Intimate Partner Violence

New Perspectives in Research and Practice

Elizabeth A. Bates, Julie C. Taylor, Elizabeth A. Bates, Julie C. Taylor

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781351690133
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Applied Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Since the 1970s the issue of intimate partner violence (IPV) has been explained through the patriarchal desire of men to control and dominate women, but this gendered perspective limits both our understanding of IPV and its treatment. Intimate Partner Violence: New Perspectives in Research and Practice is the first book of its kind to present a detailed and rigorous critique of current domestic violence research and practice within the same volume.

In this challenging new text, with contributions from the UK, the US, and Canada, the subject is assessed from a more holistic position. It provides a critical analysis of the issue of domestic violence including issues that are often not part of the mainstream discussion. Each of the chapters tackles a different area of research or practice, from a critical review of contemporary topics in domestic violence research, including a critical review of men's use of violence in relationships, a consideration of male victims, IPV within the LGBTQ+ community, perceptions of perpetrators and victims, and IPV within adolescent populations. The second half of the book examines challenges and opportunities for professionals working in the field and includes an analysis of an evidence informed perpetrator programme, the challenges faced working with male victims, and a discussion of the impact of domestic violence on children.

Culminating with a series of evidence-based recommendations to bridge the divide between academic and practitioner stakeholders and to inform future working practices, this is an essential resource for students and practitioners alike.

1

Introduction

Why change current practice?

Elizabeth A. Bates & Julie C. Taylor

In the introduction to their edited book “Family Interventions in Domestic Violence: A Handbook of Gender-Inclusive Theory and Treatment”, Hamel and Nicholls (2007) describe the changes that were occurring within the field of intimate partner violence (IPV) research and practice; specifically, they said a “Revolution is taking place in the field of domestic violence” (p. xxxix). The authors go on to describe the increased attention paid to women’s violence, the dynamics of violence within couples and families, and the ineffectiveness of current intervention models, all of which presented challenges to the dominant narratives that rendered IPV as an issue of women’s inequality as a consequence of male privilege and power. Over ten years later, we find ourselves in a similar position. There is a wealth of literature that has developed over the last four decades that evidences IPV as a complex, multifarious issue; but policy, treatment provision and practice does not reflect the evidence base that exists.

Dobash and Dobash (1979) in their book “Violence against Wives” detail some important milestones in the 1970s that led to more public awareness of violence against women and IPV. In 1971 the first women’s aid was opened in Chiswick, England. It was originally opened as a place for women to gather and socialise, but it soon became apparent that there were women in their community who were being beaten by their husbands. This led Erin Pizzey to open the first Battered Women’s Shelter in England in the same year (Dutton, 2006). These events, and the feminist movement that originated around the same time, can be credited with raising awareness of domestic violence more widely. Indeed, prior to this in practice, violence within the family was routinely ignored in Britain, the United States, and Canada unless it had escalated to homicide. This continued into the first half of the 20th Century where both the English and American suffragettes took it up as an issue (Dobash & Dobash, 1979), although it became side-lined by the issue of votes for women. From this point, its seriousness diminished, and the perception reverted back to an attitudinal model that valued family privacy; violence that occurred within the home should be dealt with there and not aired publically (Dutton, 2006). Dutton labelled this the “Age of Denial” and during this time, until around the early 1980s, the police were reluctant to get involved in domestic disturbances as the sanctity of the family was valued so highly.

From the 1970s onwards, as social awareness grew, so did a body of research that explored and tried to understand violence against women. This research, and the models that evolved from it, presented IPV as an issue of gendered violence meaning specifically: “Gender‐based violence against women shall mean violence that is directed against a woman because she is a woman or that affects women disproportionately” (European Institute for Gender Equality, 2018). Feminist researchers such as Dobash and Dobash (1979, 2004) believe that the cause of IPV is gender, and that it should always be studied in the context of gender (e.g. McHugh, Livingston, & Ford, 2005). Proponents of this model suggest that men use violence as one mechanism to control and dominate women; this control is of a social and historically constructed origin, arising out of gender inequality and male privilege. As a model for understanding IPV, it has provided the framework for a wealth of research that worked with women as victims, and men (often in prison or mandated to programmes) as perpetrators to try and understand the abuse and reduce its impact on women.

