Via ScienceDaily:
A new University of Houston (UH) experiment takes an unconventional look at the treatment for domestic violence, otherwise known as intimate partner violence (IPV), by focusing on changing the perpetrators’ psychological abuse during arguments rather than addressing his sexist beliefs.
“There is a lot of research that studies the victim of intimate partner violence, but not the perpetrator,” said Julia Babcock, an associate professor in the department of psychology and co-director of the Center for Couples Therapy, a clinical research center at UH that offers therapy for couples. “The predominant model for IPV intervention is based on what was gleaned from women in battered women shelters and focuses on men’s patriarchal attitudes about power and control. Since most domestic violence occurs in the context of an argument, the experiment I conducted evaluated whether I could change how the communication goes during an argument with the batterer and his partner.
