Amber Heard's lawyer Elaine Bredehoft is now touring American talk shows to deny women's domestic violence in general and Amber Heard's domestic abuse in particular

After Amber Heard on her Intagram refused to admit (1) that she's a perpetrator of domestic violence, and (2) the explanation: that she entered the relationship with Johnny Depp with mental issues - Borderline Personality Disporder, Ms Heard's lawyer Elaine Bredehoft now tour American talk shows with the claim that the real evidence in the case was suppressed.

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After Amber Heard on her Intagram refused to admit (1) that she's a perpetrator of domestic violence, and (2) the explanation: that she entered the relationship with Johnny Depp with mental issues, Ms Heard's lawyer Elaine Bredehoft now tour American talk shows with the claim that the real evidence in the case was suppressed. Here's Ms Heards Instagram post again:

Denial and defensive argumentation comes natural to humans. That's probably why evolution 'gave' our species grammatical language in the first place (Pagel, 2017; Mercier and Sperber, 2011). But instead of discussing how her client should seek help for the mental issues that became obvious during the trial, Bredehoft, like Ms Heard, started to attribute everything that has happened to other people. This behavior could be attributed to:

Projection. In psychoanalytic and psychodynamic theories, the process by which one attributes one’s own individual positive or negative characteristics, affects, and impulses to another person or group. This is often a defense mechanism in which unpleasant or unacceptable impulses, stressors, ideas, affects, or responsibilities are attributed to others (APA).

Fundamental attribution error. In attribution theory, the tendency to overestimate the degree to which an individual’s behavior is determined by his or her abiding personal characteristics, attitudes, or beliefs and, correspondingly, to minimize the influence of the surrounding situation on that behavior (e.g., financial or social pressures). There is evidence that this tendency is more common in some societies than in others. Also called correspondence bias; overattribution bias. See also ultimate attribution error. [coined by U.S. social psychologist Lee D. Ross (1942–  )] (APA).

Bredehoft, consciously or not, is basically repeating the same discourse over and over again. It can cause listeners to suffer from availability bias (Tverky and Kahneman, 1973).

Even so, Heard's and Bredehoft's behavior doesn't make sense from a scientific point of view. Again, from a previous article I wrote about the case where I used astronomy as an analogy (In Swedish), if science show that Pluto is not a planet, as was proposed when it was first discovered by Clyde Tombaugh (1906-1997) January 23, 1930, Pluto is no longer a planet:

Like the asteroid belt, it consists mainly of small bodies or remnants from when the Solar System formed. While many asteroids are composed primarily of rock and metal, most Kuiper belt objects are composed largely of frozen volatiles (termed "ices"), such as methane, ammonia, and water. The Kuiper belt is home to most of the objects that astronomers generally accept as dwarf planets: Orcus, Pluto,[5] Haumea,[6] Quaoar, and Makemake (Wikipedia).

Now science also demonstrate that women are perpetrators in half of cases of physical domestic violence, and that they dominate what is known as relational aggressiveness (Archer,2000, 2004; Bergkvist, 2002; Bates, Graham-Kevan och Archer , 2014; Bates och Graham-Kevan, 2016; Bates, 2018; Bates, Kaye, Pennington och Hamlin, 2019; Crick och Grotpeter, 1995; Thornton et al. 2012).

And the trial showed that Ms. Heard is one of those female perpetrators of domestic violence.

But instead of admiting the obvious, Bredehoft is using vague and insinuating arguments, and when asked if she should reflect on the fact that she and Ms Heard lost the case, Bredehoft immediately start to attribute guilt on others.

TV Host: I'm a former NFL player and after a hard loss it's easy to wake up and point to the other side. Oftentimes I realize the better thing to do was to look in the mirror, what mistakes did I make as a player? What mistakes did our coaching staff make? And then how can we improve from there. Do you feel like you guys made any mistakes along the way? Do you feel like Amber made a mistake while she was on the stand? Because you're saying it's a celebrity, it's Johnny, it's the people who support him. What about you and your team? (Link to YouTube).

Elaine Bredehoft when asked if she or Amber Heard made any mistakes during the trial.

Now this is a very important question. First and foremost, and defamation aside, the evidence from expert psychologists and psychiatrists, together with recordings and the news outlet (2016) about Ms Heards domestic abuse of her then partner, presents Ms Heard as the perpetrator. Next steps would be to (1) admit, (2) seek help, and (3) move on.

Now some pundits have claimed that Johnny Depp will not demand Ms Heard to pay him the 8.35 million dollars that the jury awarded him. It seems that he wants Ms Heard and himself to move on with their lives apart from each other. Remember, when Ms Heard's caring father contacted Mr Depp, Mr Depp offered Ms Heard to live in the penthouse as long as she liked. (Christopher C. Melcher):

But Ms Heard just can't let him go, and that reaction started when he showed her that he wanted out of the relationship because of her domestic abuse.

Of course, if you have mental issues it's hard for you to recognize that you have mental issues.

Because Ms Heard is famous, her behavior will have an impact on other female domestic abusers. If Ms Heard steps forward and take responsibility for her actions, so will many other female perpetrators of domenstic violence. The prospect is a more peaceful society.

The people around Amber Heard should have a sit-down with Ms Heard to try to discuss the obvious facts about domestic violence in general and her proven domestic abuse in particular.

But no, Elaine Bredehoft probably sense a business opportunity here, and consequently she starts to answer the obvious question by reframing the question and again putting guilt on others:

Elaine Bredehoft: Well and that's an excellent question, and to say, and you know, Amber even said on the stand, I'm not perfect, I'm a human being. These people were giving her death threats, they threatened to microwave her baby. This is the kind of social media she was getting. So are any of us perfect? No. Is there something we feel we should have done? yes. Absolutely (Link to YouTube).

Here's longer analysis of Elaine Bredehoft's behavior during at least two talk shows Lawyers Bruce Rivers.

On April 12, Kayla Brantley and Daniel Bates wrote Johnny Depp gets emotional as his sister testifies how their abusive mother taunted him with cruel nickname 'One Eye' - and tells how Amber Heard called him 'old, fat man' when Dior offered him a modeling gig for the Mail online.

Like Amber Heard, Johnny Depp also had an upbringing with a mother who had mental challenges. But it seems that Mr Depp Sr was a mentally stable guy who didn't respond to the mothers abusive behavior. That fits the narrative of the normative role of fatherhood on children's emotional and social adjustment (Macrae, 2021). I also cover this in my Masters' thesis in social psychology (Österberg, 2004). Unfortunately for the English audience, it's in Swedish. But the statistical tables (n=18) are general to anyone. The thesis covers responses from >1200 14 year-olds who respond to statements about their emotional and social adjustment. A covariate is used: emotional relations to the parents. The overall conclusion is that children who grow up with both parents or their fathers, have better social and emotional adjustment compared to children who grow up with a single mother.

Also read: Is law or science the better option to decide truth from false, and cause and effect? The case of a famous legal battle

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