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Short abstract:

This presentation aims to offer a better understanding of the way men who batter use psychological knowledge and psychologists in order to make sense of their story, to blame their partner, and to contest judiciary rulings when they are in their disadvantage.

Long abstract:

In this paper I wish to discuss the way men who batter make sense of their experience using psychological language, provided by the psychologists they see —either willingly or after having been condemned. During the course of a PhD work, I have interviewed over twenty men who have been condemned for intimate partner violence. The omnipresence of psychological professionals in these men’s account of their own life points toward the normalization of therapy as a problem-solving arena, but also as a practice which shapes one’s reflexivity. Far from being limited to men who batter, this movement points to the way ‘‘mass psychological culture’’ (Schwartz, 2011) has shaped our understanding of various issues.

Then I wish to focus on the popularization of psychological notions such as ‘narcissists’, ‘trauma’, or ‘reactive violence’. These notions can be used by the men I’ve interviewed in order to absolve themselves of their own violence and blame their partner, described as a narcissist or a psychopath, trying to incite violence.

However, it has to be said that ‘‘psychological culture’’ is not only something that shapes the way the men I’ve interviewed tell and understand their story, but also something that provides ressources and tools in order to settle disputes. They indeed use psychologists in order to contest judiciary ruling, for example by asking for a psychiatric evaluation of the partner in order to prove that she is either lying or not of sound mind, often in order for these men to gain custody of the children.