How we perceive ourselves impacts on how we move through the world. It is human nature to want to be seen as ‘good’ or ‘valuable’ to others, and we will work hard to protect our ‘good-selves’ from external threats.
So, what happens when these closely held identities become spoiled by the things we have done? How does an individual retain a sense of goodness when the acts they have committed, especially acts which hurt or harm others, become who they are seen to be? Drawing on selected findings from research funded by the UK Home Office’s Domestic Abuse Perpetrator Research Fund 20/21, this article considers the way stigma and shame impacts on the narratives of domestic abuse perpetrators, and the subsequent strategies used to preserve morality and ‘goodness’.
