Little information is available about couples experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV) who voluntarily seek couples therapy. We examined the characteristics of 129 couples who sought therapy for IPV to learn more about this population. A majority of the sample, 74%, experienced bilateral physical violence, 16% experienced unilateral male violence, and 5% experienced unilateral female violence. Conflict theory is used to explain the finding that couples experiencing bilateral violence reported higher levels of physical violence and injury than did those experiencing unilateral violence. Bilaterally violent couples also experienced more jealousy and psychological aggression and less relationship satisfaction than either group of unilaterally violent couples. Implications and suggestions for clinicians are offered, as well as ideas for future research.

In this study, we explain the importance of treatment integrity by listing and exploring state standards for service providers of IPV perpetrator programs across the United States. The overall expectations of BIP's will be discussed as we compare and contrast the Duluth Model with evidence-based practice. Expectations of treatment efficacy will be explored from the stance of the professional code of ethics and ethical practice. The context for this article is inspired by the following issues: a) mental health professionals' ethical obligations to clients and to standards of practice; b) the value of treatment integrity; c) expectations regarding program efficacy; d) the nature of court-mandated batterer intervention programs. Potential ethical concerns that are explored include: failure to consider and utilize research evidence, failure to ensure treatment integrity, inadequate assessment/diagnosis, failure to connect assessment to treatment, using a diagnosis on a client not identified in the DSM-V, giving a diagnosis without proper credentials or evaluation of the client, and imploring a homogeneous approach to a complex behavior.

Over the last 50 years, there has developed a wealth of literature that has explored the experiences of victims of intimate partner violence (IPV). This has demonstrated the adverse impact IPV has, including the impact on both female (e.g., Sarkar, 2008), and male victims (e.g., Próspero, 2007) and those within the LGBTQ+ community (e.g., Reuter et al., 2017). Over these 50 years, there has also been the development of key legislation, policy, and services to support these victims and reduce the prevalence of IPV. A comprehensive review of victim services was provided by Eckhardt and colleagues in 2013 as part of the Partner Abuse State of Knowledge project. The aim of the current article is to expand on and update this review with an international focus, drawing on both the United Kingdom and United States. Specifically, we discuss current legislation and policy and how this informs practice, what services and resources are available for victims in the two countries, and what interventions are available and what we know of their effectiveness. A final aim is to explore one of Eckahrdt et al.'s specific recommendations about what exists to support “underserved” populations, such as men and those in the LGBTQ+ community.

Data from the National Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) were used to analyze relationships between sexual infidelity and intimate partner violence (IPV). A biosocial perspective was advanced and compared to criminological theories. General estimating equations, fit for repeated observations of binary outcomes, were used to estimate the impact on the odds of IPV changing between waves 3 and 4 of the data in response to changes in experiences with infidelity. Analyses suggest that socioeconomic factors of educational attainment and employment may serve as mitigating variables in the perpetration of IPV. Men were more likely to cheat, but less likely to perpetrate IPV when employed full-time. Women were more likely than men to report perpetrating IPV but were less likely to respond violently to infidelity as their educational attainment level increased. Cohabiting and children increased the risk of IPV for men and women and were not found to modify the link between infidelity and IPV for either sex. Findings were largely consistent with the expectations of a biosocial perspective but also offered mixed support for criminological theories.

Although a non-gender-specific problem, intimate partner violence (IPV) disproportionately affects women on welfare, with an estimated prevalence two to three times larger than the national prevalence rates of IPV for all women. This article examines the effects of IPV on women leaving welfare for employment in a purposive sample of 411 women in Florida who participated or were actively participating in the 2000–2002 Work and Gain Economic Self-Sufficiency (WAGES) program. Data on sociodemographic characteristics, their IPV experiences, and mediating factors (i.e., social support, employer support, physical and mental health, parenting stress, and employment success) were collected via quantitative telephone interviews. Logistic regression analyses found that employment success among welfare-recipient women who are currently in a relationship is best predicted by a short-term impact of having experienced IPV before the past 12 months (OR = 2.17). Linear regression analyses found that having suitable housing predicted lower parenting stress (F = 3.20, p ≤ .05) and better physical health (F = 4.30, p ≤ .05) and social support (F = 1.90, p ≤ .001) outcomes. In addition, suffering from IPV within the past 12 months predicted worse mental health (F = −7.74, p ≤ .001) and lower parenting stress outcomes (F = −3.99, p ≤ .001). This study contributes to understanding the complexity of mediating factors affecting IPV’s impact on employment success of women leaving welfare.

