‘Each One’s a Success When They Walk Through That Door’: Creating and Sustaining a Tribal Peacemaking Program

David Adams, co-founder and co-director of Emerge,
the first counseling program in the nation for men who abuse women, discusses the inner workings, challenges,
and potential benefits of group counseling for men who batter. (July 2012)

SARAH SCHWEIG: Hi, I’m Sarah Schweig, of the Center for Court Innovation, and today I’m speaking
with Dr. David Adams. Dr. Adams is co-founder and co-director of Emerge, the first counseling program in the nation
for men who abuse women. He is one of the nation’s leading experts on men who batter and has conducted trainings
for social service and criminal justice professionals in 46 states and 18 nations. Dr. Adams has also conducted outreach
to victims of abuse for 35 years. Thanks for speaking with me today.

DR. DAVID ADAMS: Thank you.

SARAH SCHWEIG: Can you give us a little background about the kind of counseling you do? What kinds of issues
does counseling in this case seek to address? And is there a kind of model you use or promising practice?

DR. DAVID ADAMS: Well, I mean first of all, it’s small groups, and secondly the model that we use is
male/female co-facilitated. And the reason we do that is that we really want to provide a role modeling opportunity
for the abusive men to see women and men working together operatively and sharing leadership. Our program is divided
into two phases. There’s an educational phase, which is the first eight weeks where they’re exposed to
just really basic information about what is abusive behavior, broadening their understanding that it’s not just
the illegal behavior. How does it affect their partner, how does it affect their children, other alternatives and
so forth. But then the more interesting phase, you know, the second phase which is the remaining 32 weeks is more
of an interactive group. And that’s where we’re a little different as a model from other kinds of programs.
because we’re a psycho-educational model, not just an educational model, which really means that we’re
able to give individualized feedback to the men in the program, and to really kind of like focus more in depth about
each person’s history of abusive behavior. We actually do a very interesting exercise, which I call a relationship
history, where we ask each person 14 questions about every intimate relationship he’s had. And it’s done
right in the group. The other men ask the questions. And we do another interesting exercise where we really develop
very individualized goals for each man in the group, and the other men, again, are very involved in that process,
making suggestions about what goals make sense for that person. And so really the whole purpose of the goal of our
program is to really learn two things. One is respect, and how is respect communicated in relationships—not just
with your partner or with your children, but also empathy too. Because most abusers are very—kind of have a narcissistic
orientation and so the beginning stages, it’s really clear that it’s hard for them to see their own behavior
from their partner’s perspective. And so over time, we’re really trying to do that. We’re trying to build
that into the program so that even when men are giving each other feedback in a group, we’re asking men to try
to see things from the partner’s perspective. So when a man’s reporting an interaction with his partner,
for instance, we’re asking all the other men to say, okay, what do you think his partner’s perspective
was in that interaction? And in the process, they are learning empathy too. Because it’s easier, I think sometimes
to recognize another person’s abusive behavior than one’s own, you know? So we kind of take advantage of
that natural ability that abusers have. They’re very good at actually spotting other people’s abusive behavior,
not so much their own. And so we really kind of teach the men how to give each other constructive feedback, and how
to kind of hold each other to a higher standard. That’s really kind of the premise of our program.

SARAH SCHWEIG: So, as you know treating domestic violence offenders can be controversial. Some people say
that abusers can’t be reformed or treated. Can you talk a little bit about how this affects your work, and what
you have seen in your perspective?

DR. DAVID ADAMS: Yeah. Well, I think there’s been a lot
of misinformation about the outcome studies that have been done, first of all, and I also think it kind of reflects
that the outcome that has been done has a very kind of narrow definition of what outcome is, you know, too, because
I always say I’d like to get the same deal the substance abuse programs get. Because nobody ever questions the
value of substance abuse programs, and yet their outcomes aren’t any better than ours. And yet, somehow for
us...