The Anomaly of Abuse
By Sam Vaknin
Author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited"

Important Comment

Most abusers are men. Still, some are women. We use the masculine and
feminine adjectives and pronouns ('he", his", "him", "she", her") to
designate both sexes: male and female as the case may be.


Is abuse anomalous - or an inevitable part of human nature? If the former -
is it the outcome of flawed genetics, nurture (environment and upbringing) -
or both? Can it be "cured" - or merely modified, regulated, and
accommodated? There are three groups of theories - three schools - regarding
abusers and their conduct.

I. Abuse as an Emergent Phenomenon

The precipitous drop in intimate partner abuse in the last decade
(especially in the West) seems to imply that abusive behavior is emergent
and that its frequency fluctuates under given circumstances. It seems to be
embedded in social and cultural contexts and to be a learned or acquired
behavior. People who grew up in an atmosphere of domestic violence, for
instance, tend to perpetuate and propagate it by abusing their own spouses
and family members.

Social stresses and anomy and their psychological manifestations foster
domestic violence and child abuse. War or civil strife, unemployment, social
isolation, single parenthood, prolonged or chronic sickness, unsustainably
large family, poverty, persistent hunger, marital discord, a new baby, a
dying parent, an invalid to be cared for, death of one's nearest and
dearest, incarceration, infidelity, substance abuse - have all proven to be
contributing factors.

II. Hard-Wired Abuse

Abuse cuts across countries, continents, and disparate societies and
cultures. It is common among the rich and the poor, the highly educated and
the less so, people of all races and creeds. It is a universal phenomenon -
and always has been, throughout the ages.

More than half of all abusers do not come from abusive or dysfunctional
households where they could have picked up this offensive comportment.
Rather, it seems to "run in their blood". Additionally, abuse is often
associated with mental illness, now fashionably thought to be
biological-medical in nature.

Hence the hypothesis that abusive ways are not learned - but hereditary.
There must be a complex of genes which controls and regulates abuse, goes
the current thinking. Turning them off may well end the maltreatment.

III. Abuse as a Strategy

Some scholars postulate that all modes of behavior - abuse included - are
results-orientated. The abuser seeks to control and manipulate his victims
and develops strategies aimed at securing these results - see "What is
Abuse" for details.

Abuse is, therefore, an adaptive and functional behavior. Hence the
difficulty encountered by both the offender and society in trying to modify
and contain his odious demeanor.

Yet, studying the very roots of abuse - social-cultural,
genetic-psychological, and as a survival strategy - teaches us how to
effectively cope with its perpetrators.

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AUTHOR BIO (must be included with the article)



Sam Vaknin ( http://samvak.tripod.com ) is the author of Malignant Self
Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East.
He served as a columnist for Global Politician, Central Europe Review,
PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a United Press International (UPI)
Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health and Central
East Europe categories in The Open Directory and Suite101.

Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of
Macedonia.

Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com