Drawing on the PhD project "A Sensitive Mandate," this talk offers reflections on emotions in professional encounters involving suspected child abuse. The talk circles around the following questions:

‍

How do emotions shape the interaction between professionals and parents suspected of abuse? Do we need to broaden our understanding of emotions to grasp the complexity in working with child abuse cases?

‍

The PhD study explores the interaction between child protection workers and parents suspected of child abuse. It comprises two sub-studies: the first explores parents' experiences of encountering child protection services while suspected of abuse, while the second explores child protection workers' experiences of working with families where child abuse is suspected.

‍

By drawing on different theoretical understandings of emotions, the study shows how complex emotions can be central to the interaction between child protection workers and parents in these cases.

‍

Tina Feyling is a clinical social worker and family therapist with 25 years of experience in state and municipal child protection services. In recent years, she has worked as a family therapist at Tønsberg Child Protection Services alongside a public-sector PhD project, which she recently defended. In connection with her doctoral work, she has published three articles:

‍

Feyling, T., & Øfsti, A. (2023). Den dagen barnevernetringte… En kvalitativ undersøkelse av foreldres opplevelser i møte medbarnevernet ved mistanke om vold mot barn. Tidsskriftet Norges Barnevern,100(1), 54–73.

‍

Feyling, T., & Øfsti, A. (2024). Et interessant ubehag?Et vitenskapelig essay om emosjoner, forskning og praksis i barnevernet vedmistanke om vold mot barn. Fokuspå familien, 52(3),177–194.

‍

Feyling,T., Ruch, G., & Skjeggestad, E. (2026). Feeling rules in child protectionpractice: navigating emotional complexities in cases of suspected child abuse. Journalof Social Work Practice, 1–15.

‍

Knowledge about family violence is constantly evolving. This presentation provides an overview of the field— the development from early conceptualizations and understandings regarding men who use violence against their female partners, and how this understanding has influenced the development of interventions.

‍

Research in Norway, particularly on men in treatment at ATV, will be presented within an international context. Newer, more sophisticated, and nuanced concepts and understandings of the phenomenon violence within a family context must have implications for support and treatment measures and provide direction for further development in the field

‍

Ingunn Rangul Askeland is aclinical psychologist and has worked at Alternative to Violence (ATV) for over30 years. For several years she was also working as a researcher at Norwegiancentre for violence and traumatic stress studies (NKVTS). She has a PhD inpsychology. Her research has been on men in psychotherapy for violence againsttheir female partner and their children, what characterizes this group and whatchanges during and after treatment.

‍

To overcome a violent pattern requires both courage and endurance. The pathway of change involves not only ending the use of violence but also engaging deeply with—and transforming—the personal struggles that fuel it. The therapist, likewise, must dare to face the brutality of violence, bring forward the expertise that enables meaningful change, and remain steadfast through the repeated efforts that genuine personal growth demands. The keynote speaker will explore the client’s and the therapist’s bravery and sustained engagement.

‍

Bente Lømo is a specialist in clinical psychology with broad experience in clinical practice related to substance addiction, exposure to and perpetration of intimate partner violence. She completed her PhD by researching therapeutic change processes among men who had perpetrated violence against their female partners.

‍

In 2025, Lømo published Challenging Therapy: Alliance and Change Work in IPV Treatment, a book examining the challenges therapists and clients often face in their efforts to establish a therapeutic alliance and to change the client’s violent behavior.

‍

This talk delves into the therapy room to explore the unique needs of survivors of intimate partner violence, and the challenges therapists encounter in this work. How can Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) serve as a comprehensive map, guiding both the therapist and helping the client reclaim the pieces of themselves that were lost through living with violence.

‍

Survivors often describe a profound difficulty in accessing their own feelings and needs. Piece by piece, their own needs become secondary to those of their partner. Following a break-up, additional burdens arise as survivors navigate services and loved ones who may be caught between competing narratives.

‍

We will explore practical applications of EFT, including chair-work techniques, and address emotional dysregulation. This approach empowers survivors to heal, without therapists getting entangled in the complex question of whose narrative holds the "truth."

‍

‍

SiljeFredheim is a specialist in Clinical Psychology at Alternative to Violence. Shehas worked extensively on further developing therapy for victims of IntimatePartner Violence. Silje has a specialization in Emotion-Focused Therapy anduses body-oriented approaches, like yoga, in her work with survivors. She ispassionate about how society treats survivors and how we can create servicesthat meet survivors with respect and support. She and her team now have grantsto develop an emotion-focused group therapy model for mothers living withpost-separation abuse.

‍

‍

‍

‍

Eight parallel workshops will be offered. Participants are free to choose which session they wish to attend; however, please note that some rooms have limited capacity.

‍
The full overview of workshops will be published once all sessions have been finalised.

