Going beyond Gender-specific Treatments in Wife Battering: Pro-feminist Couple and Family Therapy

There has been lingering debate as to whether couple and family treatments shouM be employed in situations of conjugal violence. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the theoretical and clinical issues at the center of this controversy, and to offer an argument for the sequential use of relationship therapies as a "second phase" to follow gender-specific individual and group treatments of perpetrators of violence and their partners. Basic elements of pro-feminist couple and family treatment are described Key intake questions, as a prelude to marital and family treatment, are suggested to assess the appropiateness of relationship therapies and to protect victim safety. © 1998 Elsevier Sc&nce Ltd TWENTY YEARS ago, little attention was given to wife battering in community mental health services. Domestic violence was seen to rarely occur in what was believed to be highly unusual family circumstances. Most human service professionals were blind to its high prevalence, to its occurrence in homes across income levels and cultural groupings, and to its serious social and psychological consequences. We did not know how to ask the right questions to detect domestic violence, let alone understand how to deter or treat it. Over the past several decades there has been a marked expansion of understanding and some convergence of clinical and scientific opinion regarding domestic violence. The knowledge generated has been rich in content, yet still remains somewhat fragmented. There have been persistent differences of view regarding the management and treatment of domestic violence, particularly across professional disciplines and service sectors. In these early years of research and theory building, several ideological clusters have emerged with differing views as to the causes and cures of domestic violence (Gelles & Loseke, 1993). The feminist perspective has been the most persuasive. The feminist movement was instrumental in raising public and professional awareness of the seriousness and frequency of wife abuse. The substantial contribution of this movement has been both practical and Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Barry Trute, Fisher Chair and Professor, School of Social Work, McGill University, Montreal, Qurbec, Canada.