know, those will always supersede anything else. That's not to say that our society doesn't have some misogynistic and sexist components to it.
I know we don't need to get into a debate about the extent of white privilege. I mean, all that pretty much exists. But what I'm saying in terms of domestic violence is the risk factors for domestic violence are so powerful, and the research is so clear that it's not that the societal factors have no impact. They do, but in a more oblique way. They certainly don't explain all of domestic violence and they don't justify something like the Duluth model. Do you understand that if you read the Duluth model literature, they explicitly say it has nothing to do with anger, it has nothing to do with stress. It has nothing to do with substance abuse. In other words, don't even bother looking at those factors because the only thing that matters is the man's desire to control his partner.
So we're not talking about societal influences that some men buy into. By the way, Keith, there is such a thing as female privilege, which few people want to talk about.
What privilege?
It's female privilege. We usually don't think of women having a lot of privilege. Well, they do. They're generally awarded custody of the children. Courts favor women in that respect. There's research showing that women are arrested much less frequently than men for all crimes, including domestic violence, because they're considered to be more helpless than men. So some of these traditional, sexist attitudes, both hostile, and benevolent types of sexism against women, ironically have served to perpetuate myths about domestic violence. Some of the more extreme elements amongst feminists in the field of domestic violence are heavily aligned with law enforcement, which is a traditional heavily patriarchal institution.
They both benefit by maintaining a stereotype of women as helpless children. They have to be protected. It's a narrative that goes really well with cops traditionally, not all cops but cops who are there to protect the women, the little woman from the guy, and some of the feminists who believe, ironically, that women lack a sufficient degree of agency and will, to assault their partners, even though the narrative also states that women should be included amongst the decision makers in society and so forth. Usually I will argue when it comes to this particular debate that, if we're going to consider women to be strong enough and agentic enough to make tough decisions to become corporate CEOs if we think women can be police officers and firefighters and pull people out of burning buildings, why would we think that they're completely helpless in relationships?
Unfortunately the sexist gender role attitudes have played out in such a way that they don't benefit women or men. They don't benefit women in general, in society for obvious reasons. But they also don't play themselves out well in the field of domestic violence, for reasons a little bit less obvious. But women who aren't getting the treatment that they need for their violence are not really helped. They're likely to continue that violence. They're likely to become distanced from their children. They're likely to be unhappy. They might run a foul of the legal system. Unfortunately the second wave feminist doctrine of the gender paradigm is still with us. When I talk with women, privately separately, when I talk to second wave feminists separately, and we talk about domestic violence, they usually are open to hearing what I have to say, but the research just isn't getting out there.
Dr. John Hamel: (01:00:55)
I mean, it sounds like you're a pretty, successful psychotherapist in a really well established practice, and yet you seem to be holding some of those assumptions yourself. I can tell you, because the American Psychological Association, just like the National Association of Social Workers are dominated by that kind of thinking. I'm a very liberal person, very progressive. It's been kind of a challenge for me to get my liberal friends on board with this idea that women are capable of inflicting a great deal of damage, and knowing that doesn't mean that women are disadvantaged throughout society, it's kind of a dual message there.
Dr. Keith Sutton: (01:01:54)
Well, I think too that sometimes, and I don't know for others, but as I'm thinking about this, I think sometimes the concern probably is that that will dismiss or justify the violence that happens to women. I think that it all gets dichotomized in that way, but both can be true at the same time. It doesn't mean that, if there is some aggression from women then therefore violence that's done to them in the sexual violence, physical violence is not valid and not a concern. One of the things that I'm thinking about as we're talking about all of this, is the piece around trauma. I mean, I imagine that trauma is a huge factor, as I'm hearing about, you mention violence in the home, the substance abuse. I know what they've done from the ACEs research on childhood experiences of trauma that substance abuse and addiction is highly correlated. My last two questions are one, any thoughts on that? The research on trauma? The other last question is that, again a lot of the couples that I hear from when they do act "badly", whether physical or belittling, or these low blows. Oftentimes it's this feeling that I have to do this to get them to hear me. They won't hear me unless I basically just hit him below the belt. I heard that on both sides of the genders and same sex couples that I've worked with.
Yeah, that's right Keith. I'm thinking of this survey that was conducted in England in the nineties with a representative sample of 3000 respondents. They were asked if there'd been violence in the relationship. And if so, what was their reason for being violent? And the vast majority said it was to get through to the other person. So in addition to jealousy control, retaliation trying to get through. The guy is watching TV, his wife says pay attention to me, he keeps watching TV, she throws the remote control at him. That's an act of expressive violence because she didn't think ahead of time that she's going to dominate him. She just reacted, and what was her motive? If you asked what her motive was, she'll say, well, I was trying to get his attention.
In fact, if you really break down that motive, she was trying to control him, wasn't she? Because he wouldn't stop doing what she asked him to stop doing, and when he refused, she just decided to do something that she thought would get his attention. So, you can analyze that interaction as one where she was controlling. You could also analyze their reaction as one where she's feeling needy and ignored by this guy and it was her desperate attempt to try to get a connection, right.
And having that connection, is the true motive. Well, we can have all kinds of academic debates on that one, but the reality is that clinically it's more useful to go with the well-intended motive. In other words, stay with that, because then it taps into her needs her fears, her abandonment issues or whatever they are. I totally agree with you, Keith, that when we get clients to talk about the real feelings, the male clients in particular are more reluctant at least initially to talk about their feelings. And when we sometimes do address their core issues, these groups are not meant to be heavy duty therapy groups, but we do talk a little bit about their trauma.
We talk about their experiences, and the guys, when they're able to talk about those things are able to see that they're acting out behavior is just an attempt to communicate. It's an attempt to protect themselves. If you grew up with an abusive parent and your partner is yelling in your face, it's easy to interpret that as it's just more of the same, I have to protect myself. I couldn't do it as a child, but I can do it now. I can yell. I'm bigger. I can grab her. I can keep her from doing that. That's why couples counseling is so important in these cases because, in group, we can teach these guys about these things, but they go home and they try to take a timeout and their partners feel abandoned when they take a time out.
But with a couple, you can explain that the timeout is not an attempt to abandon you, it's an attempt to gain control of the situation. Trauma can be done individually, but sometimes in the relationship, it's important to bring up those trauma issues so that the client has a better standing where their partner is coming from. I've done a lot of research recently on trauma, but specifically in terms of adult attachment styles. In fact, one of my assessment instruments uses one of the attachment style questionnaires, and it looks at differences between anxious attachment and dismissive attachment. Generally the most severe domestic violence generally involves more of the anxious type, but you have an anxious attachment type with a dismissive type, and it's a recipe for disaster. Because one person really badly needs that validation and that connection, and the other person doesn't because of trauma, recoil from that.
Recoil, and especially the avoiding goes in to take care of themselves and they go into an independent mode. I need to take care of myself, and then it creates that withdrawal pursuer cycle. Particularly, with the attachment in the emotionally focused couples therapy, the idea of the responsiveness and when we're not getting that responsiveness from the partner, we go into a panic because as a child, if your parent was not responding, that could mean death if you're not getting your needs met because you're completely dependent. So yeah, very interesting.
Keith, couples, I mean, there are times in the relationship where they feel attacked by the partner and sometimes it's all in their mind, and sometimes it's partly true, but they feel like they're literally going to die. If they don't respond that some kind of statement or physical act to protect themselves, it's like they're being killed. They're so invalidated, and again, much of the time it's all in their mind. A partner says, no, I don't want to do that, and they hear it as you're a piece of s***, you're worthless. That's what they hear, and the partner says "I'm just setting limits", and the more reactive people are then probably the more trauma they're suffering. Unless they're sociopaths. Unless they have that kind of personality, it's usually tied into the trauma. The problem is, if you introduce trauma issues too early, without some success by the perpetrators in controlling their violence, you're putting the cart before the horse. So that's going back to safety issues.
