Are you sitting comfortably? Discomfort as pedagogical strategy with perpetrators of domestic abuse

Through analysis of video data from the REPROVIDE Pilot (Cramer et al, 2024b) – a 23-week domestic abuse perpetrator programme (DAPP) for men – this article identifies discomfort as a pedagogical strategy for behaviour change group work. Discomfort as pedagogical strategy has been advanced in and through anti-racist pedagogy (Zembylas, 2015) but has not been brought to bear on perpetrator work, where the focus has tended to be on ‘resistance to treatment’ (Levesque et al, 2008), a framing which itself may set up an unhelpful opposition between ‘client’ and ‘therapist’ (Jenkins, 1990). In this article we argue that a degree of psychological discomfort is a necessary component in transformative learning and thus in behaviour change, however, as we demonstrate empirically, discomfort is not always embraced. Men are sometimes ‘rescued’ from their discomfort, either by fellow participants or by facilitators before, it would seem, a transformative realisation is able to take hold. Yet not all discomfort is ‘good discomfort’ – that is, not all is a potential catalyst for the kind of transformation DAPPs seek to enable. Psychological discomfort may also precipitate withdrawal from programmes, and if not skilfully ‘held’ within the session, may heighten risk to victims. To elucidate these complexities this article offers a novel schematic for mapping types of psychological discomfort (from ‘conducive with’ to ‘challenging to’, the aims of the group programme) against responses to discomfort (from embracing to avoiding).