Masculinities, Violence and Defended Psychosocial Subjects

Against ‘structured action theory’ and the ‘discourses of violence’ approach this article argues for a psychoanalytic interpretive approach to reading violent men's accounts of their lives. Using material from a single case study the author challenges the idea that violence towards women is necessarily ‘masculinity accomplishing’ and suggests how an approach which theorizes both the social and psychic can be deployed to address the issue of ‘change’. The strengths and limitations of positing a defended psychosocial subject in the research process are also discussed.