Materials
Time-Out
Time-Out Information for Partners
When Your Partner Blocks Your Path
Program
1. In this New Member session, we recommend an exercise in which all group members are split up into dyads, interviewing each other about basic information only. This should take 10 minutes, maximum. This is not the time to ask about or report information about the offense that led to their assignment to this program: Please pair up with one of the group members next to you. You each will have a few minutes to get some basic information from your “partner”: What is his name? Is he currently married or together with his partner? What is her name? Does he have kids? What are their names and ages? Where is he from? What kind of work does he do? What are his interests and hobbies? What do you expect to get out of this group? What do you think you can add to the group? You don’t need to find out any details about how they ended up here in the group. We save that for much later. Then you will introduce your partner to the group. At the end of this, and throughout the early group sessions, group leaders should seek ways to establish connections among group members, such as members who are parents or members who are from similar parts of the country.
Each partner then reports back to the group at large, “introducing” his partner to the rest of the group. Even if many of the men have already been through this exercise, they should pair up with a new partner and go through it again.
Remember that, because of intermittent attendance, many of the group members may be new to each other even if this is not their first session.
It is usually best to keep personal abuse and violence information to a minimum in the new group member’s first session.
2. TIME-OUT
a. Introduce the idea of having a plan for episodes when it feels like behavior is getting out of control. This requires personal responsibility—to recognize the signals and to act responsibly in those situations. The odds of being successful with this plan are much higher when people have thought about it, planned for it, and rehearsed it in advance.
b. Review the Time-Out technique: The technique does not help the couple resolve the issue at hand; thus, it is a stopgap measure. However, it often prevents violence, which is the primary goal. Communication skills can be learned later, after the likelihood of any destructive behavior (verbal or physical abuse) is significantly reduced.
Model the use of Time-Out with a coleader or one of the group members.
Make sure that the group members inform their partners—in advance—of the purpose and steps involved with the Time-Out.
c. Review the Time-Out Information for Partners handout. Be prepared for a group discussion in which the group members protest that their partners will never put up with a Time-Out. It is important to empathize with this concern because, in many cases, it is legitimate. Emphasize that we are offering approaches that are not guaranteed to work but that simply decrease the probability of an explosion.
d. Review When Your Partner Blocks Your Path. One of the group members (or group leaders) should stand near the doorway, blocking a group member’s path out of the room. Explain to the person trying to leave that it is his job, if his partner ever blocks his exit from an explosive situation, to find a way out without “putting hands on.” This is a very controversial subject. The group members (particularly men who have been charged with domestic violence) will often complain loudly—in some cases, rightfully so—that they don’t have any good options in this situation. Our job here is to empathize with the difficulty of being in this position while strategizing the least dangerous and destructive ways to get out of it. It is essential to remind the group members that all of these strategies contain significant risks, but that the alternative—violence between intimate partners—is worse.