Discourse After a Batterer Intervention Program: A Qualitative Analysis of “Letters From the Future”

Narrative analysis

The narrative analysis subjected the letters to a second type of coding, derived from structuralist approaches to narrative texts, assessing events indexed by the letters’ texts for type and causal connection. When the text indicated a causal connection, paired events were coded as “cause” and “effect,” and connected pairs were color coded to indicate cause–effect chains (see also Kafalenos, 2006). The events were also recoded as one of three types (following schemas by Bamberg, 2012, and Fludernik, 1996, based on theories by Chatman, 1978, and Ricoeur, 1985). Sentences might index an “action,” a schema involving a person engaging in an intentional or unintentional act; a “happening,” a schema without human agency, or whose human agency is ambiguous; or a “state,” an ongoing action, situation, or environment that involves no clear change. To account for differences in letter length and complexity, event types for each letter were counted and rendered as ratios against the total number of events in the letter. To ensure that codes reflected the men’s idiosyncratic ways of seeing the world, bivariate analyses (t test, ANOVA, chi-square) assessed the relationships between the narrative codes and the men’s demographic information, as well as the themes from the discourse analysis.

In a final interpretive step, the coded story sequence was compared with the coded discourse, to derive a typology of letters. Here, axial coding, in conjunction with the causal sequences from the narrative analysis, were used to divide letters into types according to their acceptance of or resistance to IPV-sustaining discourse. To be sure that this typology did not simply reflect other social differences, bivariate analyses (t test, ANOVA, chi-square) assessed the relationships between the typology and the men’s demographic information.

Each step of the coding process was initiated by the first author, an experienced practitioner of narrative analysis and qualitative evaluation of writing. Each step was then independently evaluated for accuracy and consistency by the second author, an experienced scholar of IPV discourse and intervention, creating a triangulation of data across two different disciplinary domains (textual analysis and IPV studies). Any discrepancies were reanalyzed, and if necessary, recoded.

Reassurance regarding the self

Coded for reassurance regarding their own fates, then, the letters yielded a variety of themes. The most common were reassurances about financial security (appearing in 28 letters, 60.9% of the sample), generic quality of life (26 letters, 56.5%), family time (23, 50%), marriage quality (22, 47.8%), self-improvement (21, 45.7%), others’ approval (15, 32.6%), and communication skills (12, 26.1%). Many of these themes exhibited clear patterns of thought, emotion, or attitude, forming subthemes that often cut across themes or even categories. These subthemes made possible axial codes that related the use of each instance of reassurance to IPV-sustaining discourse, IPV-justifying discourse, and more reflective discourses, orienting the self toward accepting responsibility.

Reassurances that show signs of accepting responsibility, both for past actions and future change, also relate most closely to the BIP’s objectives. For example, the letters often emphasized the causal role that BIP-related skills or events played in their quality of life or social relations (subtheme: causal), as when one man writes, “My goal I set in anger management class 5 yrs ago I still keep til this day.” Here, he reassures himself and the BIP practitioner not only that his commitments will achieve results but also that he himself has agency in maintaining them over time. The causal subtheme appeared in reassurances about communication, as when one man reassures himself, “your ability to reason and communicate has been the key”—but these abilities, he reminds himself had to be learned: “I learned instead of just shutting out the people who love & depend on me the most, I had to open up.” Here, the letter ascribes a process of change both to individual work and to activities that the participant learned in the BIP.

Occasionally, this ascription became explicit, and participants directly credited the usefulness of the BIP (good class): “u didn’t think taking them classes would pay off, but it did, you did good, paying attention in ur group therapy, learning about other people’s feelings and self control.” Here, the rhetorical gesture is even more complex, as the participant not only reassures himself and the BIP practitioner that his participation will lead to success but also disavows a prior stance and attitude toward the BIP, extending the change process from the projected future into the past, and thereby enacting it within the letter itself. Such reassurances sometimes added an acknowledgment that such change does not come easily (acknowledge difficulty, acknowledge challenges). One participant points out “Its never easy” but, nonetheless, reassures himself, “but at least you’re not erupting. You’ve actually can sit back and listen and can hold a meaningful conversation.” Here, he credits specific communication skills with the changes in his behavior, and simultaneously enacts this success by avoiding unrealistic optimism.

