Violence Against Women in the UK: Key Facts
- Around 12.8% of women aged 16 and over experienced domestic abuse, sexual assault, or stalking in the past year, compared with 8.4% of men. This equates to roughly 3.2 million women.
- Domestic abuse specifically affected about 1.6 million women in the past year, yet fewer than 1 in 5 victims report abuse to the police.
- Stalking and harassment impacted 4% of women in the past year, compared with 2.3% of men.
- Sexual assault affected 3.4% of women in the past year, compared with 0.8% of men.
- Domestic homicides remain disproportionately female: in England and Wales in the last year, 83 women were killed compared with 25 men.
- Despite the prevalence, many crimes remain unsolved, and official figures likely underestimate the true scale of harm.
I have a 20-year-old man sitting in front of me in my therapy room. He’s here because he struggles with low self-esteem. He has identity issues, doesn’t trust himself, and lacks confidence. He’s experiencing relationship problems, feels apathetic about the world, and doesn’t truly trust anyone. He says that he lashes out and shouts at his girlfriend and she says to him that he scares her. This scares him that she can be scared of him. I asked him, “Where do you think this comes from?” He replied, “Oh, I know exactly where this comes from.” I asked, “What do you mean by that?” He said, “It’s because of my mother. My mother is a narcissist.” I responded, “It’s usually not helpful to use labels. Let’s explore what you mean by your mum being a narcissist by exploring the patterns of behaviour, themes. Let’s look at how this has presented in your life, how it has affected you, and how it makes you feel and think, rather than focusing on labeling your mum.”
He insisted, “No, I’m telling you. Everyone in my family has told me that my mum is a narcissist. My girlfriend refuses to come to my parents’ house. She won’t come for Christmas or birthdays because she’s scared of my mum. She has heard, on multiple occasions, things my mum has said to me things like, ‘You’re worthless,’ ‘You’re pathetic,’ ‘I wish I didn’t have you.’ She has also witnessed how my mum guilt-tripped and manipulated me. In fact, my mum has even tried to turn my girlfriend against me. Whenever I go to see my girlfriend, my mum will say, ‘Oh, you’re leaving me to go see her. You love her so much more than you love me.’
“When I was growing up, I was blamed for everything. I genuinely think my mum hates me. I’ve never connected with her. She doesn’t hug me. She does all the things a mother is supposed to do, she bought me my school uniform, took me to school, but she didn’t do them for me. She did them for herself.” He goes on to say that his dad knows this too, but he stays with her. He just remains silent.
In clinical practice, it remains relatively uncommon for men, particularly young men, to speak openly about painful or abusive experiences with their mothers. When they do, the disclosure is often hesitant, heavily qualified, and accompanied by guilt or self-doubt. This silence is not accidental. Mothers occupy a uniquely protected position within cultural, psychological, and moral discourse, frequently idealised as inherently nurturing, self-sacrificing, and beyond reproach. While such narratives serve important social functions, they can also obscure relational harm and inhibit recognition of children’s lived experience. Boys and men often learn early that they can speak freely about their fathers but must tread carefully around their mothers, a rule enforced subtly by families, culture, and even by therapists themselves.
The client I describe here is unusual, not because his experiences are rare, but because he can name them. At twenty, he actually made it to counselling. Now imagine how many boys and men who have experienced similiar upbrinings, but never make it to a counsellor? Think about how many men could have saved their relationships, their families and themselves, if only they had been allowed to openly talk about the source of their pain, which in this was their mother.
Who cares? Well, we all should. Research indicates that patterns of emotional abuse, neglect, and parentification in childhood can profoundly shape adult relational functioning. Boys who experience consistent maternal emotional unavailability or manipulative behaviours may develop hyper-vigilance, low self-esteem, and difficulties trusting others (Hooper, 2007; Chase, 2013). These internalised patterns can manifest in adulthood as emotional withdrawal, controlling behaviour, or difficulty managing anger in intimate relationships. Ehrensaft et al. (2003) sugguest that exposure to maladaptive relational dynamics during formative years increases the likelihood of perpetuating or experiencing relational aggression later in life. This does not excuse abusive behaviour toward partners but provides a framework for understanding its origins and for targeting intervention.