The last piece that I want to touch on before we wrap up here is, ultimately what also needs to be accessed is mens' vulnerability. I think that, like you were saying again with the violence and that there isn't much room for acknowledgement. I've had clients that have been victims of sexual abuse by women as a child and so on, and many white males feeling like there's a discrepancy that men also are hurt by women, but that's not really given any space or room in our culture or society, which I think further ends up also leading to men being more guarded about their vulnerability and not bringing that out in the relationship.
I am interested in your thoughts on this field and whether this topic or different topic of where things coming in the future. I'd be interested to see and, hopeful that more room can be made there without it feeling like it's invalidating the violence to women, and not that because men are heard that therefore it's okay that women get hurt, but more that they exist in the same realm, at the same time without necessarily negating one or the other.
Yeah well, there is a double standard when it comes to emotions. In the countries, you hear this all the time: "Men are jerks, who need to be more in touch with their emotions, blah, blah, blah." But in reality, a lot of the men I work with, when they actually talk about their emotions, it doesn't always go well. One of the reasons it doesn't go well is because a lot of women, unfortunately, don't want to be with guys that are very emotional. They say they do, and I'm not saying all women, I'm just saying, there's a large number of women I've talked to them, I've worked with them, they really want their men to be sensitive, but not so sensitive that they can't kick a** and make money and support them, just putting that out.
That doesn't invalidate what women are saying about men needing to be more communicative, and men are notorious for not being very good at communicating their emotions. I've been working on that for 30 years, trying to get guys to be more emotive and more committed to this. I'm just saying that when they do that, it's not like the partners say "oh my God, you're communicating, it's wonderful." They run into problems sometimes because women are people. And people want what they want. Along with societal attitudes about women that are hostile attitudes, there's this benevolent sexism that researchers have pointed to. It's very insidious, and women have bought into. The idea that we're vulnerable and we are victims. It's why most young women today don't identify as feminists, the vast majority of young women in their twenties and thirties today on surveys, when they're asked if you're a feminist, they say no, but they act like feminists, they are feminists. The term has been tainted. One of the reasons I think it has been tainted is because there's been that double standard, and men know that it's all well and good if they express themselves a little bit more to their partners, but God forbid if they would've stopped working for six months, because they wanted to just relax and potty around the house, a lot of their female partners would divorce them for that. So a lot of these traditional gender roles and expectations are still with us, and what I'm saying is that it's not just men that take advantage of those gender role expectations in the area of domestic violence in area of divorce. Women take advantage of those as well. We have to have an honest discussion about how those gender roles play themselves out and how sometimes women take advantage of those roles, and how sometimes they don't benefit men at all.
And I think too, that because women are a majority of ones that experience sexual assault and the majority ones that are hurt and killed by domestic violence, then that is something that's significant. Although again, there is conflict that happens from both in the relationship and to your point too, about the men sharing their vulnerability, particularly from an EFT point of view, ultimately when we help the other person get vulnerable, they're usually saying "I'm feeling hurt by you", or "I'm feeling sad" and connect it to whatever it may be. Typically at least in the beginning stages of therapy, when one hears that the other feels hurt by them, usually they're not intending to hurt. Sometimes they are, but sometimes it's reactionary. Usually they're trying to do the thing that makes most sense to them to get closeness or maintain closeness, like shut down in a fight to not make it worse or to keep talking about it or throw the remote to get the other person's attention.
But when they hear that the other person felt hurt they tend to get defensive or justify or say "Well, you hurt me too", or "Well you're just being too sensitive". Typically more women tend to be the pursuer. They're trying to share their hurt, and as you engage the withdrawer and the men start sharing their hurt, then it flips the script. Then oftentimes the women end up responding in the way that the withdrawal or the men were in that situation of saying, "Well, you're being too sensitive" or, "Oh, well, I didn't mean it that way", or, "Well, I had to do that". Ultimately helping both of them be able to get to that vulnerability and sharing that. I think, like you're saying there's the demand for more vulnerability from men, but then sometimes, they get the response that oftentimes the, women get; feeling dismissed or so on.
Keith, the clients that I work with are less psychologically minded. So if you're working with couples, they generally have a little bit more disposable income to afford couples therapy. I think it's a little different with a lot of the clients I work with. I'm just saying that they're married to partners that aren't necessarily as psychologically minded. They're married to partners who often are very aggressive themselves. So they just have to be careful in how they proceed in sharing vulnerabilities is what I'm saying. It can go awry very easily. I get what you're saying with higher income couples or couples that are dedicated to the relationship that generally, if the man is more emotive, it dramatically improves the tenor of the relationship. But with the lower income couples, it doesn't always work that way. We have to be careful that we don't try to get our clients to do more than they're capable of.
Or they're ready, I would say.
So I know you're working on your book and your ethnography of the experience of these men and what are your thoughts on where this field is going and the domestic violence research and treatment and so on. What are you seeing on the horizon?
Well, right now I'm really focused on my new book on a criminal justice response. It's going to be a breakthrough book. We have 16 chapters written by attorneys and scholars on reforming the criminal justice system. That's what I'm really focused on right now. Not just making sure that the police don't just arrest guys because of that gender paradigm, but also that we don't overreact and that we don't put in jail people that can be handled in different ways. So we have chapters on restorative justice alternatives, we have chapters on alternatives to arrest, deferred prosecution, the use of couples and family therapy when it's safe, reforms of that nature. That's not to say that that lots of people, don't need to be arrested and held responsible.
They do. It's just how we go about it. The prosecutors in many jurisdictions are very gung-ho to prosecute and sometimes to the point where they dismiss or ignore the needs of the victims. Sometimes the victims don't want the prosecution to go forward because either threats of retaliation by the abuser or the money drain that they'll be faced with. If the abuser is in jail for protracted amount of time, I mean, it's been a really good thing overall that there was a Battered Women's movement. But as I said earlier in the podcast, it's had some negative implications that we're still dealing with and one of them is the gender paradigm. The other one is the whole idea that domestic violence is one monolithic phenomenon, and there are no differences in that if somebody ever grabs you once, that means that they're going to be more violent in the future and you're doomed right? We're trying to dispel those attitudes and provide the criminal justice system and the policy makers some alternative ways of dealing with the problem.
Well, thank you so much for your time today. This was really interesting to hear your point of view, and hear about your contributions to the field and really bringing to the forefront of my mind, this even larger perspective on domestic violence rather than the myopic male is bad. It's much more nuanced than that. Thank you very much. I really appreciate that.
I've enjoyed it Keith. Thank you. I appreciate you inviting me to do this.
Right. Take care. All right.
Thank you for joining us. If you're wanting to use this podcast, earn continuing education credits, please go to our website at therapyonthecuttingedge.com. Our podcast is brought to you by the Institute for the Advancement of Psychotherapy, providing in-person and remote therapy in the San Francisco Bay Area. IAP provides screening for licensed clinicians through our in-person and online programs, as well as our treatment for children, adolescents, families, couples, and individual adults. For more information, go to sfiap.com or call (415)-617-5932. Also, we really appreciate feedback, and if you have something you're interested in something that's on the cutting edge of the field of therapy, and think clinicians should know about it, send us an email or call us. We're always looking for the advancements in the field of psychotherapy to help in creating lasting changes for our clients.


