#164 Alison D'Vine: Breaking Cycles - Healing Generational Trauma in Men

What if breaking the cycle of domestic violence started by supporting men to heal?

In this bold and compassionate episode of the Healing Through Love Podcast, Sharlene Lynch sits down with Alison D’Vine—a social worker and founder of Perth’s first private practice Men’s Behaviour Change Program. Alison takes us on a transformative journey into the often-avoided conversation of male healing, domestic violence prevention, and the generational trauma many men carry silently.

With unflinching honesty and heart, Alison unpacks the social and emotional dynamics that lead men into harmful behaviours. But this isn’t a story of blame—it’s one of possibility. Alison shares her belief that men are not simply products of their environments—they are capable of change, growth, and healing. Her work focuses on creating safe, accountable spaces for men to explore their emotional worlds, challenge toxic patterns, and step into empowered vulnerability.

You’ll hear real-world insights on:

• How generational trauma manifests in male behaviour
• Why emotional suppression in boys can lead to destructive outcomes
• What a Men’s Behaviour Change Program really involves
• The vital role of early intervention and therapeutic support

Alison also discusses her journey from traditional social work to building a one-of-a-kind private practice that now inspires national conversations. With a powerful blend of professional insight and lived experience, Alison D’Vine reminds us that healing men is not only possible—it’s necessary for collective wellbeing.

This episode is a must-listen for survivors, service providers, advocates, and anyone passionate about building safer, more emotionally aware communities.

🎧 Subscribe now and listen to this powerful conversation that just might change the way you view healing.

✨ CONNECT WITH ALISON

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alison-d-vine-5b301310b/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sagencywa/

Website: https://sagencywa.com.au/

♥ ♥

Transcript

Voiceover | 00:02
Welcome to another episode of Healing Through Love. Each week, we share ideas, experiences and resources to increase the awareness of domestic and family violence and to empower survivors to grow and thrive. We talk with experts who share their advice. Or with people who have experienced abuse, no matter where they are on their journey. This is all about healing through love. And now, here are your hosts. Sharlene Lynch and Rose Davidson. 

 Sharlene | 00:42
Hello and welcome to the Healing Through Love podcast. I'm Sharlene Lynch and together we're shining a light on hope, resilience and transformation in the journey to end domestic violence. Each week we bring you inspiring interviews with change makers, survivors, advocates and experts who are making a difference in the lives of those affected by domestic and family violence. Whether you're on a healing journey or you're supporting someone who is, This is a safe place for powerful stories, practical tools and heartfelt inspiration. Let's heal together through love. Today we've got Alison, who is a social worker who has chosen to venture out on her own with men in her private practice. She has created Perth's first private practice domestic violence men's behaviour change program. She has presented at rallies, podcasts, domestic violence summits. And is passionate about taking and talking to men about support and moving forward. Hello Alison, how are you? 

 Alison | 01:47
Hi, Sharlene. Nice to meet you. And we'll see you online. I'm good. Thank you. How are you? 

 Sharlene | 01:52
I'm magnificently magnificent. So wow. Okay. 
 So Look, ordinarily, when we're having conversations here on the podcast, we're speaking to survivors, people that have had a lived experience or a lived experience, and now they helped others treat the trauma. So we're now having a conversation with survivors. What could ten them out to be the perpetrators. And in your eyes, from my understanding, is that they could be a victim circumstance as well. 
 So let's start with why this? Why this? 