The Cultural Prohibition Against Criticising Mothers
Research consistently shows that mothers occupy a morally protected status in most societies. Kaplan (2014) describes motherhood as a “sacred identity,” which makes maternal wrongdoing particularly difficult to name. Boys, in particular, are socialised to protect their mothers emotionally, often at the expense of their own psychological truth.
Clinical research further demonstrates that men are significantly less likely than women to disclose maternal neglect or abuse in therapy, even when such experiences are central to their difficulties (Frosh et al., 2002). This silence does not indicate absence of harm; rather, acknowledging it threatens attachment bonds that were critical for survival.
Attachment theory provides an explanatory framework. As Bowlby (1969) argued, children prioritise attachment over accuracy. If a caregiver is shaming, emotionally volatile, or frightening, the child’s task is not to judge the caregiver but to adapt. For boys, adaptation often means emotional shutdown, compliance, or self-blame.
Time, Exposure, and Opportunity for Harm
While individual narratives are powerful, population studies reinforce that these experiences are not isolated. Pew Research and UK longitudinal studies indicate that mothers remain the primary caregivers during early and middle childhood, giving them substantial influence over daily emotional development. Yet, safeguarding measures in home environments are minimal, and emotional abuse such as verbal shaming, guilt-tripping, or manipulative control, is significantly under-reported and under-recognised (Glaser, 2002). Boys, in particular, are less likely than girls to disclose maternal emotional harm in therapy or surveys (Frosh et al., 2002). These statistics contextualise individual experiences within broader social patterns, highlighting how maternal relational harm can go unacknowledged yet still have long-term developmental consequences.
Safeguarding systems are uneven. Schools are highly regulated environments. By contrast, domestic spaces, extracurricular activities, and private family interactions are far less visible. Social services intervention thresholds are extremely high, particularly where the caregiver is a mother. Research on child protection repeatedly shows that emotional abuse and chronic verbal degradation are among the least likely harms to trigger intervention, despite their long-term psychological impact (Glaser, 2002). This means many boys grow up being shouted at, shamed, blamed, humiliated, or emotionally neglected without ever encountering a professional who names it as abuse.
Take a guess at who else experiences humiliation, degradation, and exploitation: wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, partners. So when people say to me, “We have a problem of violence against women,” I have to remind them that this didn’t appear out of nowhere. We’ve been so focused on changing the men that many of us have forgotten what the African proverb warns: if you keep seeing bodies coming down the river, at some point you need to go upstream and find out who keeps throwing them in. And as a British society, we haven’t really had that conversation.
Let me tell you what I see in my therapy room. Many of the men I work with exhibit patterns often described as Peter Pan syndrome, they struggle to fully embrace adult responsibilities, yet they crave freedom and fun. This behaviour often has roots in childhood experiences of parentification, a phenomenon well-documented in psychological research. Parentification occurs when children are expected to take on adult responsibilities, often due to parental absence, inconsistency, or emotional unavailability (Jurkovic, 1997; Hooper et al., 2008).
In practice, this looks like boys who had to manage household burdens beyond their years—finances, housing, school logistics, clubs, sickness, and emotional care for siblings or even the parent. While doing all this, they received minimal emotional support themselves. Many of these mothers were dealing with their own challenges, postpartum depression, bipolar disorder, neurodivergence, or unresolved trauma—compounding the child’s responsibilities. Research has shown that children in parentified roles are more likely to develop identity confusion, anxiety, and difficulties in forming trusting relationships later in life (Hooper, 2007; Chase, 2013).
Consequently, as adults, these men often seek joy, freedom, or release, sometimes manifesting as impulsivity, avoidance, or relational struggles. Unresolved anger and frustration from childhood experiences may also be projected onto adult partners, especially women. This aligns with findings from attachment theory, which suggest that early disruptions in caregiver-child relationships can lead to enmeshed boundaries, difficulty regulating emotions, and maladaptive relational schemas in adulthood (Bowlby, 1988; Main & Solomon, 1990).
