Prone to Violence

by Erin Pizzey, Jeff Shapiro

Everyone has heard of the "battered wife" - the innocent victim of someone else's violence. But not every woman who suffers physical or mental abuse is simply a victim. In the authors' long work experience, there are countless women - and men - who are actually "prone to violence". These are the unfortunate victims of their own deep-seated addiction to violence.

They learn to use violence as a strategy for survival from the early moments of their abused childhoods. The ability to find pleasure in pain is all part of their tragic inheritance.

This book discusses the grim addiction behind all other addictions, and draws on ten years of fieldwork among people who carry with them from birth the seeds of their own destruction.

The case histories are taken from all walks of life - while gross physical abuse occurs more often in working-class families, the sophisticated mental violence of the middle classes can be far more damaging and long-lasting.

This book is for anyone who wants to explore this critical area of human relationships. Hopefully it does not merely expose the roots of a problem, but also attempts to find some solutions.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology

252 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

Reviews

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Erin Pizzey was a pioneer in domestic violence activism who established and lived in refuges in England for women and children from violent homes in the 1970's. She discusses the recidivism of many refugees, and the impediments to support provision presented by overseers and social workers. For reporting that men can also be victims of domestic violence, she was subjected to protests, pickets, and death threats from radical feminists and moved her family out of the country. The comments which were apparently controversial represented the least of the content of the book, which is almost entirely composed of the stories of the refugees themselves.

[Expatriarch · Rating 1 out of 5]

Prone to violence establishes the idea that domestic violence is caused by individuals attracted to victimization. It argues that the dynamics are caused by two kinds of personalities, cortisol addicted personalities and adrenaline addicted personalities. That these personalities often seek out the other to account for deficiencies in each other. These chemical addictions are ultimately what make domestic violence situations hard for victims to escape and their perpetrators unable to stop.

Such reductive and unscientific views have obviously, not stood the test of time and Prone to Violence stands as a testament to how even someone who worked heavily in the field of domestic violence can still be prone to blaming victims for their situation and excusing the violence of their perpetrators.

Chapter 4 which focuses heavily on the relationship of Gerald and Eunice contains one of the most brutal, savage and stomach churning accounts of violence. Gerald is described as repeatedly inflicting despicable violent acts upon Eunice, inserting objects, causing bleeding and tearing. When Erin met with Gerald he complained these sessions involved him beating her "for hours and that used to exhaust him because he had to put in a hard day's work the next day". Erin describes the couple as "two really nice people with plenty of good potential".

Erin's sympathy also extends to Peter Sutcliffe, the prolific serial killer dubbed "the Yorkshire Ripper", whom she points out was "called a monster, a beast, inhuman" but asks "how can we condemn a murderer when we finance opera and film which celebrate identical events?".

Erin's moral panic philosophy, is a thankfully disregarded relic of bygone thinking that has sought to blame the evils of the world firmly on video games, dungeons and dragons, violent movies, controversial literature and paganism throughout the ages. Much like Prone to Violence itself, it is unscientific speculation based on the overconfidence of charismatic pulpit thumpers charged with a belief that everyone else is wrong and only they know the truth.

Thankfully the intervening decades have been filled with many interesting and revealing studies into domestic violence by researchers interested in uncovering the complex dynamics, leaving Prone to Violence as nothing more than a historical curiosity of how far we used to excuse, and defend male perpetrators of violence.

[Carol Mottershead · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the first book I've read by Erin Pizzey and has been a real eye-opener into her world of dealing with domestic violence. I'd heard violence justified in various ways in the past, but never appreciated the difference between a battered wife and a violent-prone battered wife, a repeater.
Like many I suppose, I believed it that women returned to their violent partners because they didn't have any alternative, there was nowhere and no one to help them get away, but Erin has made me see that it's like an adrenalin junkie, it's like an addition... to understand it's an addiction and to own upto it is the only true way to change. The work of Women's Aid should have been given more support than it received, people need to understand that it's not as cut and dried as they may believe. Violence runs deeper, but who wants the responsibility that Erin took on! She has been a social reformer, unique to her time. Well done Erin!Prone To Violence

[Ga · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book about the psychology of people who are addicted to violence, by the lady who started off women's refuges, such as Women's Aid.

Case studies and psychology behind why many abused partners keep going back to their abusers.