The Duluth Model was established in the United States in 1981 as an intervention programme derived from the Duluth Domestic Abuse Intervention Project (Pence & Paymar, 1993). It was designed to protect women from the tyranny of abusive men. The programme’s curriculum is founded upon the concept of male power and control within relationships. The central feature of the model is a “Power and Control Wheel” which has become their signature symbol. Their treatment of aggression within a relationship was based on the assumption that men’s violence was always driven by power and control and that any aggression perpetrated by a female partner must be self-defensive. The empirical basis of their model came from a sample of nine clients made up of men who had perpetrated IPV, and women who had been victim of it. The authors of the model omitted to acknowledge the problems that are associated with generalising from such a small and unrepresentative sample (Dutton & Corvo, 2006); yet one of the authors did later acknowledge:

By determining that the need or desire for power was the motivating force behind battering, we created a conceptual framework that, in fact, did not fit the lived experience of many of the men and women we were working with…Speaking for myself, I found that many of the men I interviewed did not seem to articulate a desire for power over their partner. Although I relentlessly took every opportunity to point out to men in the groups that they were so motivated and merely in denial, the fact that few men ever articulated such a desire went unnoticed by me and many of my co-workers. Eventually, we realized that we were finding what we had already predetermined to find.

(Pence, 1999; pp. 29–30).

Since the 1980s, this model has become the dominant way of understanding IPV, and has been influential in research, policy, and practice, and despite Pence’s (1999) comments, the Duluth Model, and its derivatives, remains the most prevalent approach to perpetrator treatment in many Western countries. Despite this dominance, there is a body of literature that has undermined this approach from a theoretical and practical standpoint. For example, research has demonstrated that this approach ignores many factors known to influence men’s and women’s IPV such as: emotional dysregulation (Birkley & Eckhardt, 2015), the overlap between IPV and general aggression (e.g. Bates, Graham-Kevan, & Archer, 2014), and relationship dynamics such as bidirectional IPV (Langhinrichsen-Rohling, Misra, Selwyn, & Rohling, 2012). From an intervention perspective, studies that have explored the effectiveness of Duluth-based interventions have largely found them to be unsuccessful. For example, Babcock, Green, and Robie (2004) performed a meta-analysis of 22 studies and found minimal effects, concluding that the current interventions are inadequate in reducing recidivism much beyond the effect of arrest and other criminal justice sanctions. Despite this evidence, it remains the dominant curriculum within the US, the UK, and Canada. It is a political model, and we see public policy being dictated by politically motivated activists rather than by academics, researchers, and psychologists (Dutton & Corvo, 2006; Bates, Graham-Kevan, Bolam, & Thornton, 2017). Indeed, this model experiences an “immunity” from having to answer to methodologically rigorous, external, and empirical evaluation with political concerns taking precedence over science and a strong evidence base (Corvo, Dutton, & Chen, 2008; p. 112).

Mounting evidence suggests that current interventions are not effective; a significant number of studies demonstrate that the perpetrators are not always men or the victims women, therefore it is clear that a volume that pulls together this evidence and provides a useful tool for researchers and practitioners is long overdue. The aim of this book is to challenge some current, gendered practices of IPV. Specifically, it presents challenges and offers alternatives that ensure research and practice is effectively serving all those affected by IPV. Each of the proposed chapters tackles a different key area in either research or practice. The book is original in several ways; firstly, it brings together a detailed, rigorous critique of current practice in a way not seen before, to give the reader an awareness of the key issues being debated in this area. Secondly, both research and practice are critically examined within the same volume. Finally, the book culminates with a series of evidence-based recommendations to bridge the divide between academic and practitioner stakeholders and to inform practice. There exists a polarisation in the field, an academic divide that pits women’s advocates, or feminist researchers, against family violence researchers; it causes conflict and controversy and detracts from the key goal which is a reduction of domestic and family violence. It is an issue that creates disputes about ideology which detracts from the shift to evidence informed practice. This is an issue that is not seen in other areas of violence research, indeed, as Bates et al. (2017) highlight: “The lack of research-informed practice here is quite unique and does not seem to be as great a factor in less politicized fields” (p. 27). It is hoped that this book could offer an opportunity to bridge the divide between conflicting research groups, and also further bridge the gap between research and practice.

This book is primarily aimed at researchers, practitioners, and educators working in the field of IPV. It will also be of interest and value to policy makers who are reviewing legislation and those involved in commissioning psychological services, perpetrator interventions, and victim services. As a text it challenges current practice with a gender-inclusive, strong, empirical evidence base that could be used as a rationale for making changes in policy and provision. The book is firmly grounded in evidence-based practice, but is also accessible to ensure it can be useful beyond the academic sector.

Outline of chapters

The book is divided into two parts; one covering the most contemporary research in the area, the second covering a commentary on current interventions and practice. The five chapters in Part I of this book offer extensive reviews and empirical research that not only challenge traditional models but provide a compelling evidence-base that supports a more inclusive and evidence-informed approach. Part II, and the latter five chapters, focus on how this evidence-base could, or indeed should, work in practice. It includes a focus on implementing evidence-based practice, but also the obstacles that have been experienced in doing so.

