55-2 A Case Study of the Multi-Selves Conflicts Coordination Theory and Its Intervention Program to a Male Batterer Who Values the Chinese Face and Family

Charles Chen Kuang-Hui Yeh 
National Taiwan University National Taiwan University


 
This research analyzes the process of how the Multi-Selves Conflicts Coordination Theory and its intervention program facilitates a Taiwanese male perpetrator "King" who committed marital partner violence, violated the domestic law of Taiwan. He was referred from the district court to stop his physical violence, and to achieve the multi-selves balance and marital harmony. We modified Dr. Yang K.-S.'s Chinese Four Self Theory and Dr. Chen, P.-H.'s Self-Relation Coordination Counseling Model, Self-Coordination Theory and Process to develop the Multi-Selves Conflicts Coordination Theory (MSCCT) in the couple relationship counseling. The MSCCT is proposed to explain that the conflicts of the male violent perpetrator King's multi-selves may cause marital conflicts, spoken violence, and even severe physical violence. King wanted to play both the role of father-familistic self and the role of husband-relational self simultaneously. However, the conflicts of these two selves leaded to nervous, anxious, angry, hateful emotions, which may cause the marital conflicts and severe physical violence. The MSCCT intervention program focuses to inhibit the strong aspect of self and to facilitate the weak aspect of self to a balance condition. A qualitative research approach of case study method is conducted to analyze the client King's crime documents, the content of protection command, the transcripts of 10 session's group therapy videos, two individual interviews videos after the group therapy, one telephone follow-up interview after 6 months, and the research notes of the therapist. The results show that, during the therapeutic process, the client King was aware of his inner conflicts of multi-selves related to different relational roles gradually. The therapeutic aims were to inhibit his three strong selves on individualistic, familistic, and other-oriented aspects, and facilitate the weakest relational self. It was found that the client King increased his empathy toward his wife. The previous order of his multi-selves, which were familistic self, individualistic self, other-oriented self, and relational self, was changed to relational self, familistic self, individualistic self, and other-oriented self. The multi-selves of the client King became harmonious than before. The coping behavior toward marital conflicts of the client King changed, marital violence vanished, the multi-selves of the client King remained balance harmoniously even after 6 months of the multi-selves conflicts coordination intervention program. The main factors that may cause the change of the client King may come from the multi-selves conflicts coordination intervention program, the client King's personal positive traits, and group therapeutic dynamics. The researcher discusses and suggests the ideas of indigenous concepts, such as the Chinese face and the familism that may play a vital role in the therapeutic process of reduced marital violence. The MSCCT and its intervention program, as a new prevention way for marital violence, provides to all different kinds of therapists, social workers, and other mental health professional workers. In the near future, the program may be used to different kinds of domestic violence, such as parent to child, man to old parents, siblings to each other, heterosexual intimate partners to each other, and same-sex intimate partners to each other. The intervention program may be used not only in the group therapy context but also in the individual therapy context. The linkage between the male violent perpetrator's inner multi-selves conflicts and his marital violence behaviors is obvious in this case study. In the helping profession position, if the therapist can help the male violent perpetrator to achieve a balance condition of his inner multi-selves, martial conflicts and severe physical violence may be prevented, in turn leading to that all of the potential victims, such as women, child, and teens could be protected.

Keywords
Chinese self and personality, counseling and psychotherapy, domestic violence, indigenous psychology, marital violence.

Download
Download