NCJ Number
121632
Editor(s)
P Caesar,
L Hamberger
Date Published
1989
Length
250 pages
Annotation
This book provides counselors with four different approaches for treating men who batter.
Abstract
The four approaches are feminist, cognitive-behavioral, family-systems, and integrative. Feminist based programs perceive wife beating as a sociopolitical problem with power and control the fundamental issues. An educational process is provided to challenge the abusive man's attempts to control his partner using physical, psychological, and economic abuse. This approach is influenced by social learning theory which holds that violence is socially learned, self-reinforcing behavior. The goals of profeminist educational programs are to eliminate all behaviors on the abuser's part that serve to undermine the women's rights as an individual and a partner. The cognitive-behavioral interventions are cognitive in that they focus on the verbal-symbolic mediators of battering behavior and are behavioral in that they are structured and emphasize alternation of functional (intentional and consequential) acts of behavior. Cognitive and behavioral treatments are based on the principles and procedures of operant conditioning and classical conditioning and include assertiveness training and relaxation training. Family System approaches attempt to change the relationship and the patterns of interacting in addition to the various behaviors and attitudes of those involved. Specific techniques include role playing, homework assignment, awareness of body cues and feelings, fair fighting, reducing ritualistic behaviors, desensitization, and Rational-Emotive Techniques. Integrative approaches may combine a feminist analysis of domestic violence with social learning analysis of aggression. This brings together two compatible theories and also magnifies the power of each to enhance the ability to bring about change in the lives of families. 414 references.