With so much of the historic work on IPV focusing on men’s violence towards women, this seems an appropriate place to begin. In her critical exploration of the literature base on men’s violence, Elizabeth Bates reviews the existing research on the feminist, or gendered, model of men’s IPV and proposes that it would be beneficial to move research and practice beyond this. Using evidence including the sex parity in IPV perpetration (e.g. Archer, 2000), women’s use of controlling behaviour (e.g. Bates et al., 2014), the frequency of bidirectional or mutual abuse (e.g. Langhinrichsen-Rohling et al., 2012), and the range of risk factors that predict men’s IPV (e.g. Valois, MacDonald, Bretous, Fischer, & Drane, 2002), Bates asserts that it would be more appropriate to consider IPV within the context of both family violence and other general aggression models to allow for more effective interventions to be developed.

The gendered approach to IPV lacks inclusivity; in particular it has focused on working with women as victims, and rarely seeing men’s victimisation as anything more than a consequence of women acting in self-defence. The next chapter provides an in-depth exploration of male victims’ experiences of female-perpetrated IPV with a specific focus on their contact with the Criminal Justice System. Jessica McCarrick reflects on specific socio-psychological factors that can make men more vulnerable to IPV including childhood socialisation with boys being taught not to hit girls, even in self-defence. She goes on to report on a study working with six British men who reported feeling cast as a perpetrator within their contact with police, and how this perpetuated their trauma responses, leading to psychological difficulties.

The third chapter in this part of the book focuses on attitudes towards IPV victims and perpetrators. Benjamin Hine reports on an empirical study that sought to explore judgements of acceptability, trauma, severity, and blame towards hypothetical IPV scenarios. The findings from the study suggest that perceptions of these issues vary significantly based on the gender of both the perpetrator and victim, with some scenarios judged as being significantly more acceptable and less traumatic than others. Hine goes on to discuss future research implications, with a specific focus on the need to challenge the perceptions of IPV associated with the traditional gender-based models, and how this could impact on other vulnerable victim groups.

The fourth chapter moves the focus towards adolescent dating violence with a strong theme around bidirectional IPV. Katherine Maurer discusses the challenges involved with shifting the focus towards IPV in younger populations as including the distinction of not seeing IPV as a normative teen socialisation process, the limitations that exist when we see IPV as a unilateral issue of one-sided violence (specifically in this model, men’s violence towards women), and the need to tailor prevention and intervention strategies to adolescent relationships. Maurer discusses the complexities of adapting intervention strategies that focus on patriarchy and social learning theory as the root cause of couple violence, rather than using psychobiological, developmental, and intergenerational transmission of family violence.

The final chapter in the first part of the book focuses on barriers faced within other neglected victim groups, specifically the LGBTQ+ population. Specifically, Philippa Laskey and Lauren Bolam discuss how IPV within these communities are frequently underreported and unrecognised, and how they are not represented within support services. With a focus on IPV within same-sex relationships in the first part of the chapter, and IPV for transgender individuals in the second part, barriers to support include: homophobia, transphobia, not identifying within the traditional model of IPV, fear of not being believed, and a fear of “outing” themselves.

The second part of the book shifts the focus on to considering IPV within practice settings. It builds on the critical review of literature and empirical studies presented within the first part and explores the practicalities of implementing this in practice-based settings. In the first chapter of this part, John Hamel discusses the evolution of evidence-based treatment approaches in IPV including reflections on his own experience as a practitioner. Developing from some of Hamel’s own books, he discusses some of the themes within his experience including how a more informed understanding of IPV characteristics, causes, consequences, and current intervention approaches can increase the impact and effectiveness of future treatment outcomes.

Whilst Hamel discusses a reluctance for some practitioners to move beyond the traditional, Duluth-based models in practice, in the next chapter Amy Ford discusses the development of the UK based “Up2U: Creating Healthy Relationships Programme”. This programme utilises the principles of risk, needs, and responsivity (Andrews, Bonta, & Wormith, 2011) offering a gender inclusive, tailored response based on an individual need rather than using an ideological model based on male dominance, power, and control (e.g. Pence & Paymar, 1993). This chapter details the evidence-base and journey of the development and implementation of Up2U, and the University of Portsmouth evaluation and research into its effectiveness. Whilst at the early stages of delivery, initial referrals were overwhelmingly men, there has since been a significant number of referrals of women, and for both partners in an abusive relationship.

The focus on men’s violence has had an impact on the field of IPV in many ways. The lack of a strong evidence-base regarding female perpetrators of IPV is the focus of the next chapter; Erica Bowen and Jenny Mackay critically review what is known about IPV perpetration by women in heterosexual relationships. This evidence is then discussed in relation to documented intervention approaches with a view to providing practitioners with a set of guidelines to refer to when seeking...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• List of contributors
• 1. Introduction: Why change current practice?
• PART I: Research
• PART II: Practice
• Index