Some reassurances, such as life quality, attributed improvements to desistance of substance use (substance use) or violence (accept responsibility). Reassurances about family time and romantic relationship quality often dwelt on work–life balance (work–life balance) and emphasized the social group acting together (collective action), conferring agency on others in nonjudgmental ways. One participant used the plural first-person “we” to describe himself and a significant other, asserting that she and he “worked out our differences and grew as 1 on 1 accord.” This statement, describing mutual agreement and growth, reappeared in a similar form in another letter, where the participant wrote, “When we finally figured out we could not do it alone and needed each other, we made positive progress to where we are today.” Such statements reassure not only that a change process occurs but also that the participant and others share agency in that change, and enough mutual respect to engage in it together. They may imply a certain amount of optimism, well founded or not, but they put it to prosocial use.

Conversely, some reassurances engaged in IPV-sustaining discourse. As mentioned above, these discourses tend to diminish men’s agency or control over their actions, to reassign responsibility to people other than the batterers, and to assign prescriptive gender roles. For instance, reassurances about romantic relationship quality and about personal attributes, including compassion, good decisions, positive qualities (good self), and others’ approval of their actions, often implied or directly stated that the trait or ability was something that the man possessed all along, and that all it took for the trait to emerge was the right setting (latent trait). Such statements, outside the present context, might appear innocuous, as when one participant wrote, “[My] true compassion came forth in the many new choices [I] made.” Here, however, the “coming forth” occurs without accompanying claims of introspection or development; the “true compassion” was there all along, and only the circumstances hid it. Such constructs thereby often spread responsibility for violence, particularly when the “right setting” means the right romantic partner. In the present rhetorical context, declaring in the futured past tense, “You finally found the right woman for you” is more than cliché; it implicitly indicts the present relationship for the participant’s behavior (right woman causal). Social reassurances regarding family time and romantic relationship quality also sometimes used the occasion to reaffirm the man’s existing value structure (reaffirm values), and sometimes suggested that his family, friends, or children would support him (support); these constructs tended to reinforce normative gender roles, as when participants describe their future selves as “teaching [your sons] how to be a good man.”

Some statements went farther, engaging in behavior that directly justified IPV by assigning responsibility for violence to the woman, or by directing hostility toward the BIP or its objectives. A few letters reassured the past self that no further violent acts had been perpetrated, but then used euphemisms such as “mistake” or “trouble” to downplay the seriousness of their actions, a common IPV-justifying tactic (euphemism). Some letters used reassurances about communication or the quality of their romantic relationships to spread responsibility for their violence to their intimate partner (spread responsibility) or even to blame her for his behavior (blame woman). In this context, when a participant writes, “you and yor kid’s mom is getting along better because both of us has figured out on how to keep it all about the kid’s,” the emphasis on both of us implies not only that both partners bear responsibility for their future-present behavior but also that both partners bear responsibility for past violence. A few letters used statements about their own positive qualities (good self) to explicitly reject the BIP or its lessons (reject BIP, reject lessons). For instance, one participant reassures himself that “U told them U didn’t need that class. and U showed them, Matter of fact u showed yourself.” This variation on the good self theme uses the participant’s positive qualities as indicators that his present predicament is undeserved—an aggressive move against the BIP.

Financial security was one of the most common themes in these letters (28 letters, 63.6%), and its subthemes were coded according to the degree of success that the men awarded themselves in the future. Seven writers described maintaining their employment status, but many more (21 letters) indicated improvements. Statements involving promotions or improved career trajectories were subcoded “modest,” whereas improvements such as launching one’s own business, attaining superlative successes in a present job, or career shifts that also significantly improved socioeconomic class were subcoded as “significant.” Improvements that included some degree of self-aggrandizement, such as self-congratulatory language (terms such as “brilliant,” “very wealthy and successful”) were coded as “excessive,” and only statements featuring highly unlikely events were coded as “fantasy.” Because the writers spent so much time on this topic, shifts were observable over the course of some letters, as participants increased their level of success to significant (one letter), excessive (three letters), or fantasy (three letters). In these latter cases, rather than using the letter as an opportunity to create a plausible future scenario, or to sketch out a process of self-improvement, the participants, instead, envisioned financial success as something that simply happened. In one case, the participant begins with a business connection that enables “brilliant business ideas” and makes the future self “wealthy and successful” but then envisions “several businesses,” and then winning the lottery.