text:
City transit an investment, not an expense
David Winninger
Sep 12, 2014 • Last Updated September 12, 2014 • 2 minute read
The road travelled by London Transit during the past 20 years is best described as long and winding — from a period of significant cuts in public investment and service in the 1990s to a period of unprecedented ridership growth throughout the 2000s.
During the last 14 years the system has been rebuilt, which saw a modernization of the bus fleet and supporting facilities, new services and routes added and continued development and implementation of "smart bus" technologies in support of the efficient delivery and management of the service.
Transit ridership in 2010 reached the level targeted for 2020 in the city's transportation master plan. In comparison to its Ontario peer group, London is at the top in key performance indicators with the lowest passenger trip cost, lowest municipal investment per trip and the highest rides per capita. Key to the success was the use of timely federal and provincial investment and a focused strategy of continuous and sustainable improvement.
Now the unprecedented ridership growth has exceeded the system's capacity, resulting in service quality issues such as overcrowding, missed passengers because of full loads and difficulty maintaining schedules. It is estimated that to address the existing service quality issues and the growing demand and expectation for service would require an additional 200,000 annual hours of service.
London Transit recognized that continuing to add hours to the existing service design would simply result in a system costing more with limited, if any new ridership, and as such approved the adoption of a redefined system, the spine of which would be the development of rapid transit corridors.
The redefined system calls for moving more people more quickly and efficiently. Following extensive public consultation, the recommended rapid transit strategy was adopted as the cornerstone of the city's 2030 transportation master plan and is reflected in the direction of the London Plan (new official plan). The latter inclusion recognizes that effective land use and transportation planning are inextricably linked with both serving as a blueprint for sustainable economic, environmental and cultural growth.
The business case for the rapid transit strategy is solid, producing a $1.80 return for each $1 invested. The $1.80 return recognizes the environmental, economic and community access benefits, that apply equitably to all Londoners.
London Transit is in the process of completing a system-wide route review, which includes extensive public consultation to identify the changes required to support the future rapid transit corridors.
As evidenced in progressive cities worldwide, an effective public transit service is critical to having a vibrant and sustainable city. This recognition is further evidenced by the significant attention public transit received in the recent provincial election and continues to receive in municipal elections across the province.
For London, the discussion on public transit needs to be one of garnering a common understanding and direction, moving from the view of transit as an expense to the reality that transit is an investment in our community. Now is the time to move forward implementing the required policy changes, and securing the required investment commitments to ensure the rapid transit strategy is implemented in a timely manner.
Together we can drive change, supporting the vision of London as exciting, exceptional and connected.
Further information with respect to LTC initiatives can be found at www.ltconline.ca.
David Winninger is chair of the London Transit Commission.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