 Alison | 02:28
Why this? Actually, funnily enough, when I was doing my Masters in Counselling many moons ago, pre-COVID, one of the things in one of the units that we were encouraged to do was to pick out our most problematic trigger client. Because the whole idea was that we're all going to have trigger clients and we need to be able to work with those trigger clients, whether we like it or not. And we have to build the resilience or the capacity to hold space for them. 
 So my trigger client, funnily enough, was a, like when I described it, like a man. Who's like quite big, you know, like, cause I'm like five foot three, I'm like a little shorty. 
 So like this big, broad dude that, you know, is quite like overbearing, you know, talks over me, that would be only, you know, invested in like his own needs and his own self and not caring about his family and domestic violence, you know, someone that employed domestic violence as a means to kind of get control in his family. So they then, so I picked it out and then they said to me, I'm now go and choose someone from group that can represent that person because you've got to now act it out. And I was like crap. 
 So I chose a friend of mine who's quite tall and he sat down in front of me and he's like ex drama students. So he just starts playing this role, like he should be in that movie, you know, where the guy yells out Stella. 
 You know, I can't remember what the name of the movie is, but this guy could be getting an award for that. That's how good he is. And I just sat there frozen. 
 Like I was smiling and nodding, like as counsellors do. I'm like- And nothing else was coming out of my mouth. 
 And then we could tap out. So I tapped out and I go to the lecturer. I don't know what to say to him. He goes, what do you mean? I go, I feel like I'm playing that game of like double touch. And if I say the wrong thing, like verbally, I'm going to get smacked in the face by this like verbal sort of like rope. And he goes, well, why don't you just tell him what you feel in your body? Just tell him exactly how you feel. 
 And then I was like, no. We can't do that because as counsellors in your undergrad and stuff, you're told to just, you know, paraphrase back to them, to engage them in curiosity questions, circle questions, open-ended questions, but not actually sometimes tell them what's happening for you, what emotions are being invoked. 
 So that was such a huge learning, like, I guess, space for me, because when I did say that in that role play, it felt like this massive weight had lifted off me. And then talking to my, and then I did a further, like, another unit in shame and that shame session again like I thought I had been doing my therapy because you know I grew up in like the space of family and domestic violence I thought I'd done my therapy and I'm like this is going to be easy like it was called personal issues and counselling and All you had to do was rock up and you pass the course. There was no assignments. 
 So I'm like, I can do this easy. I've been doing my therapy since forever. And I rocked up and I did not know what hit me. I was like. Just all over the place up down around with all like you know everything and it brought so much shame on me that the following week I couldn't even go into uni like I remember going to uni and I had like a big jacket on it was winter so I can get away with it a baseball hat a hoodie sitting in the back of the classroom I kind of like skulked in and sitting at the back thinking nobody could like see me and I'm like you know all the way down like You can't see me. 
 And then the lecturer goes, and today's topic we're going to be talking about is attachment and shame and how your attachment style, like, you know, impacts your shame. And I was like, of course, the universe would give this to me. 
 Anyway, so coming fresh off that idea of like being able to talk quite openly and candidly to clients working on my own shame, processing my own personal issues, like in that personal issues and counselling session, and through therapy, I was talking to one of my core coordinators at the time. And she said, we've got this new men's behaviour change program. This was 10 years ago that I think you would be really good for, because I was talking to her about shame and the role shame plays in stopping us from healing. And she goes, you know, I think you'll be really good for working with men because you call a spade. You're very honest. And now that you have this understanding of shame and this understanding of attachment and all that kind of stuff, I think you'll be really good. And I was like, no way, like that's still my trigger clients, I can't do it. And because at the time, the company that I was working for, they were being subcontracted by the Department of Justice. 
 So there was a lot of guys that were coming through from justice who were like offending and they were either on parole or pre-sentencing or suspended sentences, that sort of thing. So that really scared me, and I had a very, I guess, specific idea of what a perpetrator or a domestic violence perpetrator should look like. 
 So she said to me, why don't you just go sit into a few sessions and see how you like it. And so I did that. And so my very first session, we get the statement and material facts from the police. 
 So I printed them all out. I think what a little student that I was. Then I printed out all their names and I got it all right. And I sit down there. And not one man in that room, there was 12 men, not one man in that room met the idea of what I thought I had in my head. Because I'm picturing like, you know, this big bad, like the guy who yells at Stella in that movie, you know, the big bad kind of perpetrator that's all like. And instead, these were just men that you would talk to at a party or a barbecue or like your next door neighbour or your colleague. And I think it was in that moment, I finished up that session and I spoke to one of my co-facilitators and I said, do you ever marry the two? And he goes, what do you mean? 
 Like the idea of what they offend and how they are in person, like how do you work with them in that space where you can marry the two and actually, I guess, create change? And then he said to me, you work with their humanity. 
 And then another facilitator that I worked with who mentored me in my early days talked to me about the idea of an iron fist and a velvet glove. So you have your really strong boundaries and you have all your theoretical knowledge, and so that's the iron fist. And the velvet glove is that care, and it's that humanity, and it's about, I guess, that person-centred approach. 
 So I did that with the subcontracting for the Department of Justice for about. I think six or seven years. From there I had my twin, so I took a bit of a mini hiatus and I came back to it. But I just found when I was subcontracting like with that company, the Department of Justice only wanted a particular model. They only wanted like us to do just the one size fits all cookie cutter kind of program. They didn't want us to do alongside counselling or they didn't want us to do alongside referrals or case management. And I really struggled being a social worker. And so I would get in trouble a lot. They'd yell at me. They'd be like, you are not there. You're not their social worker or their counsellor. Stop doing this, Alison. 
 Honestly, I was such a pain in the ass for them. And I think that was when I decided like one day, I remember I was talking to my boss and I was like, I think I want to work here anymore, blah. 
 And then she's like, what are you going to do? And I said, well, I think I'm just going to start my own program. And it was like this weird throwaway like idea in my head. And she goes, well, if you do know it's going to be really hard. And you have to read all the guidelines as set up by the pig bodies. And I was like, Yeah, I think I'm going to do it. 
 And then within a week of that conversation, I did quit my job. And within like a month of that conversation, I'd read all the guidelines as created by the saying no to violence, which is the Australian internet, like the all of Australia peak body in men's behavior change. And I literally like my Bible, like highlighted everything, because I'm a bit of a nerd. And I have ADHD, so I can hyper focus. And within like a two-week program, a two-week period, I created the program, the forms, and The manual, everything. 
 And then I was talking to my clinical supervisor who liked the idea of it. And he said, well, I've retired this year. Why don't you come and work out of my office in Shenton Park, which is close to the city and the family courts and all of that. And within a month of me having the conversation with her, I'd set up Sage NCWA and launched it and everything. Now it's like two and a bit years now it's coming up to two years. And yeah, it's going from strength to strength. 
 So I'm really proud of like my team and what we do here. 

