Internal and External Barriers to Help Seeking: Voices of Men Who Experienced Abuse in the Intimate Relationships

• Author: Kenzie Hanson,Elizabeth M. Celi,Alexandra Lysova,Denise A. Hines,Emily M. Douglas,Louise Dixon
• Date: 01 April 2022
• DOI: 10.1177/0306624X20919710
• Published date: 01 April 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X20919710

International Journal of

Offender Therapy and

Comparative Criminology

2022, Vol. 66(5) 538 –559

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0306624X20919710

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Article

Internal and External Barriers

to Help Seeking: Voices of

Men Who Experienced Abuse

in the Intimate Relationships

Alexandra Lysova1, Kenzie Hanson1,

Louise Dixon2, Emily M. Douglas3,

Denise A. Hines4, and Elizabeth M. Celi5

Abstract

This qualitative study explores internal and external barriers to help seeking among

41 men from four English-speaking countries who self-reported victimization from

a female intimate partner. Twelve online focus groups were conducted and themes

were identified inductively at a semantic level. Six identified themes represented

four internal (blind to the abuse, maintaining relationships, male roles, and excuses)

and two external barriers to help seeking (fear of seeking help and nowhere to

go). Most participants who avoided seeking help did so due to their own lack of

recognition of abuse and ability to assess their risk of harm, attempts to keep the

family intact, masculine stereotypes, and excuses for their partner’s abuse. Some men

who expressed an interest in seeking help were discouraged from it due to fear for

their personal safety, a potential revictimization in the legal system, and the lack of

support services available to men. This research suggests that the individuals who are

abused in relationships, service providers, and the public at large could benefit from

professional training about gender inclusive approaches to intimate partner abuse.

Keywords

male victims, intimate partner abuse, barriers to help seeking, international, qualitative

1Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada

2Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

3Worcester Polytechnic Institute, MA, USA

4George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

5Practicing Psychologist, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia

Corresponding Author:

Alexandra Lysova, Assistant Professor, School of Criminology, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University

Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5A1S6.

Email: alysova@sfu.ca

919710IJOXXX10.1177/0306624X20919710International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative CriminologyLysova et al.

research-article2020

Lysova et al. 539

Introduction

Historically, the literature on intimate partner abuse (IPA) research and practice has

focused on heterosexual male-to-female victimization because this type of IPA has

been most visible and thus was believed to be the most serious and frequent type of

IPA (e.g., Dobash & Dobash, 2004). However, a growing body of both qualitative and

quantitative international research shows that a large number of heterosexual men are

victimized by their female intimate partners (e.g., Desmarais et al., 2012; Douglas &

Hines, 2011; Lysova et al., 2019). Research shows that men experience a range of

abusive tactics from women, including physical violence, psychological abuse, finan-

cial abuse, sexual abuse, legal and administrative abuse, parental alienation, and homi-

cide (e.g., Berger et al., 2016; Harman et al., 2018; Hines & Douglas, 2016). For

example, the U.S. National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS)

found that the annual prevalence of physical victimization in the intimate relationships

was 4.0% among women compared with 4.7% among men (Breiding, 2014), whereas

the 2014 General Social Survey on Victimization in Canada found that the number of

men who reported to have experienced physical or sexual violence in the ongoing

intimate relationships significantly exceeded that of women (2.9% and 1.7%, respec-

tively; Lysova et al., 2019). At the same time, official police statistics in the United

States, Canada, and other Western industrialized countries consistently show that

women are more likely than men to become victims of offenses related to intimate

partner violence (e.g., sexual and physical assaults, homicides), which documents the

severity of violence against women. The discrepancy between the population-based

surveys and official police data may also point to men’s barriers to reporting violence

to the police, even if they experience severe IPA (Douglas & Hines, 2011).

Indeed, research shows that despite the documented experiences of victimization,

men are less likely than women to seek help for IPA even when experiencing serious

consequences (Ansara & Hindin, 2010). For example, according to the 2014 Canadian

General Social Survey, 56% of female victims and only 20% of male victims sought

professional help for their IPA victimization (Burczycka, 2016). Qualitative research

with male victims of female aggression shows this as well (Machado et al., 2017;

McCarrick et al., 2016). Understanding how victims of IPA respond to their abusive

experience and the kind of help they seek is important to addressing and preventing

IPA. For many survivors of IPA, the existence and availability of professional sup-

portive institutions can contribute to healing and prevent the escalation of IPA (Douglas

& Hines, 2011; Dugan et al., 1999).

The reasons for the lack of help seeking among men who were abused by their

female intimate partners are not well understood due to the limited research in this area.

Recent studies of male victims of IPA do not always focus on help seeking (e.g., Brooks

et al., 2017; Corbally, 2015). A systematic review of qualitative and mixed-method

studies of help seeking by male victims of IPA has detected 12 studies published

between 2006 and 2017, with only half of these studies focusing on interviewing het-

erosexual men (Huntley et al., 2019). The sample size of these studies was quite small

and ranged from 6 to 23 men, except for 299 men in a large mixed-method U.S. study

(Hines & Douglas, 2010). Moreover, none of these studies have explicitly identified