ALBANY, N.Y. (April 15, 2019) -- As part of the City School District of Albany's work to develop an informative document that can help parents and guardians support student success at home, we are seeking your input on the new elementary report card rolled out this school year.
We encourage you to complete this short survey by May 10.
Paper copies of the survey will be sent home with each elementary student's third-quarter report card this week. Paper copies will also be available at each elementary building, and can be downloaded here. For more information, please contact the Office of Curriculum and Instruction at (518) 475-6060.


Most construction project owners require general contractors to provide periodic lien waivers from subcontractors and material suppliers to verify they received payment. This is generally a good thing, as it helps ensure payment is flowing down to the proper parties. Lien waivers, however, can become the source of conflict when parties can't agree on their terms.
Lien waivers frequently become contentious because they are presented for the first time when payment is due. Almost inevitably the lien waiver will contain terms that are inconsistent with or in addition to existing contract terms, and every day spent negotiating the particular language of the lien waivers delays payment already due. Delayed payments have a ripple effect, as contractors rely on prompt payments to keep up with labor and material costs, and to keep the project running on schedule.
Among the most common sticking points is waiver language that is simply too broad. Payment is being made in exchange for labor and materials provided on a project through a particular date. Yet owners often propose lien waivers that try to force contractors to release much more than that. Commonly owners propose clauses that require the payee to promise to indemnify the payor for other liens filed on the project, among others. Of course, the party holding the money maintains some unfair leverage to force the other to sign away rights not contemplated when negotiating the original contract in order to get paid.
To prevent disruptive disputes during the course of construction, prudent parties should review and negotiate the actual lien waiver forms as appendices to contracts, prior to signing anything. This practice is wise for contracts between owners and general contractors as well as between general contractors and subcontractors or material suppliers. It is also always best to have a construction attorney review your contracts and lien waivers to fully understand the rights and responsibilities included in them.
Mr. Strang is a founding partner of the firm and specializes in business litigation and construction law. He has represented clients through all phases and forms of dispute resolution including bid protests at the Attorney General's office, mediations, arbitrations and first-chairing at trial.
This entry was posted in Construction and tagged construction, construction law, contractor, lien waiver, Massachusetts construction attorney, material supplier, New Hampshire Construction Attorney; commercial construction, subcontractor on January 24, 2017 by Chris Strang.


