Intimate Violence Across the Lifespan: Interpersonal, Familial, and Cross-Generational Perspectives

144 Pages·2014·1.81 MB·English

by  Tova Band-Winterstein

The Springer Series on Human Exceptionality
Tova Band-Winterstein
Zvi Eisikovits
Intimate Violence
Across the
Lifespan
Interpersonal, Familial, and
Cross-Generational Perspectives
The Springer Series on Human Exceptionality
Series Editors
Donald H. Saklofske, Ph.D.
Division of Applied Psychology
Western University, Ontario, Canada
Moshe Zeidner, Ph.D.
Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Emotions
Department of Human Development and Counseling
University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Israel
For further volumes:
http://www.springer.com/series/6450

Tova Band-Winterstein (cid:129) Zvi Eisikovits
Intimate Violence Across
the Lifespan
Interpersonal, Familial,
and Cross-G enerational Perspectives
Tova Band-Winterstein Zvi Eisikovits
The Department of Gerontology School of Social Work
The University of Haifa The University of Haifa
Mount Carmel , Haifa , Israel Mount Carmel , Haifa , Israel
ISSN 1572-5642
ISBN 978-1-4939-1353-4 ISBN 978-1-4939-1354-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4939-1354-1
Springer New York Heidelberg Dordrecht London
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014942645
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To our spouses, children and grandchildren
Shelly, Gill, Nicholas, Rivka, Nir, Masha,
Abigail, Itamar, Sasha, Nina, Naomi
May they never know violence
v

Foreword
T he question of how a long-standing intimate violence affects the experience of
adult ageing is becoming increasingly pressing as the twenty-fi rst century pro-
gresses. We are entering an age where there are greater numbers of older people
around, who are living longer than previous generations, and where future genera-
tional groups will be approximately the same in size. The social issues that accumu-
late around this unprecedented historical phenomenon are many and varied and will
not only affect relations in the public domain, such as in workplaces, in politics, and
in the way we build our towns and cities, but also in more private domains, such as
in families and in other intimate relationships. At the time of writing, our under-
standing of what goes on between people in these situations is certainly underdevel-
oped, perhaps particularly so when it comes to phenomena such as elder abuse,
neglect, and violence between older partners or between themselves and their adult
children. Within the study of ageing, an understanding of families in general and
mistreatment in particular has centered on three positions. The fi rst has focussed on
confl ict, and particularly intergenerational confl ict. The second has emphasized
solidarity within families and between family members. The third has taken a mid-
dle position, arguing that intimate relationships are by their very nature sites of
ambivalent feelings. In other words that relations do not exclusively consist of con-
fl ict or of solidarity, but that we are all capable of both loving and hating in intimate
relationships and the trick is to be able to contain those feelings and live with the
fact without becoming stuck in any one position.
This book, by Tova Band-Winterstein and Zvi Eisikovits, makes a signifi cant
contribution to the understanding of the fi ne detail of how people live with long-
standing violence and will signifi cantly advance our understanding of how the
dynamics associated with such situations play themselves out. Until we can under-
stand these dynamics, it will not be possible to build lasting solutions that do justice
to the complex psychological, moral, and social dilemmas that they raise. As Lilly
Pincus and Christopher Dare remind us in their seminal work “Secrets in the
Family,” families are capable of maintaining a hidden reality which faces both
inwards and outwards. Secrets protect the status quo, but can exact considerable
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viii Foreword
damage on their members through the energy devoted to maintaining a false sense
of the real. Tova and Zvi point out that in situations of intimate violence participants
often have to balance normative public expectations with the actual behaviours and
relationships that they endure. Such situations can construct a claustrophobic life-
world where members maintain distance not only from each other but also from
their own sense of themselves. What the authors call the “we-ness,” the solidarity of
these deviant microcultures, can become a nightmarish scenario held together by
cycles of mutual blame, persecution, and evasion. When intimate violence is
infl ected by old age, these distortions can become increasingly intense as habitual
forms of dependence, power, and expectations of care become inverted. A new
series of public representations come into play along with a new set of strategies for
dealing with them. In contemporary societies the spectre that haunts such represen-
tations is dominated by social ageism—which simultaneously demeans the older
adult and places a moral expectation on intimates to care for them. Situations of
long-standing abuse are ones where the mismatch between these expectations and
personal experience can be particularly acutely felt. Tova and Zvi capture this very
well as they speak of a continually changing relationship between fi gure and ground,
between the management of impressions associated with old age and violence.
As the descendants of Holocaust survivors, Tova and Zvi fi nd themselves with a
particular sensitivity to the presence of the extended family despite its absence, and
to the struggle between continuity and discontinuity, often at the most intimate
level. Both have found themselves drawn to an issue that requires considered refl ec-
tion, ultimately resulting in a better life for the victims of violence. Tova’s back-
ground in social work, gerontology, and phenomenological thought has combined
with Zvi’s interest in the conceptual understanding of interpersonal violence and in
the application of qualitative methods to diffi cult social problems. This book marks
the culmination of a series of scientifi c papers, presentations, and research projects.
If it is possible to encourage empathic understanding of the familial and cross-
generational perspectives in the context of intimate violence, this book gives us a
wealth of pointers and examples. It helps us to understand a problem that many
would rather avoid, and signifi cantly deepens our insight into interpersonal pro-
cesses that are often lost in the either-or of confl ict or solidarity, victim or perpetra-
tor, the here and now, and the legacy of the long-standing. One of the eye-opening
moments in Pincus and Dare’s book is when a member of the family makes the
secrets explicit and discovers new ways of moving forward which are not trapped in
a cycle of endless repetition. Hopefully, we will all benefi t from the professional
experience and research knowledge that Tova and Zvi have brought together here.
Societies need to move forward and the more we can understand the processes that
not only maintain but also provide alternatives to the cycles of violence that they
describe, the better.
Melbourne, VIC, Australia Simon Biggs
May 2014
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the valuable support and guidance provided by the series
editors Prof. Donald H. Saklofske and Prof. Moshe Zeidner.
We would like to thank the outstanding staff at Springer for their professional
assistance throughout the process.
We would like to thank Dr. Gabriel Lanyi for his excellent editorial work. His
collegial and professional investment went far beyond editing.
We would like to thank Matan Goldblatt for his technical assistance and for his
invaluable availability to us throughout the writing and editing of the manuscript.
W e would like to thank our families for their patience and support during those
days and evenings we did not spend with them.
Last but not least, we thank the participants in our various studies for their candid
and authentic sharing of their stories. Without them, this book would not have been
possible.
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