Welcome back to the EMDR Doctor podcast. I'm Dr. Caroline Lloyd, and today I thought I would chat about a really useful tool that I've just learned about a couple of weeks ago. I attended , , an ongoing education talk by our wonderful MDR. The EMDR Association of Australia, which is our peak body for EMDR in Australia.
We had a full day of lectures and it was really great to hear about some of the innovations that are happening in the field and some new research and some new ideas. And this particular one I found was really helpful and I've been talking about it with some of my clients. So at Cabrini, which is the Women's Mental Health Unit where I work in Elstonwick in Victoria, we have many women who have been traumatized by men.
Sad, but it's a fact of life. Most of women's trauma is perpetrated by men.
And one of the big topics we talk about often is violence against women. Now, I have to say here that I work mainly with women. Occasionally in my private practice. I do work with men. Uh, and certainly men can be subjected to violence by women, but it is really the minority. The vast majority of victim survivors of family violence or intimate partner violence are women.
The terrible facts are that in Australia, one woman dies every nine days at the hands usually of her partner. Women are more likely to experience intimate partner violence when they are pregnant, when they're young, if they're indigenous or Torres Strait Islander. If they are disabled, if they belong to the L-G-B-T-I-Q.
Community migrant or refugee women are more likely to be victims of violence than other women. So a lot of the more marginalized women tend to be more prone to being victims of violence. I. So if a woman has experienced violence in the past, she's more likely to experience it in the future.
And in my practice, I work really hard to help women understand the cycle of violence and how they can recognize the early signs and try and increase their sense of autonomy and self-esteem so that they can leave a violent relationship if they need to before it becomes impossible. And this tool I'm gonna tell you about is really helpful in understanding the process and the progress of violence.
So many people here have already heard about the cycle of violence, but not everybody. So I'm gonna start there. So for those of you who are listening to the podcast, rather than watching on YouTube, I'll try and explain the kind of the visual of the cycle of violence. If you are watching on YouTube, I'm gonna put up a bit of a diagram of it to help you explain.
So if you're listening, just imagine a, a circle, which at the top has the explosion and has arrows pointing around the circle to the different phases. So at the top of the circle we have the explosion. And this is pretty self-explanatory, so, so this is when the man loses control, the temper explodes.
There is shouting name calling in. Assaults. There's threats of violence, there's actual violence hitting, pushing, kicking, , holding the woman against the wall, strangling, throttling, et cetera. So this is the really obvious part. It's self-evident what violence is. And sometimes the police get called.
Sometimes the woman goes to hospital if she's lucky. The woman's very frightened and scared and often hurt. The kids are petrified and there's chaos. So what happens after this? Usually overnight, things calm down, and then the, the second phase, uh, comes along. So. Usually the following day. , The next part of the cycle is the regret and the remorse part.
The man is filled with regret. He apologizes. This is where the, I'm so sorry. It will never happen again. I can't believe that I did that. I was just under so much stress. You made me do it because I love you so much. Please, please don't leave me. Okay, so there's lots of apologies. There's lots of regret, remorse promises and this, so that's the second phase.
So the explosion, and then the remorse and regret phase, and this is followed by a honeymoon phase. So often, , there are presents, there's chocolates, there's. Flowers. , He might wash the dishes. He might do some h housework. Everything is just roses. He's proving himself to be the man of your dreams.
We'll be together forever. I'll make you so happy. No one else can love you as much as I do. This feels very nice and this validates the woman's decision to stay. See, here's the man that I fell in love with. He's a good man. He truly is
Then at some stage a little bit later, things shift again. There is an increased intention. Things might be difficult at work, or money might be tight. He gets edgy, irritable, she gets nervous. This is the walking on eggshells phase. She thinks she knows what's coming, but she rationalizes it. He's been so good recently.
It's just that I did that thing. I better be careful. I won't put a foot wrong. I'll make the kids behave perfectly. I'll keep things just right. People pleasing for her life. This phase can feel excruciating walking on eggshells. Lots of tension just waiting for what she knows or dreads to be coming next.
