You can’t change harmful behavior unless you know what to look for, and becoming safe isn’t just about stopping the big stuff.
At Courdea, we are always evolving our understanding of what causes harm in relationships. Our clients come in with a basic definition of “abuse” or “harm” and leave with a richer and more useful one.
How does Courdea define “harmful behavior” and “abuse”?
We define “harmful behavior” and “abuse” to include a broad range of emotionally and physically harmful behaviors. “Abuse,” by definition, is behavior that causes suffering, is indifferent to negative effects on others, or uses something or someone for a harmful purpose. It’s not just physical harm that qualifies, and not only what the law considers “abusive.”
We consider patterned non-violent behaviors such as suspicious questioning, snooping, criticism, sarcasm, ignoring, yelling, harsh tones, cheating and name-calling to be abusive. Attempting to control or manipulate a person’s actions with subtle or overt threats, withholding of money or resources, or lying are all abusive behaviors.
Why should I care about this?
Much of what we consider to be abusive is incredibly common. Many people accept the use of harsh language, criticism, lying, and forms of manipulation as normal or inevitable. We hear it all the time: “All couples yell” or “Everyone says mean things when they fight.” So why bother trying to change that?
Many of our clients – and many people in general – have been exclusively emotionally hurtful. A lot of the people we work with have never laid hands on their partners in an aggressive way. But they do real damage without ever leaving a mark.
It’s true that all relationships include conflict and disagreement. But when those disagreements or fights usually involve insults, sarcasm, yelling, manipulation or threats, the effect on the relationship each person is significant. Conflicts linger, tension remains, problem-solving fails. Safety is lost and trust is eroded. One person can’t risk telling the other their truths for fear of punishment, overreaction, or the pain of being dismissed. Carrying on like that, a relationship becomes an exercises in tolerating disappointment. Depression, anxiety, and hopelessness have room to creep in.
Thinking of something as “normal” gives us permission to keep doing it, even if we don’t like the consequences. Many people believe that the cost of addressing harmful behavior in themselves is too great. We know it’s not easy, but it is worth it to recognize, challenge, and unlearn harmful habits because the the alternative – feeling peaceful, creative, successful, and intimate in relationships – makes for a much healthier and happier life. We’ve seen many people change in this way.
But isn’t anger the problem?
Most people think that they act harmfully “out of anger.” We see things a bit differently.
The harmful behavior we see often comes with an angry tone, tense body language, or is done in a spirit of punishment. But underneath that “anger” is usually something else: hurt, anxiety, fear, disappointment. Many people feel those emotions but recognize them as “anger” because our society is more ready to accept people – especially men – acting harmfully “because they were angry.”
If we call it all anger, we not only miss the cause but we miss the solution. Trying to change harmful patterns by stopping “anger” means you don’t actually address what’s causing the behaviors. You don’t actually get your needs met either.
We see the work of treating harmful behavior – which sometimes looks angry, and sometimes doesn’t – as necessitating a deeper approach. We work with clients to change abusive attitudes, track subtle tactics of power and control, and develop an ability to empathize. We teach people to to handle emotional hurts better, to re-evaluate their assumptions and expectations, to communicate more carefully and to see themselves from new perspectives.
Stopping harmful behavior can’t just be about “managing anger.” In the short term, we do teach clients to monitor internal tension, diminish reactivity and develop strategies for containing outbursts. If someone comes to us and asks for “anger management,” we will help them.
But our real work is to help people learn humility and assertiveness, fair problem-solving, negotiation skills, and accountability. We want our clients to gain insight into how their personal and relationship history drives some of their abusive behaviors, and we want to treat the roots of abusive actions as we challenge a person to change in the present day.
We consider the term “anger management” to be too simplistic. Worse, it reinforces the stereotype that harmful behavior comes solely from anger rather than emerging from deeper or more complex emotions. If we can see harmful behavior and “anger” differently, we have a chance to change it.