Free Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men by Lundy Bancroft

In fact, most people have at least occasional times when they are too angry, out of proportion to the actual event or beyond what is good for their health. Some give themselves ulcers and heart attacks and hypertension. But they don’t necessarily abuse their partners. In Chapter 3, we’ll take a look at why abusive men tend to be so angry—and why at the same time their anger isn’t really the main problem.
    The abuser’s explosive anger can divert your attention from all the disrespect, irresponsibility, talking over you, lying, and other abusive and controlling behaviors that he exhibits even at times when he isn’t especially upset. Is it anger that causes such a high proportion of abusers to cheat on their partners? Does an abuser’s rage cause him to conceal for years the fact that a former girlfriend went into hiding to get away from him? Is it a form of explosiveness when your partner pressures you into dropping your friendships and spending less time with your siblings? No. Perhaps his loudest, most obvious, or most intimidating forms of abuse come out when he’s angry, but his deeper pattern is operating all the time.
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    M YTH #8:
    He’s crazy. He’s got some mental illness that he should be medicated for.
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    When a man’s face contorts in bitterness and hatred, he looks a little insane. When his mood changes from elated to assaultive in the time it takes to turn around, his mental stability seems open to question. When he accuses his partner of plotting to harm him, he seems paranoid. It is no wonder that the partner of an abusive man would come to suspect that he was mentally ill.
    Yet the great majority of my clients over the years have been psychologically “normal.” Their minds work logically; they understand cause and effect; they don’t hallucinate. Their perceptions of most life circumstances are reasonably accurate. They get good reports at work; they do well in school or training programs; and no one other than their partners—and children—thinks that there is anything wrong with them. Their value system is unhealthy, not their psychology.
    Much of what appears to be crazy behavior in an abuser actually works well for him. We already met Michael, who never broke his own stuff, and Marshall, who did not believe his own jealous accusations. In the pages ahead, you will encounter many more examples of the method behind the abuser’s madness. You will also learn how distorted his view of his partner is—which can make him appear emotionally disturbed—and where those distortions spring from.
    The most recent research shows that even in physically violent abusers the rate of mental illness is not high. Several of my brutal battering clients have had psychological evaluations, and only one of them was found to have a mental illness. At the same time, some of my clients whom I have believed to be truly insane have not necessarily been among the most violent. Research does indicate that the most extreme physical batterers—the ones who choke their partners to unconsciousness, who hold guns to their heads, who stalk and kill—have increased rates of mental illness. But there is no particular mental health condition that is typical of these severe batterers; they can have a range of diagnoses, including psychosis, borderline personality, manic depression, antisocial personality, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and others. (And, even among the most dangerous abusers, there are many who do not show clear psychiatric symptoms of any kind.)
    How can all these different mental illnesses cause such similar behavioral patterns? The answer is, they don’t. Mental illness doesn’t cause abusiveness any more than alcohol does. What happens is rather that the man’s psychiatric problem interacts with his abusiveness to form a volatile combination. If he is severely depressed, for example, he may stop caring about the consequences his actions may cause him to suffer, which can increase the danger