CMM and the co-construction of domestic violence

Millions of women experience the horrors of domestic violence every year. Rarely, however, is abuse between intimate partners looked at as a co-constructed communication activity. This article examines domestic violence from the perspective of the Coordinated Management of Meaning theory, thus highlighting CMM’s central thesis that social events are made and re-created through processes of human communication. Paralleling the evolution of CMM from an interpretive to a practical theory, domestic violence is described in terms of how it is created, sustained, and terminated over the course of an abusive relationship. The article then focuses on the practical application of this analysis in terms of “reframing,” an intervention technique that empowers relational participants to interpret and change patterns of communication in which violence and abuse are made. The shift from theoretical description to intervention is an evolutionary progression that requires translating CMM terms and concepts into actions that lead to transformation and contextual reconstruction. To that end, the article describes domestic violence using CMM concepts, including hierarchy of contexts, resources and practices, and logical force, and demonstrates how these can be (and were) used by theorists/ practitioners to intervene in the lives of those impacted by domestic violence. One such episode involving one of the authors (Nalla Sundarajan) and a female abuse victim is utilized as a case study illustration. The Theory of the Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM) has undergone significant transformation since it was first introduced in 1976. One of the more important developments was the move from an interpretive/descriptive theory of human communication to a practical/ prescriptive theory of communication action (Cronen, 1995; W. B. Pearce, 1989; W. B. Pearce & Cronen, 1980; W.B. Pearce & Pearce, 2000b). Like all theoretical transformations, this move from one approach to another did not entail abandoning what had come before. Thus, the earlier interpretive focus of CMM has now been integrated into a larger and more robust practical orientation. The implications here are profound when we consider the role of communication theorists and what they hope to accomplish as practitioners who seek not only to describe patterns of communication, but to change them as well. This article delineates the transformation of CMM from a descriptive to a practical theory using domestic violence as a case study. The purpose is twofold. The first is to provide a descriptive account of how domestic violence is communicatively co-constructed by participants in abusive relationships. Typically, domestic violence research has focused on the reasons why men abuse their intimate partners and why women continue to stay in abusive relationships (Gondolf, 1999). Within this approach there is a concerted attempt to establish causal relationships between variables, such as acculturation, alcohol, and substance abuse. Given that the focus is on the causes of domestic violence, extant research is naturally geared toward finding the real solutions (Gondolf, 1999). CMM offers a different perspective; one that treats abuse as a developmental 46 Human Systems Nalla Sundarajan and Shawn Spano pattern of social interaction that is achieved in and through processes of communication. Rather than asking why abuse happens or seeking to discover its causes, CMM asks how relationships become abusive. In this way, CMM establishes a framework for treating domestic violence as an emergent property that is co-constructed in conversations between the participants in abusive relationships. The second purpose of the article, which parallels CMM’s move to a practical theory, is to describe an intervention technique—reframing—that practitioners, counselors, and action researchers can use to change predictable abuse patterns and ultimately prevent domestic violence from occurring. If abuse is something that is made in and through patterns of communication, then an intervention approach based on this perspective is an appropriate context for investigation. We are unaware, however, of any intervention models or programs that adopt a distinctly social, communicative perspective like CMM. In fact, almost all domestic violence intervention models focus on the individual characteristics of the man in the relationship, and are geared towards changing his abusive behavior towards his partner (Breines & Gordon, 1983; Pence & Paymer, 1993). As such, they do not fully recognize the co-constructed nature of domestic violence and the need for intervention strategies that are focused on changing patterns of communication rather than individual behaviors and attitudes. This might help explain why existing intervention models have had only limited success. For example, approximately 30% of men who complete a state certified batterer programs in the United States ended up committing abuse again (Gondolf, 1999). Other longitudinal studies show that long-term success rates in men to be quite low, and that other forms of abuse, such as verbal and emotional aggression, increase as a means to compensate for the suspension of physical abuse (Gondolf, 1999). We believe that a CMM-based approach to domestic violence can lead to the development of alternative, and perhaps more effective, intervention strategies and techniques. The nature of domestic violence The seriousness and horror of domestic violence is well documented. According to surveys by the U. S. Department of Justice (March 1998), just over 1,800 murders in 1996 were attributable to intimates. Over 75% of the victims were female. The same survey also indicated that women were the victims of 840,000 incidents of rape, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault at the hands of an intimate. Battering is the single most common cause of emergency room treatment for women, and accounts for 25% of female suicide attempts and 4,000 homicides each year (Holtz & Furniss, 1993, p.47). Negative consequences to women include physical injury, increased risk for homicide, various psychological problems such as fear, terror, low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, helplessness, shame, feelings of inferiority, increased risk for suicide, and psycho-physiological complaints such as fatigue, backache, headache, and insomnia (Arias, 1999). In addition to these symptoms, Walker (1984) suggests that abused women show many of the same symptoms that are shown to comprise a type of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) frequently associated with soldiers who have participated in combat. The symptoms of PTSD include intense fear and anxiety that is borne from the uncertainty of being alive from one CMM and the co-construction of domestic violence 47 moment to the next. Since abuse is extensive, and physically and emotionally affects thousands of women each year, the process by which abuse becomes a normal part of some relationships is important to understand. Theorizing domestic violence CMM posits that the events and objects of our social worlds are the products of social actions whose continued existence depends on their reconstruction in patterns of communication (Cronen, 1995; W. B. Pearce, 1989; W. B. Pearce & Cronen, 1980). This perspective considers all forms of human activity as a recurring reflexive process in which resources are expressed in practices and in which practices (re)construct resources. The term “resources” refers to a person’s experiences, images, memories, and stories (W. B. Pearce, 1989). “Practices” are actions, referring to any situated collaborative accomplishment of an event, such as a conversation, a family picnic, an abusive or a violent act (W. B. Pearce, 1989). The existing resources guide the present conversation or action, and the memory of this conversation becomes a part of future resources that will guide future events and conversations. In the case of domestic violence, it makes sense to assume that couples bring resources into their relationships that initially sanctions relational abuse. For instance, most men in intimate relationships would not abuse, either emotionally or physically, the woman they love, and most women would not tolerate or excuse the abuse. So how does violence become a “normal” part of some relationships? Resources that a person possesses lead a person to interpret an event in a certain way, to observe certain things and overlook others, and this necessitates certain conclusions because within one’s resources the event may seem unequivocal. W. B. Pearce (1989) defines this as the logical force that shapes and directs everyday events and conversations. The actions that the actors engage in are based upon their “interlocking sets of perceived moral obligations” (p. 26) of what they should do in a particular situation. “Perceived moral obligations” revolve around a “logic of meaning and action” where the conversant feels that some actions are mandatory, optional, or prohibited. Resources implicitly define a logic of meaning and action that provides the framework for understanding what is legitimate, obligatory, prohibited, and so on. This idea is particularly significant in understanding domestic violence. For example, Infante, et al. (1989) concluded that verbal aggression was used when more constructive skills (resources) for dealing with conflict, such as the ability to argue and verbalize feelings of frustration and anger, were lacking. Zillman (1984) found that when predisposing conditions exist, such as unexpressed anger from previous situations, verbal aggression can lead to physical violence. In CMM language, this would be a progression of abuse when past memories of abuse or familiar scripts and patterns are again expressed, or when they become (re) constructed practices of already existing resources. By examining the resources of the perpetrator and of the victim, we can begin to understand