text:
The Gilmore Guide to Books
Connecting Books and Readers One Review at a Time
The Trouble with Goats and Sheep
The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon
Published by Scribner
Publication date: July 12th 2016
Genres: Childhood, Debut, Fiction, Literary
The summer of 1976 is one of upheaval for the families who live along the Avenue, a seemingly quiet British neighborhood. Mrs. Margaret Creasy has gone missing. Ten-year-old Grace takes the words of the local vicar that "If God exists in a community, no one will be lost" as her cue to find God within their neighborhood and in doing so, bring Mrs. Creasy back. She enlists her best friend Tilly to help and uses the ruse of working for Brownie badges (despite not being in the Brownies) to gain access to everyone's homes and, more importantly, to get the adults to talk. Her plan is just one point of entry in Joanna Cannon's debut The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, a novel that is as deceptively unnerving as the people of the Avenue.
Cannon quickly builds a sense of unease in The Trouble with Goats with a reclusive man who may or may not have had something to do with a baby kidnapping and a home fire that kills an old woman. With every page, another anomaly and fact about Margaret Creasy's disappearance arrives. Cannon goes from the social surface of each adult to their more hidden depths—which apparently they all shared with the kindly Mrs. Creasy. When Grace isn't narrating, the chapters are assigned to different houses along the street where Cannon slips in clues at an even pace, keeping curiosity at the forefront.
The wives on the Avenue take the brunt of questionable behavior by acting like the Stepford wives post-breakdown—high levels of anxiety, nervous twitches, headaches, housekeeping gone awry—everything is off-kilter and only Grace and Tilly seem to notice. Grace's own mother "spent most of 1974 having a little lie-down". It lets the anticipation build in that twitchy way that means 'don't-stop-reading'. With each page more details leak out about the past and present mysteries and it becomes clear no one has been honest.
The missing Mrs. Creasy and the grown-ups' odd behavior are just one facet of The Trouble with Goats. Cannon goes beyond the mysteries and into the deeper territory of childhood, family, and friendship. Grace is the boisterous boss in her relationship with Tilly and, at times, her blithe disregard of Tilly's feelings is painful to read because it is so reminiscent of our own childhoods. At the same time, she herself is struggling to understand her parents' identities, especially when her father is questioned by police
I had never heard my father like this. He was always the one asking questions, waiting for explanations. It felt strange, as though the light had shifted, and I realized I had only ever read one chapter of a story.
It won't come as much of a surprise to learn that Cannon is a psychiatrist when she's not writing. Her skill in this area makes The Trouble with Goats a thoughtful compendium of human behavior in all its conflicting, seamy, incomprehensible confusion. She contrasts the arbitrary nature of childhood—where questions are many, but answers are few—against the burdens of decisions made and regretted in adulthood. No one emerges unscathed.
It would be nice if The Trouble with Goats ended with every question answered and Grace able to say she found God for their community, but Cannon doesn't shirk from sadness for the people of the Avenue. Nor does she leave young Grace with any illusions as she realizes
Sometimes, with grown-ups, the gap between your question and their answer is too big, and that always seems like the best place to put all your worrying in.
What she does do is blend the serious with an acerbic wit, making the ambiguities of life easier to handle. In the end, the Avenues is no different from any street, in any city, in any country. And that makes for rewarding reading.
By Joanna Cannon
The Dinner: A Novel
How To Be Famous: A Novel
Unbecoming
Paris in the Present Tense
More Than A Woman by Caitlin Moran
The Portable Veblen
The Burning Girl by Claire Messud
You Will Know Me
Jemma Kidd Make-Up Secrets
The Blue Book
Leaving Time
Of Things Gone Astray
Books: Bits & Pieces
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: 1970s, book clubs, childhood, debut, England
Sarah's Book Shelves says
I added this to my TBR when you first read it…and it's now up in the list for sure! I love the slow release of details and it sounds like this one might be a nice blend of literary and suspense.
Eva @ The Paperback Princess says
Your review is making me want to run right out and get this! It sounds so good! It's on the list anyway. I'm going to have to stop visiting your blog – I feel like I add 10 books to my list every time.
It's very different- I'm still thinking about it! It almost has the feel of a parable, but without everything wrapping up neatly at the end- kind of like life, messy and not what you expected.
Kathy @ Kathy Reads Fiction says
I'm really anticipating reading this one…when my reading mojo returns, that is. I really enjoy when authors write what they know and with this author being a psychiatrist, I can imagine that really did make the book interesting. I think this is one I need to bump up when it comes to me at the library.
Kate @ booksaremyfavouriteandbest says
Yay! This is next on my TBR stack. Have heard consistently good things about this one.
Save time and subscribe via email
No time to keep checking for new reviews? Enter your email address to subscribe and receive notifications of new posts by email. No spam!
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
by Emily Nagoski
Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me
by Adrienne Brodeur
Share book reviews and ratings with Catherine at The Gilmore Guide to Books, and even join a book club on Goodreads.
I'm an affiliate for Indiebound and Amazon. If you click on a link that takes you to any of these sites and make a purchase I'll earn a small fee, which goes towards the costs of maintaining this site. Your support is appreciated. Thank you!
Copyright © 2021 · Beyond Madison Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in


Daria is Director and Owner of the private media production company PLAY:MEDIA. They focus on brand support, TV programs, and political & social coverage, providing creative and professional solutions for others.
In 2008 Daria launched the Charitable Children Foundation "The League of Kindness". The Foundation's prime focus is to raise much-needed funds and awareness for children's charities. Whether mental disability, physical challenge, emotional or educational needs, the League of Kindness Children Charitable Foundation is committed to enriching the lives and experiences of children.
Daria previously worked as Media Producer of the South Media Group. At the time of the 2006 Fellowship Programme, Daria ran her own media agency employing ten people. She specialised in producing news coverage, covering political elections and managing educational and charity projects.


