In this case, the partner’s poor ability to handle conflict was complicated by alcohol consumption. (n1) The case reported the CCMT KASH supported her ability to cope with this situation, helping her understand and have empathy with her partner and promote her own emotional regulation. This indicates both a potential strength and weakness. First, CCMT KASH, while not sufficient in itself for more complex family issues, can be effectively integrated into programs addressing complex family issues like alcoholism. Such integration could greatly enhance the effectiveness of those programs.
Second, other research has found that increased empathy and forgiveness can actually perpetuate situations of injustice or violence (Saguy et al 2009) (n2), and that this is also a risk in situations of family conflict and violence (Tsang and Stanford 2006) (n3). In this situation, increased empathy and forgiveness for her partner helped the case remain in the relationship without the relationship being changed. Alcohol consumption and verbal aggression continued. Another case exhibited a similar tendency: increased empathy and understanding, while leading to several transformative interactions, also increased the case’s tolerance for some unhealthy family patterns, including lack of mutual respect.
***Notes1) In this particular case, the interview indicated that drunkenness was often the occasion of family conflict and increased verbal aggression, but there were not patterns of chronic abusive behavior, including no indication of physical violence.2) The study by Saguy et al (2009) explored the effects of empathy on intergroup conflict. Specifically, “beyond improving attitudes, positive intergroup contact may also lead disadvantaged-group members to attend less to group inequality. These outcomes may both contribute to more optimistic expectations that the out-group will behave fairly—expectations that were associated with lower levels of support for social change among disadvantaged-group members….” (no page). That a similar dynamic can occur in family conflict and violence is attested by Tsang and Stanford (see following note).3) Tsang and Stanford (2006) noted that empathy and forgiveness can especially be deleterious in cases of coercive controlling violence: “Regardless of the causal direction, these data illustrate a vicious cycle between dominant batterers who continually elicit empathy from forgiving women, raising the possibility of tolerance for sustained abuse” (14).
