Interview: Using Authority to Improve Outcomes

There is a well-known phenomenon called the Pygmalion Effect, where individuals achieve greater performance when authority figures have high expectations of them. There’s also an opposing effect called the Golem Effect, where the low expectations of authority figures can spur the individual to poorer performance. 

If you work with people who have caused harm, this may put you in a position to support or hamstring growth, depending on how you engage with clients. But how do you maintain belief in people when their behaviors or attitudes indicate that they’re stuck or backtracking? 

Knowles Wentworth is in a position of authority as a Domestic Violence Accountability Program (DVAP) facilitator and program coordinator of the police social work program for Health Care Rehab Services (HCRS) in Windham and Windsor counties. As a result, he has taken great care in cultivating and maintaining a positive attitude about those he serves. He recently sat down with The Spark to share how he does it.

What drew you to work with people who have caused harm?

I was the family peacemaker growing up. So there’s something about the idea of peace; even the word itself is alluring to me. I’ve vocationally found places where I can align with it.

I’ve worked for KidsPeace, joined the Peace Corps, studied Peacebuilding in graduate school, and most recently found the Family Peace Initiative as my primary training source and perspective for DVAP work. Though I dream/long for peace on a broader scale, and didn’t understand this as a child when I took up the peacemaker role, I believe this peace begins with me. And from there, it can radiate out to my family, my community, and perhaps beyond…

Part of this inner work and peacebuilding is also acknowledging the ways in which I’ve caused harm - to myself, my wife and kids, and to others. Then of course reckoning with this harm and taking responsibility for it. So I suppose I came to this work by way of my vision for peace coupled with my understanding and determination to do this inner work as the pathway to it. And my hope is that I can support men along this same path. 

How much do you think your perception of the people you work with matters to their success in the program and potentially beyond the program?

The perception I have of these men has a big impact on the degree to which they can engage in the work of becoming nonviolent partners. I believe in their abilities to grow and learn and heal. If I didn’t believe in them, they would know it, and the trust and emotional safety necessary to do this work would be less available. I’m not suggesting I’m responsible for the work they do but I do consider myself responsible for creating a container/space that allows for this work to happen.

One of my early wounds growing up was not being seen and acknowledged for the gifts I was bringing into the world. Some of my gifts were emotional intelligence and the sensitivity and tenderness that comes with this. So when these attributes aren’t seen and acknowledged - thus verified as gifts, they slip to the background where they can grow dusty and/or atrophy while other traits that are more socially accepted in our culture, are forced to the foreground if we are to survive in our family and community.

If we do the inner work, our wounds become our gifts of course. And this is what I offer to these men; another man invested in really seeing them. In my opinion, much like Alice Miller’s concept of the Enlightened Witness, this way of perceiving these program participants is a vital and essential means of supporting their growth, development and potential transformation. We all need others to verify the gold in us until we can begin to really see it within and believe in it ourselves.  

Have you always believed in the capacity of others to grow and heal, regardless of where they are in life? I’m curious how your youth or life experiences may have shaped your beliefs. 

In my 30 years of social service work I’ve definitely seen many people do tremendous work of growth and healing. Equally so, I’ve seen countless folks remain seemingly stuck for decades and then die this way. Yet the obvious question emerges. Who am I to judge what growth and stuck-ness look like for each person? These are just my perceptions and opinions. Who really knows what is happening in their interior lives and at what pace. Who knows where they started from! We’d be hard pressed to notice an oak tree grow day to day, week to week, month to month. I DO believe that we all share an opportunity to grow and heal despite varying degrees of internal capacity and external and internal resources.

My wife recently shared a nice analogy with me that came from her somatic experiencing training. She said that our trauma(s) is/are like carrots, and our pot, which can soften the carrots, is our resourced self. Some people have enormous carrots and tiny pots. I’ve learned that sometimes the only thing we can do as practitioners is to support people to create a bigger pot by building their capacity to hold more, feel more, and “be with” increasing degrees of intensity. This creates a container capable of softening and metabolizing those huge carrots. This is very slow work. And yes, I may not live to see the results, but I believe it’s happening on a scale that is generational. 

Domestic violence recidivism rates vary but some 10-year studies show rates up to 50%. Does this statistic dampen or increase your enthusiasm for your work? Why?

This statistic doesn’t dampen or increase my enthusiasm. I am enthusiastic about this work now because I believe it is in a transformational stage. We are still cooking in the cocoon. If you look at our understanding of trauma in the last 20 years alone, and our growing understanding of its ubiquity, along with the emerging and innovative ways in which we are treating it, it’s only a matter of time before these methods and modalities make their way into mainstream DVAP programming.

I participate in a peer supervision of sorts with other DVAP facilitators throughout the country and I’ve noted that many curricula are already moving away from their psychoeducational roots and into more process oriented curricula that engage participants to a much greater degree. Participants are less likely to quietly wait out their 30 weeks as they rush to the finish line and hide in the corner. They are more likely to do the “work” as these curricula require participants to actively engage in the work.

I begin an Internal Family Systems Level One training in fact tomorrow. I will be looking for ways in which to bring IFS into the classroom. I believe its applications are numerous. So I am very hopeful about what’s to come in this field. And I believe we will see many more transformational opportunities in the next 5-10 years.    

Do you ever struggle to believe in people? Are there certain people who confound you and cause you to lose faith? If yes, what do you do when that happens? If no, why do you think that is?

Though I’m no stranger to social service work, I am new to DV work as of summer 2024. There have definitely been folks in the DV group and elsewhere in my professional life that have confounded me at times. But not for long. When I zoom out and take all of my judgments out of the equation, it gets clearer. People are remarkable. We have tremendous resiliency and survival instincts. And we’ve developed very sophisticated means of caring for ourselves.

The more trauma one endures and the harder they fight to defend against the pain associated with those wounds, the more remarkable they seem to me. When they are vociferously defending themselves, I’m not suggesting I always see this with clarity and handle it with grace! But if I’m on my game and not defending anything myself, I don’t need to convince, power struggle, or engage in a debate about something. I can see the situation for what it likely is, one’s attempt to protect themselves from feeling the pain of exposure, vulnerability etc; i.e. the places where they’ve been hurt the most and unconsciously vowed to never return. That understanding leads me to empathy, kindness, and curiosity. And when I can see men in this light, they have more potential to step into their work. 

What advice would you give to others who may be struggling to believe in and support people who have caused harm?

I think this question deserves some deep reflection. I think that everyone “out there” is a reflection and mirror to each of us “in here”. I believe that every time I am activated by someone else it is an opportunity for me. It is pointing to some little part of me (my shadow self) that I’ve banished, haven’t accepted, owned, understood, or reckoned with, and that’s the reason it gets my attention - to support my growth and development on the path to reclaiming and re-membering my wholeness. I believe this activation is a gift and therefore an act of benevolence.

So if you are someone who is “struggling to believe in and support people who have caused harm”, here are some of the questions I would ask in order for you to receive these gifts too: What’s your relationship to harm or cruelty? Is there an acceptance of the ways in which you’ve been cruel and caused harm to others? Is there a softness or kindness towards yourself for the harm you’ve caused others? Or perhaps there is a more critical and scathing voice that emerges? Have you forgiven yourself? Do you carry rage and wrath towards the ones who were cruel and harmful to you?

There are no right or wrong answers here and they wouldn’t be asked to induce any shame. They would be asked to lead to insight. We are where we are on this path and it’s not linear or hierarchical. It does deepen in time though and we gain more capacity to hold more complexity and contradiction. If I began to struggle to believe in and support others who are struggling for any reason, these are some of the questions I would want someone to ask me.