Battering and Family Therapy

Battering and Family Therapy challenges traditional intervention by family therapists in treating family violence. Experts in specific legal, ethical, and practical areas propose alternative approaches to the treatment of wife battering from a feminist psychological perspective. Intended to educate therapists, it addresses key issues, including the psychological state of women who remain in violent relationships and current laws governing family violence. Specific guidelines for individual work with battering victims are presented. Suggested replacements are provided for the traditional family systems approach to abusive relationships, focusing on co-responsibility--a method that tends to make the victim responsible for her own predicament. It also considers training family therapists to recognize family violence, multi-ethnic perspectives on battering, and the impact of abusive marital relationships on children. Therapists, counselors, social workers, and psychologists--in practice and in training--will discover much of value in this edited volume. "This edited collection is an ambitious consideration of the three `Fs′: family violence, family therapy, and feminist thinking. . . . This is an excellent introduction to the major issues in the treatment of wife abuse and should be required reading in training programs for therapists." --Mary J. Coe, The American Journal of Family Therapy "The content of the book, Battering and Family Therapy, is far more extensive than the title suggests. The book addresses various psychological and legal topics related to violence against women. Chapters pertaining to legal or ethical issues provide an essential perspective in understanding domestic violence. . . . Overall, this volume provides an excellent collection of chapters addressing a broad range of topics related to domestic violence for which the title is, unfortunately, misleading. This book should be recommended to professionals and graduate students alike." --Mary Ann Dutton, Nova University, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida "This is a crucial book for family therapy. The bombshell among its many valuable chapters is the report of the editors′ own research with therapists--a sample of 405 APA members and one of 362 AAMFT members who, faced with a case study of wife battering, were almost entirely unable to take the violence seriously and come up with interventions that would lead to safety for the woman, even when told "the case was one of domestic violence with a lethal outcome." This book helps us unlearn what...