The Ethical Inquiry Approach

The Ethical Inquiry Approach

The Ethical Inquiry Approach is a structured method for engaging men who use violence while maintaining clear accountability and prioritising the safety of women and children. It was developed in response to one of the most persistent challenges in perpetrator work: how to respond when violence is denied, minimised, or disputed without allowing the conversation to collapse into confrontation or stalemate.

Rather than relying on persuasion, correction, or escalating challenge, Ethical Inquiry focuses on how practitioners hold authority in the room. The approach recognises that engagement is shaped not only by the questions practitioners ask, but by the posture through which authority is exercised. When authority is carried with fairness, clarity, and restraint, it becomes possible to keep responsibility visible without humiliating the man or reinforcing the dynamics of domination that underpin family violence.

Ethical Inquiry provides a structured way of navigating these moments. When responsibility is resisted or contested, practitioners temporarily shift the conversation into what is called cool engagement, inviting men to reflect on the ethics and impact of violence in broader or hypothetical terms. This allows ethical positions to surface without immediately forcing admission or identity threat. When the conditions are right, the conversation returns to hot engagement, where the man’s own conduct can be examined directly and accountability can begin to take shape.

Throughout this process, the practitioner remains attentive to how responsibility is located in the conversation and how easily it can drift into explanation, justification, or blame. Ethical Inquiry helps practitioners maintain clarity in these moments, ensuring that engagement remains ethically grounded while still allowing space for reflection and movement.

The approach is particularly suited to statutory and high-risk contexts where practitioners must balance engagement with accountability, and where conversations often unfold under organisational, legal, and safety pressures. By structuring inquiry carefully and holding authority with discipline, Ethical Inquiry strengthens practitioners’ capacity to keep responsibility visible while working toward meaningful and sustainable safety planning.

Controlling Boss Activity

Troublemaker and Healing Wheels

Hierarchy of Gendered Insults

The Troublemaker Cards

The Eric-go-round

The Equality Cards

The NO Test

The Helpful Ideas Wheel

Outsider Witness and Internalised Other

Controlling Boss Activity

The Controlling Boss whiteboarding activity has the dual effect of acknowledging oppressive power structures these men face in the workforce and utilising their own experience of the controlling tactics or supportive ways used by a boss or manager. Through this discussion, the men are invited to reflect on their behaviours towards family members, which promotes empathy, insight and motivates them to be supportive and respectful towards their partner in the same activity.

Below is a sample of what is written on the whiteboard following this exercise where the men get to reflect on their own words and make their own choices about what sort of partner they want to be; Controlling or Understanding.

This is an essential activity in supporting the men's empathy towards their partner, to take greater responsibility for their actions and for motivating them to get on their ethical journey.

The Troublemaker Cards allow a man to develop the language and concepts that can expose and deconstruct the discourses he has subscribed to that support dominant male cultural interests. He can ask himself, ‘How did I become abusive?’ or 'What has restrained me from being respectful?' We can disturb the Troublemakers’ influence on men’s ways of being in different cultural contexts and better invite men to move towards preferences in relationships that are non-abusive and more respectful.

The Troublemaker Cards

Greenwell, R. (2016). Troublemaker cards: Promoting the language of responsibility and prevention in men’s domestic violence.” International Journal of Narrative Therapy & Community Work 2 (2016): 44

© 2024 Parallel Journeys Consulting

“Troublemaker Cards”: Externalising and responsibility in men’s domestic violence groups by Ryan Greenwell

View Ryan's video on the Troublemaker Cards (17 min 12 sec)

A Friday Afternoon Production by Dulwich Centre Foundation

The Equality Cards

The Equality Cards support strengths-based questions used with a man who uses family violence to develop a respectful relationship and an ethical position on family violence. The circumstances to use strength-based questioning include;

• The man is using denial or when he is declining to participate in the accountability process

• The man is showing significant signs of defensiveness or protest in his behaviour

• The man identifies with a marginalised group or has experienced significant trauma and injustice in his life

• The worker decides it will be an effective way to start the accountability process

The Equality Cards are a way to have strengths-based conversations which are particularly useful when working with men who are marginalised, identify with a minority group or have experienced significant injustice or trauma in their life. The cards have been produced with the permision of 'Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs' as they are based on the Duluth Equality Wheel pictured below right. The cards scaffold concepts that assist the man in describing the actions and intentions he is striving for that support his family's safety. The cards are a physical way to engage the man and offer a point of focus during an accountable interview, group session or therapuetic session. Furthermore, men who have low levels of literacy can engage with them through pictures and scaffolding conversations offered by the worker.

Below is an example of one of the eight cards.

The cards come with a practice guide for use with;

• men who use family violence towards female partners

• women who experience family violence from a man

When using the cards to support women who have or are experiencing family violence, it assists in them in recognising the ways they prefer to be treated by a male partner.

The Eric-go-round

For practitioners, the Eric-go-round offers a constructive and non-confrontational method to engage men who use abuse, fostering a respectful atmosphere that promotes family safety. When the practitioner is holding the men accountable to established safety principles in the weeks and months of men's behaviour change, using this method they continue to use the same concepts and language in the following weeks, guiding them along their ethical journey.