Seastrunk just made the team.
Unequalled? DJax and Thompson both had better 40 times. DJax (4.27) Thompson (4.35) vs Seastrunk (4.37).
what you run in combine/training camp times and what you do in live game time are 2 entirely different things..Thompson has not shown to me anyways if a defender misses a tackle on him he is gone,Seastrunk has.. Jackson is a wideout,I'm specifically talking about our Rb situation.
what you run in combine times and what you do in live game time are 2 entirely different things..Thompson has not shown to me anyways if a defender misses a tackle on him he is gone,Seastrunk has.. Jackson is a wideout,I'm specifically talking about our Rb situation.
I completely agree with you on Seastrunk as a player. Loved him when we drafted him once I had seen some film on him. Right now I have him as the #3 back on MY roster just behind Morris and Redd. I too have not seen enough of Thompson to put him ahead of either rookie. All I was saying is not only is Seastrunk not the fastest player on the team, but he isn't even #2....though he may have surpassed Thompson after his foot injuries. All three have blazing speed.
Nice catch too. pass was a tad low but catchable and he handled it smoothly.
This guy has evidently worked really hard on his pass catching since he got here. Starting to pay dividends.
If he gets his pass pro up to scratch he'll make Helu expendable - just in time for 2015 when Helu is a UFA.


text:
Q: How can I create a multiboot USB drive? i.e. one USB stick that can be booted to Windows, Linux, diagnostic tools, etc I'm aware this can't be done with Rufus, and I've tried YUMI to no avail.
I use several diagnostic tools on a regular basis (Hiren's Windows Boot CD, Lenovo utilities and a lightweight Linux OS) and would like to consolidate them to one USB drive I carry on my keychain.
My understanding is that all I need to do is make several partitions, format them properly and image each with whatever image I'd like. When I reach the boot menu, I'll see all X partitions listed and will be able to pick and choose which image I'd like to run.
However, this hasn't worked for me in practice. Has anybody been able to do this? Any advice is very much appreciated!

A: Besides YUMI, there are four other apps you might try:

*

*SARDU MultiBoot USB and DVD Creator

*MultiBootUSB

*MultiSystem

*WinSetupFromUSB

Some works on Windows, some works on both Windows and Linux.
Source: https://www.linuxbabe.com/apps/create-multiboot-usb-linux-windows-iso

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Welcome to The Killer & I website!
The Killer & I started off as journal entries meant to keep Kane Hodder's fans up to date on the production of Kane's biography, Unmasked. As the popularity grew and Kane got Mike into more and more crazy situations, the demand for the collection to be released as a book was overwhelming. From there, fans couldn't get enough, which resulted in The Killer & I turning into a web-series and a second book!
Look around the site to learn more about the show and books!


The Royal College of Art needed the ideal catalogue for one of their degree shows. The course in question was their MA (Master's level) textiles show. They liked the look of our A4 Magazines, but decided that 1000 copies simply wasn't enough. They got in touch with us and requested a bespoke lithographic price.
This fantastic quarterfold magazine was the result. Quarterfold is ever so slightly smaller than an A4 Magazine, but enables us to print huge volumes. The process is lithographic rather than digital, so the finished product has even more of a traditional newspaper look.


