I think that when we frame it as "counseling" then we have to consider what
the words mean -- is this a psychological, diagnosable condition; does it
imply medical disease model and therefore discount the whole area of
changing masculinity and male privilege/violence, etc.

Is the question really does counseling work, or is it does some
intervention that goes beyond (not in place of) the criminal justice
response? Which is a different question than does mental health counseling
work. And of course, we have to also ask work to do what? Make a single man
feel and act better or change the social conditions, beliefs, attitudes and
institutions that promote, encourage, allow, ignore male violence?

I haven't had a chance to check my email here for over a week -- is this
the group that provided the link to the VAWNET document on batterers
intervention programs?  It reviews several US studies regarding BIP's and
can be found at: http://www.vawnet.org/VNL/library/general/AR_bip.html.
Sorry if this is redundant, but it has some good information regarding how
to think about what it means to "work."

My thoughts.

Chiquita Rollins
Portland Oregon, US



At 06:59 AM 01/08/2002 -0600, you wrote:
 >Maybe counselling is not the right thing to do, but I still think that we
 >need some kind of "personal work". Maybe something like "self-help groups"
 >could be more effective. My name is Ruben Reyes, Im a member of the group
 >"Men against violence", this is a group that works both as a self-help
 >group and as an activists' collective against gender-based violence. We
 >still dont have any experience on cousellinng for men with violent
 >bahavior, but we're trying to develop a program of this kind.
 >
 >



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