The Eric-go-round is a must-have safety planning tool that can achieve many things for the man, such as;

• Have greater insight into his own behaviour in a safe and respectful space

• Explore the effects of his abusive behaviour on his family

• Explore the preferred effects of his non-abusive behaviour and actions on his partner and family

• Develop better attitudes and thinking processes such as greater levels of respect, empathy and responsibility-taking

• Develop actionable personal safety plans that can be honed and improved over time

• Improvements in taking safe immediate actions during high-stress situations

• Developing long-term safety for the family

The Eric-go-round employs relatable metaphors such as cars, roads/intersections, and journeys, which symbolically represent the self, choices, and long-term safety planning and outcomes, respectively. This model encourages men to adopt new language while describing their abusive or non-abusive actions, transforming phrases like 'I snapped' or 'I had a short fuse' into more responsible expressions such as 'I went up Damage Drive.' For instance, one man described how he prevented himself from an abusive act when he said, 'I got on the roundabout.' These men report that during moments of high stress, the vivid imagery of the Eric-go-round becomes a cognitive tool to forestall violence when their capacity for reasoned thought is compromised.

We assert that men's abusive actions are entirely their responsibility, recognising that family violence is fundamentally an abuse of power. Nonetheless, should a man demonstrate insight and a willingness to change, we acknowledge that men can be supported in enhancing their cognitive and reasoning abilities during high-stress moments. Known as the 'fight or flight' response or 'downshifting' in brain function, this state engages the human body's sympathetic nervous system following a perceived threat, leading to increased heart rate, dilated pupils, and adrenaline release. Consequently, the brain's capacity to recall information, make decisions, and access detailed visual imagery from the frontal cortex is significantly impaired. Therefore, in a supportive and non-judgemental context, the Eric-go-round activity is designed to provide an intervention that aims to overcome these downshifting moments. With this in mind, we hold it in tension with the idea an abusive man may retain awareness and choice due to their dominant position in the family and that the perceived threat often stems from a sense of entitlement. This is why the Eric-go-round is best used in a program that coordinates other discussions to address male entitlement through the deconstruction of hegemonic masculinity, such as the Troublemaker Cards, the Gendered Hierarchy of Insults or the Troublemaker and Healing Wheels.

The Eric-go-round activity promotes more thoughtful decision-making during these high-stress moments and is a skill that develops over time with support from a practitioner. The activity's visual nature taps into the parts of the emotional midbrain responsible for direct visual processing and spatial awareness, which remain functional following a downshifting response. Therefore, the learned visual cues from the Eric-go-round can still be activated in these moments which supports a transition back to the body's parasympathetic nervous system—known as the 'rest-and-digest' response. This state helps conserve energy and restore calm by slowing the heart rate. In this resting state, an individual can engage the frontal cortex, applying cognitive and reasoning skills to consider the consequences of future actions and devise safer behavioural strategies.

While it is often observed that abusive behaviour correlates with impaired cognition during stressful episodes, the Eric-go-round also provides choices for those whose abuse is premeditated by facilitating a shift in mindset and attitude. The Eric-go-round activity fosters a respectful and safe environment that enables moments of insight and self-confrontation, potentially leading to sustained behavioural change and enhanced family safety when facilitated by a practitioner.

For Australian Indigenous men, Preston's Path is an innovative alternative to the Eric-go-round that uses more relatable symbols and metaphors to Country such as camping, paths, rivers, trees and walking.

© 2024 Parallel Journeys Consulting

The Helpful Ideas Wheel

The Empathy Wheel

Descriptions are coming soon

Troublemaker and Healing Wheels

This activity helps men who use violence deconstruct harmful attitudes and ideas (Troublemakers) and explore non-abusive, healing responses (Healers) to situations with their partners. The goal is to identify and replace abusive patterns with respectful and healing actions that align with their hopes for better and safer relationships.

This activity fosters self-awareness, accountability, and practical strategies for behavioural change. By regularly reflecting on and practicing Healers, the man can incrementally improve his relationships and reduce abusive behaviours over time.

Using the wheels, the facilitator chooses a Troublemaker and the alternative Healer from the same section of the wheels, e.g. Own-her-ship and Partnership.

© 2026 Parallel Journeys Consulting

The Gendered Hierarchy of insults: troubling masculinity

Men’s violence does not emerge in isolation. It is shaped within gendered systems that quietly organise power, value, and legitimacy. One of the clearest places to see these systems at work is everyday language. The Gendered Hierarchy of Insults is an experiential group exercise that examines how common insults directed at men and women reveal an unspoken ranking of worth: masculinity at the top, femininity beneath it, and dehumanisation at the bottom. Rather than lecturing about gender theory, the exercise uses men’s own language to expose how dominance, entitlement, and humiliation are embedded in ordinary speech.

As participants map this hierarchy themselves, they begin to see how masculinity is policed through ridicule and reward, and how stepping away from dominance can feel socially risky. This creates space for deeper reflection on responsibility, power, and the relational costs of rigid gender expectations. By unsettling gender norms from the inside, the exercise supports behaviour change that moves beyond compliance and toward ethical accountability grounded in respect, dignity, and care.

The NO Test and Respect Test

Safety planning requires more than agreements on paper. It requires ongoing assessment of how men respond when their authority is challenged or their comfort is disrupted. The No Test and the Respect Test are practical ethical probes designed to examine whether safety is being enacted in real moments. The No Test asks a direct question: when a partner says no, does he accept it as complete, or does he push for a yes through pressure, persistence, emotional withdrawal, or escalation? The answer reveals whether entitlement remains active beneath apparent cooperation.

The Respect Test goes further. It examines how a man responds when fear is expressed. If his partner says she is scared and asks him to leave, does he centre his own interpretation, or does he act to reduce her fear? Passing the Respect Test does not require agreement with her feelings. It requires recognising that fear itself is reason enough to prioritise safety. Together, these tests move the focus from explanation to behaviour, from claimed insight to enacted respect. They strengthen accountability by clarifying that safety is measured not by intention, but by how power is handled when it matters most.

Outsider Witness and Internalised Other

Descriptions are coming soon