Our overal aim is for there to be safer families so that children can be brought up as far as possible by both parents and their extended families, both maternal and paternal. To achieve this we view intensive work as being most effective in a closed group as early and as expediciously as possible. The process is to bring about changes in the behaviours, first level changes, the understanding of themselves 2nd level changes and understandings of the other sex and of their children’s needs, 3rd level changes. To these need adding greater understandings of relationships and the expectations of modern Britain. Failures to do this leave children separated from a parent and frequently either or both parents separated from their support networks. Carried out alongside proceedings helps those engaged at the timre within proceedings. Over 30 years years we have learnt many lessons and, of course, implemented the learning. These are some of the developments. Supervision of the work: initially by a consultenat psychiatrist for the first 23 years and later by qualified supervisors. Duration of the work: a closed group of maximum 8 clients facilitated by a male and female working cooperatively together, originally 2 weekends and 36 hours, now, following Covid to cope with clients from all across the UK, 8 online Zoom sessions plus 1 whole day face-to-face.
Our next course starts on Sunday June 21st – (the date here was corrected on 10th June). Other proposed start dates are here in – Contact details. The Face-to-Face is likely to be in London. Contact details to enrol are either 01604211445 or 07833143724. Or you can email: temperdv@gmail.com .
If the demand is there, an additonal course will be started on the Sunday as above and run on Sunday and Thursday evenings and an additional / alternative face-to-face day will be arranged.
The “cut-off” date for the next possible courses is usually the Friday before the start on the Sunday. By that time we would need to have completed a first meeting via Zoom to go through the application form. That meeting usually takes about an hour. For self-referrers later requiring a report wqe need an oversight of any court paperwork.
With clients now attending from all over the UK, England, Scotland and Wales, Zoom online plus 1 full day face-to-face has become the new way of working. Maximum group size is 8 people. In addition to this the is homework and after completing the face-to-face work there is regular weekly face-to-face support work.
People from different online groups can choose where and when to attend the face-to-face, all-day, Sunday session. The costs for the whole course (which had not changed for 10 years) were recently increased from £505 to £580. Once the face-to-face work has additionally been completed a concluding report is available at a further £100, if required. We accept payments by instalments.
For over 30 years we have supported, face-to-face, males and females who have exhibited abusive behaviours and their female or male partners. Our headline work is with the abusive person. We have completed 36 hours of therapeutically informed work with more than 1350 men and more than 120 women. We have extensively supported about 200 partners, about 120 females and 80 males for very varied periods of time.
The new on-line format contains all of the relevant content of the original course and the 1 day face-to-face addresses the experiential content, condensed into one day.
What is needed we assert is:1) emotional regulation – this might well include some anger management. 2) impulse control training, learning to respond rather than react 3) a much better understanding of intimate couple relationships, an understanding of primary declarative emotions,4) New skills for communication, which need to be learnt and practised and include active listening. (The work is about emotions and behaviours. 5) a focus needs to be maintained on each and every individual in his or her individual circumstances. 6) the process is to facilitate learning by raising curiosity and interest. It’s for that reason front-line workers are called facilitators 7) the whole process needs to be carried out to an ethos which involves “active listening”, “non-judgement”, be “non-punitive” and raise “curiosity”. Work needs to avoid engaging the fight/flight/freeze reponses in individuals which cause a cessation in, or inhibit, learning. Whenever possible the client’s “social engagement system” needs to be harnessed to facilitate learning.8) An attachment based model for working is likely to be the most productive model and fundamentals of which can be found here, along with reasons for the need for a much greater focus on sadness and grief. 9) Children are frequently the witnesses of and victims of the outcomes of very disturbing adult behaviours. 10) Worked at via experiential methods, work needs to be included which directly brings the individual participant into the “experienced world” of a child or children of the family and of course their partner. For clients from different cultures and clients with partners from a different culture to theirs an understanding of those differences may also be required.
Our ideas about how to engage with men and women needing the work is contained in this link which has backgrounds in the work of Stephen Porges and Polyvagal theory.
In the vast majority of couple relationships, Emotions drive behaviours, not a desire for“power and control”. Although, of course, when “invited” to fight for their children’s ongoing contact with them, parents’ behaviours in the arena of the adversarial system of the family courts very quickly become “competitive” and often the individuals are additionally motivated by strong feelings of grief and loss, or feelings of injustice or even in some few cases revenge. The individual much more frequently becomes driven by efforts to achieve “power and control”, effectively invited to do this by the adversarial nature of the family courts! “Attachment theory” plays a large role in some, even many cases. You can understand something about the impact on children from this link.
“Anger management” was originally thought to be what was needed. In 1996 Dr Joseph LeDoux, neuro-scientist, clearly established that emotions drive behaviours. Individuals need to learn how to “regulate” their emotions. Anger may well be one of them, but many cases are more about other primary, declarative, categorical emotions, fear, grief or disgust, or trust and other secondary, discrete emotions, shame, jealousy, envy and others. The guts of a risk assessment by a clinical psychologist outlining the problems of his client and the need not for the “accredited work” but for therapeutically informed work is here.
You can read about Dr H’s clinical psychology assessment of what one man needed in the Professionals page.
Before participants can be accepted onto our programme an initial assessment meeting lasting between 1 and 2 hours is required. Prior to Covid this meeting was face-to-face in the client’s own home or near to where the client lived. As this has become much less possible, even impossible because of the distances involved an interview via Zoom now replaces it.
There are a maximum of 8 places available per course. Each of our courses runs as a closed group. To complete the course in the earlier format took two weekends, usually one month apart. The total course time was 36 hours over the two weekends. Both halves of the work had to be completed in the same group and now all 8 online sessions have to be completed with the same group via the 8 x 3-hour zoom meetings plus homewwork. The one whole day face-to-face on a Sunday can be completed in a different group.
Safety for all concerned comes, we believe, in early and effective intervention. We always try to engage with the client as quickly as possible because of the potential risks involved to all concerned, children, mothers and fathers. Our target was to meet face-to-face with clients within 10 days of their initial contact with us. Via Zoom and What’s Ap these meetings now usually happen very soon after an individual’s first contact. About 10 days are needed to complete all the initial processes prior to taking part in a group course. Our experience is that last-minute arrivals can be impulsive and then the individual either does not join a group or settle into the work. But, if there is a space available, we will always do our best to engage with the late arriving individual.
Criticisms of the Temper, Heart of MIddle England model have been these:
“Behaviour only changes slowly”: perhaps true for addictive substance abuse behaviours – but ask yourself how quickly the nation’s behaviours changed the day after lock-down for covid arrived! Ask yourself how radically a woman’s behaviours change upon the birth of her child.
“The course is too cheap!” Quality confused by cost?
“It also works with female abusers” 35% plus of domestic abuse is by women! Similar emotions drive much of a female’s behaviour. In this generation children are not infrequently brought up by a single parent. One consequence of very many is that they do not learn much about the ways of the missing parent.
“It doesn’t have a female partner supporting element.” It does, and a male partner supporting element too, although these are not high profile because our main work is focussed on the abusive person and, just as in very many cases within the family court a “conflict of interest” gets imported into the organisation as well as the potential for compromising confidentiality. Hence we support a partner via another source.