text:
Simone Becchetti
Toxic Friendships: How To Cut Ties With The Mean Girls In Your Life
By Sarah Kester
While it comes to female friendships, it's unfair to assume 1) there must be a Burn Book involved, and 2) at least one friend is the Regina George (aka, devilish Queen B) of the group.
We can thank "Mean Girls" for these generalizations, but we can also accredit the movie for its realistic portrayal of toxic female friendships.
In Girl World, not every friendship can be like the "Ya-Ya Sisterhood," with a blood-oath bonding women for life.
Instead, many female friendships include any (or all) of the following: talking behind each other's backs, spreading rumors, stealing boyfriends, starting drama, intentionally leaving someone out, etc.
All unpleasant aspects mean that, oftentimes, you're better off just walking away (and hopefully not in front of a school bus).
Alyssa, 22, experienced this with a group of women she used to consider her best friends.
"They always had a way of making me feel like an outsider," she says. "I didn't watch any of the same shows as them, and they looked down on me for wanting to live a healthy lifestyle."
Their mistreatment even extended to her boyfriend, whom they also ignored. "They would do things without inviting me, and at parties, they wouldn't socialize with anyone except themselves."
Alyssa admits she often overlooked this sort of behavior, attributing it to them "just being who they are."
Alyssa reached her breaking point after her group of friends left without her on a road trip for a mutual friend's birthday.
She felt completely betrayed, and it confirmed her fear that she wasn't a valued member of the group.
"Friendships shouldn't leave you feeling as though you're not good enough, like an outsider with the people who are supposed to be your best friends."
Lauren, 22, experienced a similar blindside with a best friend she once considered a sister.
"It was like she suddenly became a stranger, and there was nothing I could do about it."
Looking back, she's now realized the toxicity of the friendship and how it had been continually bringing her down.
"As hard as losing someone so close to me was, it made me stronger because I know the people who truly care about me would never want to hurt me the way she did. I believe everything happens for a reason, so by letting the friendship go, I finally feel free."
Ending friendships like this can feel similar to a romantic breakup. Oftentimes, it hurts even more.
We usually believe every friendship we enter into will last forever, and there is a very real possibility of becoming "lifelong friends" with someone.
If you feel as though you are in a toxic friendship, here are three ways to end it:
1. Realize it's a part of life.
Once we enter our 20s, we often hear, "You'll drift away from many of your friends."
While we may fight this, we have to realize that, above all, life happens. Seeing your besties is no longer as easy as stopping by their lockers in-between classes.
In your 20s, change tends to be inevitable. You may enter into your dream career, get married, have kids or move out of the country, which are all exciting and thrilling aspects of life that may keep you from those you love.
If your friends are supportive, this won't be a big deal. With the toxic ones, however, they may grow jealous of your success and try to bring you down with them.
If someone is threatening to end your friendship over you being unable to come out and get sh*tfaced on a Tuesday night, it may be time to cut ties.
Sometimes, it's as simple as coming to terms with the fact that she no longer jells with the person you've become.
Realizing this is only half of the battle. You also have to be patient while waiting for new friendships that are more in line with who you are now, rather than who you were five or 10 years ago.
2. Cut off contact.
This method may seem heartless, but it's as clear and direct as can be.
I used this tactic while I was ending a toxic friendship last year. I had reached my limit with this person.
She continually treated me like sh*t, and I had grown tired of being pushed around.
At first, it was difficult. I would have to sit there and resist the urge to hit TALK on my phone when she called. But, the more I did this, the easier it became.
Eventually, she got the message, and she stopped calling and texting altogether.
It was life-changing to finally put my needs first, especially after I had pushed them aside for so long. I found peace with my decision, and I have honestly never been happier.
3. Have a friendship breakup.
As I stated before, friendships "drift away" all the time during your 20s. Just scroll through your Facebook homepage, and prepare yourself for all the feels.
You'll realize you haven't talked to 90 percent of the people on there since graduation.
Sad, right? But, it's not uncommon.
While friendship drifting has become an almost expected part of growing up, friendship breakups have not.
In order to handle it the right away, you must approach her directly and explain how you're feeling.
Avoid confrontation by using "I" statements, instead of saying things like, "You make me feel like this." This will only make her defensive and turn the conversation into a battle.
When all is done and over with, PsychCentral says crying and writing a letter you never intend to send can help you survive the aftermath of your friendship breakup.
"Let yourself be sad. Losing a best friend is just like any other long-term relationship ending. It sucks. It may feel lonely and embarrassing. Moving on will be an adjustment that takes time, but there is no shame in feeling awful for a little while."


Apple has seeded the GM (Golden Master) of watchOS 5 to developers, which comes after Apple wrapped up their Gather round Event.
Registered developers can download the GM through Apple's dev center, or they can be installed using each platform's respective OTA updating mechanism. watchOS 5 will be released to the Public on September 17th.
watchOS 5 has brought a host of new features which we have previously covered.


Oceania Cruises has announced its 2020 world cruise, spanning 180 days and crossing the equator a four times, with 95 ports of call.
The 2020 Around the World voyage represents the brand's most expansive focus ever on Japan with nine ports of call, calls in Africa, rounds both the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn, and also calls in Alaska, according to a statement.
In addition, exclusive shoreside events will be held in Montevideo, Uruguay; Cape Town, South Africa; Rangoon, Burma; Hong Kong, China; and Kyoto, Japan.