The purpose of the current study was to examine whether juror gender, male-to-female or female-to-male abuse, eyewitness age (8, 12, and 16 years old), and type of intimate partner violence witnessed (physical, sexual, and emotional) influenced mock jurors' decision-making. Mock jurors (N = 1,162) read a trial transcript where the child of a married couple witnessed one of the three types of intimate partner violence, perpetrated by the husband against his wife or the wife against her husband, and answered related questions. Mock jurors were asked to render a dichotomous verdict, continuous guilt rating, and rate their perceptions of the victim, defendant, and eyewitness. Male jurors were more likely to find the defendant guilty when the defendant was female and the witness was 16 years old; additionally, female mock jurors assigned higher guilt ratings for the male defendant compared to the female defendant. Mock jurors also assigned higher guilt ratings when the abuse was physical compared to both sexual and emotional; abuse also influenced perceptions of the defendant, victim, and eyewitness. Mock jurors also were more likely to hold positive perceptions of the eyewitness when she was 16 years old compared to 8 years old. The results of the current study suggest that gender of the defendant and victim may combine to influence mock jurors' perceptions of a case involving intimate partner violence; moreover, the type of abuse witnessed by a child also may impact the child's perceived credibility.

Cyber psychological abuse and social media surveillance of ex-partners are relatively common virtual forms of behavior linked with intimate partner violence (Pineda, Galán, Martínez-Martínez, Campagne, & Piqueras, 2021) as well as on-going and dangerous intimate partner stalking (Logan & Langhinrichsen-Rohling, 2021). While both forms of behavior are concerning, especially after the dissolution of a romantic relationship, transdiagnostic shared and unique predictors of each are relatively unknown. In the current study, we examined the associations between intolerance of uncertainty and emotion dysregulation and the perpetration of post-breakup cyber psychological abuse and social media surveillance. We asked college students (n = 284) to report on their intolerance of uncertainty, emotion dysregulation difficulties (particularly difficulties engaging in goal directed behavior, impulse control difficulties, and lack of emotional clarity), and behaviors towards their ex-partner associated with the perpetration of cyber psychological abuse and social media surveillance. Participants reported engaging in an average of 2.4 (SD = 2.17) post-breakup behaviors associated with cyber psychological abuse and 4.47 (SD = 3.60) different acts of social media surveillance. Mediation models supported the premise that intolerance of uncertainty is predictive of emotion dysregulation, which, in turn, mediated the association between intolerance of uncertainty and both cyber psychological abuse and social media surveillance. Subscale analyses specifically highlighted difficulties engaging in goal-directed behavior as an important mediator of both behaviors. Taken together, this suggests that intolerance of uncertainty and poor emotion regulation after a relationship breakup are potential drivers of unhealthy ex-partner focused behaviors on social media and other electronic mediums of communication.

The Conflict Tactics Scale 2 (CTS2) is one of the most widely used measures for assessing violence between intimate partners. Many studies exploring its psychometric properties show factor structures that vary according to samples, analysis, or scale forms employed. This work aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the CTS2 in 819 undergraduates in Argentina. Some items had to be excluded from the analysis because of their null prevalence in this sample. Confirmatory factor analysis of the original five-factor model for perpetrated and suffered violence CTS2 forms indicated a good fit to the data in both men and women. Internal consistency was good for all subscales except for the perpetrated and suffered sexual coercion and perpetrated injuries subscales. The highest inter-factor correlations were found between the psychological aggression and physical assault subscales in the perpetration models, and between the physical assault and injuries subscales in the victimization models. Practical and theoretical implications of the results are discussed, and future lines of research are proposed.

In the culmination of 17 manuscripts by more than 40 scholars, the peer-reviewed journal Partner Abuse published the Partner Abuse State of Knowledge (PASK), the largest scholarly scientific inquiry to date regarding the current state of knowledge for intimate partner violence (IPV), over several issues between 2012 and 2013. The purpose of this current two-volume special issue of Partner Abuse is to build upon these efforts, as promising empirical evidence has continued to unfold. The focus in this series centers on evidence-based treatment for victim–survivors and perpetrators of IPV. This introduction manuscript reviews the historical context of IPV and the evolvement of traditional IPV policies, programs, and treatment models. It then presents a brief overview of our current state of empirical knowledge regarding these traditional models. Finally, it highlights the emerging and promising models that will be presented throughout this two-part series.

A review of 20 articles (with a collective N of 16,463) was conducted assessing reasons given by perpetrators for their commission of intimate partner violence (IPV). College, community, and batterer intervention program samples were used. Five studies used Follingstad's (1991) Motivation and Effects Questionnaire to assess reported motivations. This had an advantage in standardizing the definitions of motives, which varied widely in other studies. Perpetrators of IPV, whether male or female, do not describe their motives in gender-political terms. Instead, they describe them in psychological terms, such as anger, frustration, or gaining attention. The most frequently endorsed reasons were anger (68% by women, 47% by men) and gaining attention (53% by women, 55% by men). Self-defense was the least endorsed (7th of seven motives). The implications of this finding for the gender paradigm are discussed.