This pattern explains why some women describe their adult relationships as feeling like they are raising four children, the three children they had, plus a partner who never fully learned to process or regulate emotions as a child. From a counselling perspective, recognising these dynamics is crucial. Therapists can support men in processing unresolved childhood trauma, developing emotional regulation skills, and forming healthier relational patterns, rather than simply focusing on behaviour in isolation.
Emotional Abuse, Maternal Narcissism, and Attachment Injury
The term “narcissistic mother” is often dismissed in clinical settings as pop psychology. Yet research on emotionally immature or self-focused caregiving paints a consistent picture. Crittenden (1992) and Lyons-Ruth et al. (2005) describe caregiving patterns characterised by role reversal, guilt induction, emotional unavailability, and hostility toward the child’s autonomy.
These children are not unloved in practical terms. They are fed, clothed, taken to school. But they are not emotionally seen. Winnicott (1960) famously referred to this as the failure of the “good enough mother” function, not because of neglect of tasks, but because of the absence of emotional attunement.
For boys, the cost is particularly high. Research suggests that boys are more likely than girls to externalise distress and less likely to receive emotional coaching from caregivers (Chaplin & Aldao, 2013). When the primary caregiver is also the source of shame or emotional attack, boys have nowhere safe to process anger, fear, or grief.
The term “narcissistic mother” in this context should be understood as a conceptual tool rather than a formal diagnostic label. It captures relational patterns characterised by emotional unavailability, manipulation, guilt induction, and role reversal (Crittenden, 1992; Lyons-Ruth et al., 2005). The focus is not on moral judgment, but on understanding the child’s experience and its impact on emotional development. This distinction is critical in counselling, as it allows men to process their experiences without framing the mother solely as a villain, and enables therapists to address intergenerational trauma responsibly.
Fathers Who Were Not There, or Could Not Protect
Many boys experiencing maternal harm do not have a protective third figure. This should be their father. Fathers may be absent due to work, separation, disbelief, or adherence to masculine norms that frame endurance as strength. Or many fathers who also have been conditioned not to question women and mothers colude with their spouse over their son. The lack of protection from their fathers does something to boys.
When boys are told to “be a man” in the face of maternal mistreatment, the message they internalise is: your pain is less important than maintaining the family illusion. The boy learns that survival requires emotional suppression and loyalty to the very figure causing harm. This produces what some clinicians describe as trauma-bonded attachment—closeness built not on safety, but on necessity (Herman, 1992).
It’s important to remember that much of this happens subconsciously. Children are extraordinarily perceptive, not just of what is said or done, but of what is left unsaid, unacknowledged, or avoided. They learn from omissions and inaction as much as from words and actions. A father might take his child to football practice, provide for the household, or be present in moments of fun—but if he does nothing when the mother shouts, belittles, or manipulates the child, the child may experience a profound sense of betrayal and abandonment. This silent witness to harm teaches the child lessons about power, trust, and emotional survival: that expressing feelings may be unsafe, that anger must be endured, and that care comes with conditions.
Over time, these subconscious lessons shape relational patterns and identity. Boys who grow up in such dynamics may develop low self-esteem, difficulties trusting others, and emotional suppression. They may become hyper-vigilant to conflict, sensitive to criticism, or prone to seeking approval in adult relationships—often unconsciously replicating the relational templates they internalised in childhood. This aligns with research on attachment and parentification, which shows that children absorb relational cues from the environment in ways that profoundly influence their adult emotional regulation and interpersonal functioning (Jurkovic, 1997; Bowlby, 1988; Hooper et al., 2007).
From a counselling perspective, recognising the subconscious transmission of trauma and relational patterns is essential. Therapy can provide a space for men to bring these implicit lessons into conscious awareness, process the emotional impact of past betrayals, and develop new, healthier frameworks for trust, intimacy, and self-regulation.