For some women, this phase is the worst. The buildup of tension can be excruciating. There's no escaping the coming violence. And then we get the explosion again, the rage, the violence, the injuries, and then that's followed by the regret, the remorse phase. I'm so sorry. Then there's the honeymoon phase. No one loves you like I do.
The walking on eggshells phase, the buildup of tension, and then back to the explosion. Now this cycle can happen really slowly with an explosion, maybe once a year, maybe at Christmas time, which is a common time of great tension for a lot of families, or it can happen really, really rapidly. This cycle can be happening every day, or even worse, multiple times a day.
So when I tell women about this cycle, if they've lived it, they relate to it really thoroughly. They're often really relieved because they can see the pattern and how it played out in their relationship, and then it becomes not their fault. It's more understandable, and if they can understand it through this framework, then they can take that knowledge into the next relationship.
They can recognize the warning signs and hopefully prevent it happening again. . So the new information that I learned recently a few weeks ago was presented by a very clever psychologist called Anne Carrington, who talks about her model, which is the vortex of violence. So with the vortex. If you imagine instead of a simple circle, you have like a whirlwind or a tornado kind of a diagram.
The cycle of violence happens again and again like a tornado, and it sort of sucks everything in and it spins off. It spins off the good things and it sucks in the bad things. So what the vortex of violence spins off. Is things like hope, finances, security, health. You know, woman can lose her car.
Sometimes her teeth, she can have broken bones. She loses her security, she loses her peace of mind. Sometimes she loses her family, her friends, her job, her confidence, her energy, her trust, her dreams, her choices, maybe even her children. And what the woman is left with at the center of the vortex is the fear.
Entrapment helplessness, powerlessness, hurt, poverty, and she ends up a shell of herself and is less able to get out and be independent and free of the violence again. So this vortex of violence just is a great explanation of what that vortex sucks in and what it repels, what it expels from life. So if this is feeling very close to home for you, please reach out to your GP , you can call 1-800-RESPECT one three Yarn for Indigenous People.
There's the Kids Helpline. There's the Wire, which is the Women's Information and Referral Exchange, or if you are in an emergency. Please do call triple zero, and why am I talking about this as an EMDR practitioner? Well, firstly, all therapists should be educated about this.
They should know what the cycle of violence is. They should know what the vortex of violence is, and we should be able to talk to our clients about it. We can help with supporting the exit from the relationship. Or recovery afterwards. And some EMDR therapists do work with men to help them reduce their anger and regain some control over their emotions and understand why they have previously felt the need to be violent and they can really help to, , break that cycle and, , break that violent approach to relationships.
And EMDR in particular can help with, with recovery in terms of regaining those things that were lost, the things that were spun off in the vortex of violence and help rebuild that sense of self and capacity and confidence that's lost to the violence. And we might do that, like any trauma work in taking the fear and the grief and the anger, the rage, the sadness out of those very difficult memories and helping build up the positive, build up the adaptive beliefs of I'm safe, I'm lovable, I'm strong.
I have a right to protection. I can choose whom to trust. And this can help to future proof women so that they feel more able to protect themselves and get out of any violent relationship and live a life of peace and calm just like we all deserve. So I'd love to hear if any of this has resonated for you or if you've found it helpful.
Please do. Feel free to comment below if you're watching on YouTube or if you're listening to the podcast. Feel free to email me at [email protected] au. Or if you'd like more resources, perhaps have a look in the show notes. I've listed a few things there that may be able to help or please reach out if you would like me to cover a particular topic in this podcast.
I am also about to open up some spots in my week for consultation for EMDR practitioners. So if you happen to be an EMDR practitioner and would like to, , receive consultation with me, then. Please feel free to email me [email protected] au and we can figure out a time to suit. Alright, I hope that's been helpful.
I will talk to you again next week. In the meantime, take good care. Bye for now.
