Editorial comment on Marinated in violence (fragment)
Robin Johnson
From Housing Care and Support Vol 17.4
Our last paper is similarly a narrative account, and by one of the great pioneers in the field, Erin Pizzey, who founded - almost by mistake, according to her account here - the first ever women's refuge network, in London in the 1970s. Pizzey is a true original; and her account – although here we describe it in more research language as a case study of development and action learning - must stand as a reminder that truly innovative work does not start with any evidence base, but with pressing needs.
Likewise innovation may not always arise from any well-developed theory, which tends to follow only long after the frenetic turmoil of learning from experience - what Schoen, the original theorist of reflective practice, called “knowledge in action”, in "The Swamp" (1995). In fact, in her other writings, Pizzey (2011) has been highly critical of those who approached such issues via a too theoretical – or ideological – lens. (There is a particular irony and paradox here, in that the very ideology that she adamantly rejected – marxist feminism –argued that that “correct” theory only comes from those in the teeth of “the struggle”; and Pizzey was certainly that.)
In the years since Pizzey's original work, there has been a huge change of heart within mental health circles, and it is no longer seen as appropriate, or even acceptable, for mental health services to simply shrug off the difficulties in living that many such people have, with the “dustbin diagnosis” of personality disorder. Now we are seeing new services attempting to engage and meet these chaotic needs, and something or a revival of the thinking behind post-war therapeutic community as a treatment modality well suited to this client group. It seems particularly then to hear again the testimonial and the unique voice of one of the great pioneers in creating the refuge movement.
In this context, one particular suggestion, derived from her extensive experience both of her own background in a violent family, and her work with women – and some men – who have been victims of their own and others' violent histories, is the possible value of what she calls “ therapeutic chaos” - the apparent need for services and for social and emotional environments they inhabit to have just the right amount of turmoil and disruption for disruptive individuals to be absorbed, their violence deflected and deflated, and some new more healing process to then come though.
It must be hard to confirm any such concepts or findings with anything like formal research. Rather than being the kind of case study with an explicit research-theoretical question to explore, as advocated by Pauly and her colleagues, we have the opposite end of the action learning spectrum. Is this, then, a research paper at all? Does it really belong in an academic journal? But this does not mean we can simply ignore that suggestion.
In the meantime, if the intention of research is to have impact - and if the intention of a publisher is to publish research with impact - it is essential that this is not all simply couched in a language and style that people in frontline work cannot relate to. We hope to see further papers in future from Ms Pizzey, now looking at the relevance of the Chiswick Womens' Aid's iconoclastic dynamism to other models of social therapy, such as the therapeutic community, and other such positive or 'enabling' environments.
Certainly we can now better recognise the havoc of past trauma in the genesis of personality disorder; and the extent to which contemporary psychology and neuroscience now endorses the view that recapitulated trauma may lie at the roots of some of DV. There is something important in Pizzey's account; and it is for the research community to see if it can ever hope to find what that is......
...... Finally, with Erin Pizzey's account, we see the central role of the narratives and learning journeys of truly pioneering individuals, and a reminder of the importance, in a world dominated by evidence-based policy, of trailblazers, provocateurs, and simply learning from the needs of the situation.
RJ, Nov 2014