TPC-Journal-V1-Issue3

226 The Professional Counselor \ Volume 1, Issue 1 For instance, one participant suggested “you shouldn’t sell her wedding ring for drugs, and don’t get addicted to drugs or cigarettes or anything.” Another participant stated “one time he told her that if he had to choose he said he would choose drugs over his own children.” In addition to addiction, participants indicated abuse served to facilitate unhealthy relationships. One participant discussed how one of her friends was recently a victim of dating violence and as a result ended the relationship. She indicated, “Unhealthy would definitely be abuse, one of them cheating on the other, and unfortunately one of our girls actually had to experience that recently and she broke up with him.” The young adolescents spent significant time conceptualizing dating violence, notably emotional, physical and sexual abuse. Emotional abuse was described as “when you’re being told that you’re worth nothing.” Another participant conceptualized physical dating violence as a male beating a female just because he can. She stated, “They can just like hurt you, they can beat you up just because…like dating, if the girl doesn’t agree with the guy if he wants to he can just, like, beat her up.” Participants also displayed knowledge of types, signs, and prevalence of dating violence. One participant suggested, “If you are going to be a victim of sexual abuse then look for signs like trying to get you to do things that you don’t want to do or touching you in a certain manner.” Another adolescent reported, “I think it is like 50 or 60% of people like experience or have couples around them that experience dating violence.” The girls identified numerous perpetrator factors which perpetuated dating violence. Techniques to gain control over a victim included manipulation, peer pressure, and jealousy. Participants indicated perpetrators might make threats or use manipulation to force them to stay in a relationship. One participant suggested a perpetrator might say, “‘I will hurt you if you break up with me…and she says she will be forced to stay because she doesn’t want to get hurt.” Another girl stated, “he said nobody’s going to love you like I do,” displaying the incidence of manipulation and control. Participants also discussed how perpetrators might use peer pressure or isolation to stay in control. One participant said, “Sometimes they try to push you into doing things that [you don’t want to].” When asked by the facilitator why perpetrators may want to keep victims in isolation one participant suggested, “So they can get closer to you…and do more damage.” Further, participants discussed how perpetrators might try to use jealousy to control victims. One participant discussed how she experienced jealousy in a previous relationship. She shared, “He was trying to make me jealous by going out with [name] but it didn’t work.” The young females brainstormed various consequences of dating violence. Specifically, they described what could happen to them physically, emotionally and behaviorally as a dating violence victim. One participant discussed physical consequences victims may face. She stated, “[one] could, um, get diseases, AIDS, you could get hurt.” Another participant explained, “you could, you could, die” demonstrating the perceived severity of victim consequences. Another participant reported the danger of abuse, “those that are exposed to emotional abuse, they could possibly have, like if they are being told they’re too fat, they could possibly become anorexic.” When referring to the types of emotions victims may experience, one participant stated, “mixed emotions that you have like sometimes you’ll be sad, and sometimes you’ll be mad, sometimes you’re actually hurt.” Participants indicated victims may turn to substance use to relieve their pain. One participant stated: “they drink because they have a lot of stress. Sometimes people smoke and do drugs because they have too much stress on them and they do it to relieve the stress.” Participants also recognized the consequence of victim self-blame. One participant stated, “I think I know why they would blame themselves because they let themselves be attacked and they could have gone and tried to get help any chance they got.” Another participant stated, “They could have prevented it.” These statements suggest participants perceive dating violence to be the victim’s fault. Participant conceptualizations of perpetrator factors included jealousy, threats and manipulation, isolation, peer pressure, and exposure to violence within the family of origin. Victim consequences associated with dating violence were identified as physical consequence (e.g., disease, AIDS), emotional consequences (e.g., depression, suicide), body image issues, substance use, self-blame, and fear of others. Exposure to Relationship Violence Exposure to relationship violence refers to the experiences one has with violence, including witnessing physical, sexual, or emotional violence within the family of origin, media, within the community, and in one’s peer groups. Participants reported violent acts between parents, siblings, and/or relatives. One participant indicated, Something that happened recently between my brother and my dad, um, my dad actually threatened to hurt my brother, and, and, so my brother kind of took a hammer