From Childhood Survival to Adult Relational Harm
Unprocessed childhood trauma does not disappear; it re-emerges. Research on intergenerational transmission of trauma shows that individuals often replay unresolved relational dynamics in adult intimacy, not consciously, but compulsively (van der Kolk, 2014). Men who learned that love involves humiliation, guilt, or emotional unpredictability may:
- Struggle with trust and vulnerability
- Oscillate between emotional withdrawal and controlling behaviour
- Re-enact coercive patterns learned early
- Direct unexpressed rage toward safer targets in adulthood
This does not excuse violence against women and girls. But it does help explain it. Many men are not acting out entitlement; they are acting out unresolved attachment injury and rage that was never safe to express. As you note, they are trying—unsuccessfully—to resolve childhood pain in adult relationships.
It is also important to acknowledge that my interpretation is informed by clinical practice and the men who disclose these experiences. Not all mothers engage in harmful relational behaviours, and many provide nurturing, adaptive care. Reflexivity requires recognising that my focus on maternal influences reflects the cases that have surfaced in therapy rather than universal truth. As Finlay (2002) notes, therapists’ own assumptions and societal narratives about motherhood can unconsciously shape how they interpret clients’ accounts. A reflexive approach involves holding these insights lightly, validating the client’s lived experience without overgeneralising or pathologising mothers.
How Therapy Can Help With Men With “Narcisistic” Mothers
While fathers can also be sources of harm, boys are culturally permitted to criticise or disclose paternal wrongdoing more readily than maternal harm. This asymmetry underscores why maternal relational influences are often under-discussed yet potentially formative in the development of adult relational patterns and coping strategies. Acknowledging this allows counselling to target both the effects of harm and the silencing mechanisms that perpetuate it.
Therapy offers something many of these men never had: a relational space where truth does not threaten survival. But men are the least likely group to access it, and when they do, they often struggle to name maternal harm without being redirected, minimised, or subtly corrected. Ethically, counsellors must hold complexity:
- Mothers can be harmed and harming
- Boys can be victims without becoming perpetrators
- Naming harm is not the same as demonising women
My job is not to diagnose mothers or label them. When therapy avoids maternal harm entirely, it colludes—unintentionally—with the original silencing. Many men unfortunatley do not end up attending therapy, because this topic provokes discomfort, including among therapists. Many practitioners are women; many are mothers. The idea that a mother could be a primary source of trauma challenges deeply held cultural and personal identities.
A good therapist with a reflexive practice will acknowledge and understand this. As Finlay (2002) argues, what therapists avoid is often as important as what clients disclose. If counsellors unconsciously defend motherhood as an institution, they risk invalidating clients whose lives contradict idealised narratives.
A Clinical Invitation to Men
This is where my practice male minds counselling in Reading may be useful. Men who recognise themselves in this narrative are not broken. They adapted. They survived. But survival strategies that worked in childhood often fail in adulthood. We call these malidaptive coping mechanisms. If you were to decide to have sessions with me. Counselling offers the chance to:
- Name what happened without shame
- Separate inherited pain from personal identity
- Develop emotional language safely
- Develop emotional literacy and coping strategies
- Reconstruct relational patterns and choices
- Choose what to carry forward, and what to leave behind
As I often tell clients: “That depression may not be your depression. It may be hers. You carried it to survive, but you don’t have to carry it anymore.”
When men are finally allowed to speak honestly about what happened to them, many do not seek revenge or blame. They seek understanding. They want to know why they feel the way they do, why relationships are hard, why trust feels dangerous, and why they carry a weight they cannot name. Therapy can help men process these experiences without collapsing into hatred, misogyny, or victim identity. It can help them differentiate past from present, reclaim emotional choice, and decide consciously how they wish to live and parent.
Breaking silence is not about destroying mothers. It is about saving sons—and, ultimately, breaking cycles of harm that are passed down precisely because they were never spoken. I will reiterate that this article is not an indictment of mothers. It is an argument against silence. When boys are harmed and cannot speak; it mutates into relational dysfunction, mental health issues, and cycles of abuse. Counselling has a responsibility to hold uncomfortable truths with compassion, precision, and courage. If we want fewer absent fathers, fewer coercive relationships, and fewer men carrying unnameable rage, we must be willing to listen when men finally say: “It wasn’t my father. It was my mother.” And we must know how to respond.
Cassim