Emotional Verbal Abuse
Clubbing and Battering Vs. Loving and Listening

 

 

 

by Dr. Jeanne King, Ph.D.

Are you clubbing or are you loving? Is he/she clubbing or is he/she loving? From these questions, it’s obvious that this eInsight is for the batterer and the abused.

There is a significant distinction between moments of battering and moments of opening in the dialogue of couples in domestic abuse therapy. Are you aware of this distinction?

Clubbing, Battering and Emotional Verbal Abuse

Clubbing is a metaphor that I use to describe battering in the form of emotional and verbal abuse. It has the feeling of being clubbed or beaten into attention, correction and submission. It is judgmental and diminishing in nature, and it serves to shift the underlying distribution of power as perceived by the batterer in the moment.

While on the surface, it appears interactional; the act of battering is inspired from within. Battering is actually an eruption of vulnerability seeking to dissipate itself. You may have heard of it as impotence longing omnipotence.

I use the metaphor of clubbing to describe it because when on the receiving end, one truly feels clubbed. It’s kind of like being hit or jolted out of nowhere. You can’t really connect it to anything in particular that you are injecting into the interaction.

This is what gives it the “out of the blue” feeling. But, it is truly grounded in the moment. It’s just a personal moment of the batterer. As the abused, sometimes you may know what is going on, and sometimes you may not.

Loving and Listening without Clubbing

Loving, on the other hand, is the experience of pure presence. Simply being in the moment with the other person. It may have the quality of giving from oneself as in sharing or bare attention.

The interaction and experience in the moment is open, easy and authentic. There is no violation. Rather, the exchange rests in honor and mutual respect.

If you are in an abusive relationship or are in a relationship actively healing domestic abuse, pay close attention to the use and impact of the club. How it is picked up...flung around and most importantly the effect of its blow on both the violated and on the person holding the club.

The more you can recognize the subtleties of battering behavior, the easier it is for you to break the cycle. And this goes for both the batterer and the abused.

As is always the case, the only one responsible for interrupting the clubbing behavior is the one swinging the bat. If you are battering your partner and want help in breaking the cycle, seek to understand the underlying dynamics of domestic abuse.

For more information about emotional verbal abuse, visit http://www.preventabusiverelationships.com/emotional_verbal_abuse.php and claim Free Instant Access to The 7 Realities of Verbal Abuse. Dr. Jeanne King, Ph.D. helps individuals and couples worldwide recognize, end and heal from domestic abuse.

© Dr Jeanne King — Domestic Violence Prevention and Intervention