 Sharlene | 10:29
That's fantastic. And that's a huge why. And like here, as a survivor myself, I'm listening to you and I can feel little triggers going off myself. And if I am as a grown adult now, 58 years old, look back on the offenders that I've had in my life, would I now as a healed woman go and have conversations with these people? 

 Sharlene | 10:54
But I hope that someone else would have had conversations with them so that they can move forward and, you know, and healed themselves so that they stop offending, but so that they can live their best life as well. And if I connect the dots, what I can see is most of them had their own trauma situation, either from their families. Or it from later on in life. Absolutely. And they're just without that level of awareness, they're reliving those levels of, well, trauma, really. Let's face it is trauma based.
 So... It's fantastic. And, you know, there isn't enough of, This, helping the perpetrator, so that they can not offend, so that they can live their best life, and so we can keep the jails empty, let's face it.
 So this is fantastic. Have you got hopes to make this a bigger venture and have it maybe delivering online and perhaps maybe to other areas as well in other parts of Australia?
 Alison | 12:04
I mean, I think because, you know, COVID opened up the world in so many ways that technically I could deliver the program because it's now created like across the world if I wanted to. There is, you know, that absolute possibility. It's just it's like I guess what happened was so when I like launched in like, you know, one month within after the conversation, there was a friend of mine who was my son's school friend's mom who's a lawyer. And I'd sent her an email saying, hey, she's a family lawyer. I'm like, I sent every single family lawyer that I knew that were my friends, like, hey, I'm started this program. 
 Like, here's my information, here's the flyers. And she goes, this is a pretty good flyer. Do you mind if I send it to my friend in legal aid? And so I was like, yes, please. That would be amazing. 
 And then the lady in legal aid emailed me back and she was like, actually the director, like she was the manager, the team leader manager of that legal aid division at that time in Perth. And she Because do you mind coming to our bi-monthly legal aid meeting and have a chat with us about your program and what you do? And I was thinking, if it's like a small legal aid team, like, you know, just your normal team. I rock up that day and it was every single law firm in all of Perth, I think some of WA, that accepts legal aid funding. That attended that. And to say I pooped my pants, I'm being very PG here right now, as you can hear. Normally there'll be so many swear words right now. To say I pooped my pants was like an understatement. And I was just like, Holy crap. And so, I don't know, I guess I'm a very casual, informal person. 
 So there was all of them sitting just there like about, I think it was about. I'd probably say like 80, 60 to 80 lawyers in front of me. And these are all like lawyers that have been practicing law and registrars from the court and all that kind of stuff. And so I'm like, I can't actually stand up here, like, and do my normal speech that I had planned because I'd planned it for, like, five people. 
 So I literally just pulled up a table, like, I scooched it over. Pull the table over. I leaned against the table, like really casually sat on the table. And I'm like, let me tell you about who I am. Let me tell you about my journey. Let me tell you about why I'm passionate about stage and see and what we do here. And let me tell you about how we can help you assist your clients, but clear like the backlog of family court at the moment. And since then, it kind of just took on a life of its own. 
 Like it just, it went from like I said, a month of me opening to like all of a sudden, yeah, being in family court. Recently we've moved into like magistrates court, district court where like my assessments and stuff have been accepted and guys are like, their sentences are being linked to my reports, that sort of stuff. And it's just kind of in this, and then in the first year itself, you know, I was doing rallies and podcasts and got nominated for Like the Australian ladies in business, like an award for that. And so in the first year and a half, it blew up so much that I'm still in some ways trying to catch my breath and catching up with what the enormity of this and how much people need this someone to help men in this space. 
 And then what came from that was a college, like one of the local schools has said to me, we need like when we have prac students, do you mind if they come and do your work? Like, especially in the work you do. And I was like, well, I really need more men in this space because men don't want to work in this space. And women don't want to work in it, but men don't. Even just as much so I was like any males that you have that have prac placements send them my way and I will boot camp them into you know boot camp them into working with men so yeah just kind of like since so the year and a half two years like we've gone from not only growing up like being in courts but now hosting prac students and like doing a variety of like speaking you know all that kind of stuff so ideally I'd love to blow up to all of WA and offer it to rural areas but like I think technology is the biggest issue you know especially in like rural areas like unless like I've had like CPFS or like justice, like contact me and say, can you support our client? And I'm like, absolutely, we can do like Loom, but they don't have like computers or phones themselves. 
 So they will then have to go into the offices. But then because each men's behavior change program has to, while like the guidelines go for two hours, they don't have the capacity to give someone like two hours in their office of like Loom or like WhatsApp or whatever, you know, whatever else it is. 
 So it does make it a bit harder, but yeah, definitely the plan is to be able to kind of spread it out because I think my approach and our approach as agencies is very different to a lot of the other places out there. And so like I'm definitely passionate about, I guess, pushing it out as much as I can. 

