Working only with women may help reduce domestic violence risks, but working with men has the potential to get closer to the heart of the problem, Zac Seidler says.Working only with women may help reduce domestic violence risks, but working with men has the potential to get closer to the heart of the problem, Zac Seidler says.
The boys and men most at risk of perpetration, Seidler says, are a “massively overlooked part of the equation”, largely because empathy of any kind – including delving into the complexities of the men’s lives – is considered by some to amount to condoning or excusing perpetration. “It’s very hard to have compassion for men in those circumstances when they’re extremely angry, aggressive, frustrated, misusing substances, but that’s the challenge that our future faces which is that you need to be willing to see those as opportunities for intervention rather than leading to further distancing.”
Part of helping men achieve better mental health is challenging society’s idea around what it means to be a man, Seidler says, which “at its very core is based on the binary of success and failure”.Each week our editors select five of the most interesting, entertaining and thoughtful reads published by Guardian Australia and our international colleagues.
Allison Wainwright, the chief executive of Family Life, which runs more than 20 men’s behaviour change programs in Victoria, says the case management part of the program is often about addressing underlying mental health issues. The men in Family’s Life programs often have a range of complex comorbidities, and most, if not all, having complex trauma backgrounds, she says.
“We need to accept that while primary prevention and respectful relationship work is important – I don’t see this as one against the other, we need both – and over and above that we need to work with these men… and help them recover from that childhood trauma and reach personal responsibility,” Wainwright says.