Reassurance regarding others

About half of the men did not apply reassurance solely to themselves. Twenty-three letters (51.1%) also reassured their “past self” about the experiences, identities, or fates of others, including family, friends, business associates, and, even in a few cases, the BIP practitioner himself. Straightforward information about children’s development or successes was the most common theme, followed by intimate partners. Hostile reassurances about others’ fates were relatively rare, occurring in only three letters.

Twenty letters (45.5%) reassured the past selves about their children’s successes, most commonly discussing their status in sports and school. On the whole, boys’ descriptions gravitated toward sports, whereas descriptions of female children leaned toward education and traditionally female-gendered roles. In the latter category, one letter provided updates almost exclusively in terms of his daughter’s physical appearance, referring to her as “doing great she is now eleven and has grown tall and beautiful,” whereas another concocted a marriage fantasy where his daughter is “doing great” largely because “she married Brett the hockey guy from high school” who is “now the NHL’s top-scoring player” and with whom she expects a child. This description transfers approval from the daughter to her gender-specific roles, much like another participant whose daughter “is a great big sister, she helps you so much with your son.”

Only nine men (20.5%) described the fates of their intimate partners individually. Two used the occasion to spread responsibility for the man’s behavior to the woman (spread responsibility), and two more amounted to revenge fantasies, imagining negative fates for the very women the men had abused (ex vengeance fantasy). One participant ominously remarks, “Let’s just say karma catches up with her,” whereas another records that his former intimate partner is “remarried and her husband a bum so things looked up for u.” Rather than using the letters as an opportunity to imagine their own successes or personal development, these men instead continue a pattern of violence. By contrast, three men imagined successes for their intimate partners, using discourse that emphasized others’ agency: Two envisioned their future wives in independent professional employment, and one saw his wife completing her education.

Exhortation

Once all accounts of future success had been recoded as reassurance, all residual sentences fit an equally distinct schema: that of exhortation. A majority of the letters (33, 73.3%) exhorted the past self, and these exhortations fell into narrower groupings than the reassurances. Most advised self-improvement (26, 59.1%), but many also urged persistence (11, 25.0%), and the reinforcement of the participant’s extant values, particularly family and religion (11, 25.0%). The men tend not to imagine this material very vividly, and tend to use common self-improvement idioms, as in the exhortation “to see these [work-related] stumbles as feedback for improvement, instead of proof of your inability.” One participant ventured a step further, urging his past self, “Don’t blame others or circumstances be responsible for your actions and stay in control of your destiny.” Here, the participant uses language that would not seem out of place within the BIP sessions themselves, enacting the self-improvement process as he writes. By contrast, another participant uses exhortation to blame his intimate partner for his own behavior: “The quicker you realize your wife is a road block showing any emotion or concern for her is a waist [sic] of time and energy do things for you.” This move spreads blame for violence to the woman and reaffirms the man’s values at her expense. Another participant even repudiates the BIP itself, urging his past self to “Remember you don’t have anger problems.” Like the reassurances, exhortations also address the instructor, not only reassuring him that the men will adhere to the BIP’s lessons, but also occasionally expressing resistance or hostility.