text:
DARSHAN CHOKHANI | 4 JANUARY, 2018
Sponsors Request Pushed Force India for Name Change
The UK-based Indian team has been pondering over a team name change since last year, after potential sponsors requested for a more global label when they join hands with a Formula 1 team. The outfit started its journey as Force India Formula One Team in 2008, before it was renamed to Sahara Force India Formula One Team from 2012 after signing a deal with Sahara Pariwar.
While it is still popularly known as Force India within the F1 community, the official entry list provided by the Federation Internationale De Automobile (FIA) for the 2018 season states the team name as 'Sahara Fore India F1 Team', with the company name being 'Force India Formula 1 Team Limited'.
Even though they have kept Force India for now, however, the team is looking out for a new name which will demonstrate it as a more global venture to be part of, rather than focused to one country. One of the speculated names, 'Force One' was in the registration process midway in 2017, but couple of hindrances forced the team to rethink over a new name.
If the above was to be confirmed, it meant 'India' would have been dropped from the name. When asked the team's COO Otmar Szafnauer if the sponsors had specifically asked for the removal of 'India' from the name, he agreed: "Yes, a couple of potential sponsors said that if we don't change, then we don't come on board [with you].
"I don't know [why?]. But I think, maybe those sponsors wanted a more global approach to what they are doing, [and] not being tied down to one country. So, they just thought if they are going to sponsor a team, they will sponsor a team which is not really tied to one country."
Szafnauer added that they have been thinking on it, but haven't come up with a 'definitive list' of names. When pressed further if they could change it totally, removing the 'Force' as well, he said: "I am not sure [at this moment]. I hate to yes….then it turns out as no and I hate to say no…then it turns out as yes. We haven't decided. So, it's hard to say."
They believe whatever they decide will probably be known by the time they launch their 2018's VJM11 car – which could be revealed in late January or early February. Szafnauer added that there is no deadline for them to apply for a name change to the FIA. Last year, the team launched its car at Silverstone circuit near its factory on February 22 with a grey, black and orange livery.
However, the car's livery was changed to pink just before the season start, following its late sponsorship agreement with Best Water Technology Group (BWT). The livery for 2018 as per Szafnauer will remain the same, but 'it will be an enhanced version' of pink. The colour for Halo, meanwhile, hasn't been decided - whether it will be same across all teams or they will be allowed to change as per the need.
The Vijay Mallya-led team with drivers Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon successfully defended fourth position in the constructors' championship in 2017 scoring 187 points, beating bigger teams like Williams, Renault and McLaren-Honda – thereby punching its way above the more heavy-budgeted teams.


text:
Medinilla – miasto w Hiszpanii
 Medinilla – rodzaj roślin

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Instructors at Swilly Group have been delivering beginner, pre-test and advanced driving tuition in all vehicle classes since 1975. We have been training driving instructors since 1990 and have a fleet of vehicles which will allow you to complete the ADI exams in a Swilly Group car, bus, or lorry (Rigid or Artic).
The Swilly Group Learner Pack and classroom tuition will help you prepare for the RSA theory examination on Rules of the Road, Road Safety and Driving Instruction.
Our instructors will provide you with advanced driving tuition improving your driving skills in preparation for the RSA part 2 driving test.
The training for module 3 will enhance your practical instruction skills in preparation for the RSA part 3 instruction test.


Brig. Gen. Patrick Mordente never knows quite how to answer when he's asked what happens on a typical day at the 86th Airlift Wing he commands at Ramstein Air Base, Germany.
Public affairs professionals shot more than 7,000 photos and 12 hours of video starting at midnight on June 18, said Maj. Tony Wickman, chief of public affairs at the 86th. All the work was done in-house, meaning there was no outside cost, he said. The project required months of pre-planning, coordination and post-production.
The result was the digital book — which may be printed on a limited scale — and two videos.
"Day in the Life" begins on the flightline minutes after midnight and includes the air traffic control center, the fitness center and mission briefings before sunrise. There are security forces members patrolling the base on bikes at dawn and airmen cleaning dishes in the dining facility. There's an airdrop from a C-130, a mother with her newborn baby at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, a firefighter demonstration for local students. Hydraulics technicians make repairs, an airman swears his oath of re-enlistment, a propulsion tech performs an engine check. Airmen sort mail and inventory supplies, complete the physical training test and take on dozens of other daily tasks.


text:
(solution) Lewis Auto Company manufactures a part for use in its production
Lewis Auto Company manufactures a part for use in its production of automobiles. When 10,000 items are produced, the costs per unit are:
Direct materials $12
Direct manufacturing labor 60
Variable manufacturing overhead 24
Fixed manufacturing overhead 32
Monty Company has offered to sell Lewis Auto Company 10,000 units of the part for $120 per unit. The plant facilities could be used to manufacture another part at a savings of $180,000 if Lewis Auto accepts the supplier's offer. In addition, $20 per unit of fixed manufacturing overhead on the original part would be eliminated.
What is the relevant per unit cost for the original part?
Which alternative is best for Lewis Auto Company? By how much?


Weighty Matters: Canadian children hospitals fundraising by selling $4 medium pizzas?!
Canadian children hospitals fundraising by selling $4 medium pizzas?!
A veritable cornucopia of children's hospital foundations have teamed up with Pizza Pizza to sell and normalize insanely cheap junk food in the name of fundraising.
For the next two weeks, for the ridiculously low price of just $2, you can get half a pepperoni pizza, and for a measly $4 you can get a full sized medium with "a portion" of proceeds going to fund children's hospitals.
Who cares that associating Pizza Pizza with fundraising helps to elevate Pizza Pizza's brand? Who cares that insanely low prices coupled with children and charity drive customer loyalty and increase frequency of fast food consumption? Who cares that the normalization of junk food, meals out and highly processed carbs are driving the incredible pace of worsening childhood chronic disease? It's free money, right?
Bruce Bradley, new blogger and author of Fat Profits and former 15 year veteran food marketer explains what's in it for Pizza Pizza. It's called Brand Laddering. This promotion? It's the top rung.
Defenders will shout that we shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth and that after all, this is for the children.
Maybe children's hospitals should start selling subsidized smokes? Or maybe crack or heroin? I hear they've got great profit margins, and after all, it's for the children.