 Sharlene | 16:51
I love it. Okay, so there's lots of things that we can talk about outside the podcast. There is a low bandwidth platform that people can access. You can consider things like having it available through YouTube. 
 So they don't necessarily have to be on a phone, they could be on a television. So there's lots of different things that you can actually access to these people and give them what they need. I love it. This is fantastic, because this is what it's about. It's about people. Finding a solution to a problem, and that's what you've done. 
 And then finding a way to deliver it to everybody. So that's absolutely exciting. And this is obviously only the beginning for you. And there's so much further to go. If you're listening today, and you're a survivor of family and or domestic violence, reach out to Healing Through Love. We've got pamper days. 
 So think day spas on steroids, where we pamper you senseless, and it's all for free. We have 25 practitioners, that are there to hold the space for you in a day of healing. It's an amazing experience, we'd love to have you come along and they're all over Australia and thankfully they're all over the world as well. 
 So reach out to Healing Through Love and we'll connect you to where a local Pampa Day is. Now if you are a therapist, and you can make a difference to people who are survivors of family and or domestic violence, reach out to us because we've got people that are running events that are looking for practitioners all over the world. We'd love to have a conversation with you. Wow, Alison, this is so good. This is a breath of fresh air. This is information that needs to be shared. And it's so proud to have you here on the Healing Through Love podcast so that we can you know, hold you up on a platform and yell it out to everybody who can listen that there is an answer if you, If you need that level of assistance, yeah, and this is a very specialised program. 
 Look, Alison, we could talk all day, I figure. 

 Alison | 18:49
I'll take a guess. 

 Sharlene | 18:51
Just in closing, what would be your final words of wisdom? 

 Alison | 18:55
You know, I think my biggest probably takeaway from this... Sorry, I actually locked the table. My biggest takeaway from this would be is that People learn in attachment, right? We learn when we don't feel shame. We learn when Brene Brown talks about we can experience vulnerability. And she talks about the difference between vulnerability and courage. And vulnerability is like, you know, she likens them to each other because she says vulnerability is the uncertainty. It's a risk-taking, like healthy risk-taking. And it's being able to handle strong emotions that come up with it, which is exactly what courage is. 
 So I guess, you know, out there, if there were any, Victor, survivors or who are currently even in that space, you know, to be able to reach out to like your service, but if they have partners that wanted to access the program is that my whole space is about like attaching, like, you know, creating that attachment with a client, removing that shame, working in that space of courage and vulnerability in order to be able to promote lasting healing relationships, because the stats do show that men, unfortunately, are the primary offenders towards young boys towards young girls and towards women and towards each other so if we can kind of I guess change some of those stats and work with men to kind of fix it at the root of the problem as I call it to me that would be my life's work and I always say to people I guess my lasting message is that I see Sage and CWA as my love letter to my children and because I have three boys and a girl. And so this is like my way of keeping my little pocket of the world safe for them. 

 Sharlene | 20:34
I love it. That is beautiful. Together we're raising the frequency of the planet. It's been a privilege and a joy and a pleasure having you on the podcast today. For links to everything that Alison does to both the company and her personal and her LinkedIn for the company, find that on the show notes and the show description. Find out more information about the 22-week program and that is available both in person and in some ways online as well. And this is just the beginning. We look forward to having you back for an interview moving forward. Bye for. 

 Alison | 21:06
Now. Thank you so much. See you later. 

 Voiceover | 21:12
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Healing Through Love. You can get further resources See the show notes or simply reach out to us via our website at htlaustralia.org. Thanks so much for joining us and we look forward to your company next time on the Healing Through Love podcast.