IPV-sustaining examples

These letters retained clear evidence of IPV-sustaining discourse, and many expressed hostility within the rhetorical situations of self-address and address to the BIP practitioner. Their discursive maneuvers included none of the subthemes axially coded as “transformative” (reflective, transformative, or agency-acknowledging discourse), and included several subthemes axially coded as “IPV-sustaining,” including IPV-justifying discourse that explicitly blames the victim, and/or normative gender roles that implicitly blame the victim. They also lacked causal arcs connecting BIP-related skills to future successes, and/or linked unrelated events to future successes, effectively disavowing the BIP, their own efforts, or both. Some letters expressed direct hostility toward the BIP, as in the claim, “U told them U didn’t need that class. and U showed them.” This kind of statement gives otherwise affirmative gestures a sinister subtext. Although the men were encouraged to explore their own positive attributes, those who wrote IPV-sustaining letters tended to use “latent trait” statements to reassure themselves that they did not need or deserve their intervention.

Transformative examples

Writers of the transformative examples used reflective or transformative discourse, articulating clearly that they had learned from the BIP, accepted responsibility for past and/or future activities, or that they were aware of the magnitude of their violence. The causal structure of their stories tended to portray their learning as playing a clear role in their future successes. Two of these letters showed little or no evidence even of IPV-sustaining discourse; these writers took responsibility not only for their prior behavior but also for future desistance, and both narrated clear causal arcs leading into and out of the BIP. In their accounts, their past behavior warranted intervention, and the intervention gave them the skills to improve their future. Eight more letters not only provided positive expressions of learning but also exhibited some residual traces of IPV-sustaining discourse. These writers often credited specific self-improvement activities with their future success, effectively reminding their past selves of their responsibility for their actions. However, these letters also retained evidence of IPV-sustaining discursive practices, including euphemistic descriptions of past violence, normative gender roles, and portrayals that imply that past situations (rather than decisions) led to violence.

Neutral examples

A plurality of the letters (16, 35.6%) fell somewhere in the “neutral” zone, not only retaining relatively few IPV-sustaining or IPV-justifying elements but also building relatively few causal chains that include intervention-related skills or introspection, and no direct references to the BIP itself. These letters could also be broken down into three subcategories: three “higher transformative” (neutral/high) letters that lacked IPV-sustaining elements; five “average-transformative” (neutral/mid) letters that retained more or less equal degrees of transformational and IPV-sustaining elements, or whose discourse worked generically and did not include obvious cues in either direction; and eight “lower transformative” (neutral/low) letters that retained more IPV-sustaining elements than transformational elements.

The subcategories diverged sharply in their treatment of themes and causality. The three neutral/high letters emphasized the difficult work that would have transpired during the 5 years, and created causal chains that at least attributed future success to transformational efforts. The six neutral/mid letters not only showed some of the same traits but also exhibited the “latent trait” subtheme. Three of these letters show a tendency toward statements of acausal improvement, in some cases, in the same letter as exhortations to self-improvement. The eight neutral/low letters evince traits of IPV-sustaining discourse, but in stronger and less ambiguous terms, or without accompanying transformative elements, award themselves at least “excessive” financial success, and use some of the same gendered discourse tactics associated with IPV-sustaining discourse.

Split examples

Letters in the “split” type simultaneously create strong causal narratives linking skills learned in the BIP with improvements in the men’s lives, and yet also retain strong IPV-sustaining or even IPV-justifying narrative and thematic elements. Here, the link between IPV-sustaining discourses and the broader metanarratives of contemporary gendered discourse in the United States becomes clearest, as the men try to acknowledge their behavior and their need to change, but still resist the courts and the BIP. Two letters maintain a delicate balance, accepting and also rejecting responsibility for their actions, their endeavors since the BIP, and their successes. Three of the letters grant the BIP a direct causal role in their improvements, but then undercut those assertions by reassigning causality, implying revenge by describing misfortunes befalling the woman, using euphemisms for violence, or spreading responsibility. Two of the “split” letters avow self-improvement, but then grant themselves outsized fantasies of financial and relationship achievement. In each of these fantasies, the women perform nonworking supporting roles (see examples among reassurances about others, above) for the men, who are ostentatiously successful. Finally, one letter takes a parting shot at the BIP administrator, fantasizing that he “stopped his therapy sessions and ended up teaching ballroom dancing on cruise ships as an instructor for the Chaz Bono Dance Academy.”