‍
A list of the individual workshops will be made available here in due course: http://atv-nordisk.no/workshops

‍

The global backlash to gender equality and how it emerges from men’s sense of economic and social precarity, particularly for the youngest men coming of age in a world that feels on theedge of an existential crisis from AI, to the rapidly changing job market toclimate (and they may not be wrong …)

- How this precarity is driving men toembrace the Man Box. Data fromEquimundo and others finds that we have the first generation of young men whohold more gender restrictive views than their fathers’ generation.  In short, they finding solace in the man boxand we see the implications in their views toward women.

- The political crisis of manhood: How young men are gravitating toward online influencers whopresent false pathways to looking good, getting laid and making money. Implications of this current moment for howyoung men vote (or disengage from the public good) and the grift economy thatexploits their confusion.

- The relationship crisis and sexrecession among young men: global trends indeclines in relationships, the Only Fans/porn worlds, the dating app world andwhat this means for young men’s disconnection.

- The implications for violence: We face a moment of at least 3 decades of activism, awareness, legal changes and services focused on men’s violence against women and yet wehave not reduced prevalence rates in significant ways.  We know the drivers of men’s use of violenceagainst women – particularly childhood drivers (trauma, early childhoodexposure to harsh parenting and violence, as witnesses or victims).  Yet we have rarely incorporated thesefindings into prevention.

- From this global crisis to solutionsrooted in care. Young men in many countries associate being a man with being a providerbut define and success and happiness by being fathers.  As men do more hands on care work in most ofthe world, they find more life meaning in and happiness in being fathers andother kinds of caregivers.  Recent studyby Equimundo and the Geena Davis Institute (and other research by CSS/UCLA)finds that young men, boys and adult men all want and value stories of caringmanhood in the stories they consume.

- Then we have the new generation ofresearch on the biology of fatherhood (Hrdy, Saxbe) affirming how much we know that men’s bodies are wired for attachment and care,when they are exposed to having to care. Offer some insights from what this new researcha tells us.

- Offer some programmatic examples fromtapping into men’s care for others in our online work, and in fatherhoodtraining from Rwanda, Colombia and elsewhere. Examples from starting the conversationabout caring manhood at younger ages and using this as a framing for violenceprevention. Present the MenCare Cities model as a way of changing the publicspaces around us to promote men’s care across multiple domains: care forothers, care for community, care for children and family, care for self.  Share some of the reflections from ourMenCare Changemaker initiative as a way of working across large systems –workplaces, parliaments, online spaces, school, education, care policies,democracy-building – to promote caring manhood.

‍

Gary Barker, PhD is an international voice for healthy manhood, gender equality and violence prevention. He holds a Master’s in Public Policy from Duke University and a PhD in Developmental Psychology from Loyola University-Chicago.

‍

He is the founder and CEO of Equimundo Center for Masculinities and Social Justice , an international organization that works globally, including the US, to engage men and boys in healthy masculinities. Gary Barker has led global action to engage men as fathers and caregivers, including co-authoring the State of the World’s Fathers reports.

‍

He has received an Ashoka Fellowship, an Open Society Fellowship, and a Voices of Solidarity Award from Vital Voices for his research and activism. In 2019 he was named by Apolitical as one of the 100 most influential persons in gender equality globally. Gary advises UN agencies, corporations, and governments on engaging men as allies in gender equality.

‍

Anger is good, anger motivates action!

‍

I am now leaving Alternative to Violence (ATV), after spending 39 years passionately working to prevent violence towards women. It all started in 1987 when the psychologists Per A. Nørbech and yours truly, started ATV, Europe’s first treatment center for men who commit violence towards their partners. We became a part of the fight against violence towards women, a fight lead by Norwegian feminists and the women’s shelter movement. Rebellion and anger have always been our driving force. Anger towards the suppression of women, towards injustice, societal neglect of violence, and the power of patriarchy. Without anger nothing would have changed. Anger is good!

‍

In his talk Isdal follows this fight through the last 40 years in the Nordic countries. He will highlight how it has developed through the years, using his own experiences from the therapy room to shed light on important milestones. On the surface, it may look as if all is well, but if we look closer, it is not. Women’s rights are experiencing a backlash globally and nationally. Violence towards women and its causes are obscured and trivialized, budgets are cut, and there is no progress where it should have been change by now. All symptoms of a society run by forces that still does not want to take violence and suppression seriously

‍

This should make us upset and angry. Anger is good. Anger motivates action and anger is necessary in the future!

‍

Per Isdal is a specialist clinical psychologist and author of professional literature. He was involved in establishing Alternativ til Vold in 1987, and has worked with domestic violence for nearly 37 years. Isdal has published, among other works, Meningen med vold and Smittet av vold (The Price of Compassion / Medkänslans pris), in which the “Campfire Method” is presented as a key preventive tool against strain and burnout in helping professions.

‍

is a specialist clinical psychologist and author of professional literature. He was involved in establishing Alternativ til Vold in 1987, and has worked with domestic violence for nearly 37 years. Isdal has published, among other works, Meningen med vold and Smittet av vold (The Price of Compassion / Medkänslans pris), in which the “Campfire Method” is presented as a key preventive tool against strain and burnout in helping professions.

‍

‍

Thank you for being with us,  we look forward to welcoming you back in 2028!

‍