According to Norwegian psychologist Per Isdal, who has worked with people who use violence for over 35 years, violence is usually not a sign of inherent evil but learned behaviour, often rooted in childhood. Over the course of his long career, he has seen that change is only possible when society offers support not only to victims, but also to people who use violence.
It was precisely this understanding that led Per Isdal and like-minded colleagues to establish Europe’s first centre for men who use violence in 1987: Alternative to Violence (Norwegian: Alternativ Til Vold). Today, the organisation operates 15 centres across Norway and employs more than 100 therapists and psychologists. Isdal shared his experience with Estonian employers at the end of last year during a visit linked to the initiative Employers Against Domestic Abuse.
According to Isdal, who has now worked with violent clients for more than 35 years, the creation of such a centre in Norway in the 1980s provoked mixed reactions. “There was quite a lot of scepticism along the lines of: who would voluntarily come to you and admit that they are violent? But today we know that men do come when a crisis hits, and when they realise that their actions come at a very high price: their partner wants a divorce or has gone to a shelter. Fear of losing their children and family is the main reason they seek help,” Isdal noted.
“Unfortunately, most people in broken relationships return to their violent partner. That is why we wanted to address the root cause of violence – the people who behave violently themselves,” Isdal explained, highlighting why working only with victims is not enough to break patterns of domestic abuse.
Powerlessness versus control
In Isdal’s view, violent behaviour does not reflect inherent evil. According to the Norwegian psychologist, only a very small proportion of people genuinely enjoy hurting others, and most of his clients do not belong to this group. They are people who may be empathetic friends and colleagues, but whose inability to resolve problems without violence becomes particularly evident in close relationships.
The roots of violence often lie in childhood. “Most of my clients experienced or witnessed violence at home as young boys. Violence is learned behaviour,” he said, adding that these individuals grew up without a sense of safety. Many of them want to change but do not know how, because they were never taught how to cope with their emotions.
Using violence is often the only way they know how to release emotional tension. “Violence allows them to end a conflict situation – not resolve it, but end it. It gives them a sense of control over the situation, as opposed to the powerlessness they experience during conflict,” Isdal explained.
Change begins with acknowledging the problem
Very often, people who behave in this way do not admit to themselves that they are violent. “Even many men who walk through the door of our centre – a door with a sign above it saying ‘Alternative to Violence’ – do not initially admit this to themselves. My task is not to tell them that they are lying to themselves and to others, but to listen to them and try to understand how they make sense of violence, their behaviour and their actions,” Isdal said.
In his view, this kind of self-deception, or the normalisation of violence, can be explained more broadly through attitudes linked to masculinity. Boys are often raised with the belief that hitting someone ‘more vulnerable’ than oneself is a sign of weakness, and that a ‘real man’ does not use violence. Or, conversely, they are taught that a real man is dominant, forceful and aggressive. Against this backdrop, acknowledging violence would mean admitting personal weakness for many of these men, making honest self-reflection particularly difficult.
For this reason, working with violent men requires openness, curiosity, a great deal of empathy and understanding. Isdal believes this is the only way to gradually move towards a point where a perpetrator wants to and learns to deal with difficult situations in ways other than violence. “Many of the men I meet actually feel shame and guilt – and that is a very good place from which to begin the journey away from violence. Pain and discomfort are the driving forces of change, pushing people to question their existing patterns.”
A means of demonstrating power
Although Per Isdal’s practical work is directed primarily at men, he does not consider violence to be a gender-based phenomenon. Rather, he sees it as behaviour linked to power and position, through which one party seeks to assert superiority. Just as a man may use violence against a woman – or vice versa – a parent, whether mother or father, may use violence against a child. For this reason, the psychologist considers it crucial that violence is discussed and learned to be recognised already at school age.
However, this requires using the correct language when talking about violence, which Isdal sees as a broader societal problem. “I hear that even therapists sometimes use words like ‘conflict’ instead of ‘violence’. We normalise violence, and we are uncomfortable using the word ‘violence’,” he observed.
According to Isdal, we usually dare to talk about violence only when it is visible and physically provable – when there are bruises or injuries on the body. Psychological abuse tends to be framed as a mutual argument or quarrel. This kind of minimisation creates the impression that it is not something serious, helps violence remain invisible, and diffuses the perpetrator’s responsibility. Yet in real life, we know that psychological abuse can cause immense harm, including leading to suicide.
“Psychological abuse can, in some cases, be one of the most severe forms of violence. In addition, we should talk much more about sexual violence, economic abuse and cyber abuse.” According to Isdal, clearly naming and making visible these different forms of domestic abuse in society is the first step towards preventing violence.