Researchers and clinicians have worked on the premise that, when it comes to domestic violence, the experience is a one way street. That is, it is primarily a case of mens’ violence against women. Certainly, there are many statistics to back this perception up. For instance, survey’s show that 84% of spousal abuse victims are females, males account for 83% of spouse murderers, and almost one-third of female homicide victims are killed by an intimate partner. However, more recently, researchers have begun to make a distinction between severe violence and mild to moderate spousal violence. The statistics in the mild to moderate cases of violence appear to be much less dependent on gender.

When police statistics are used to determine the nature of domestic violence, the incidents tend to be more severe and as a result, the long understood pattern of mens’ violence towards women is predominant. However, when nationwide surveys are conducted and people are interviewed over the phone, mild to moderate cases, the most common form of relationship violence, show a more evenly distributed representation of men and women as perpetrators. As a result, researchers are beginning to study how to intervene in these less severe cases in order to help prevent an escalation that could potentially prove more damaging to women.(...)
Read the rest of Partner Abuse, Part 3: Helping Couples Find A Different Way Forward (454 words)

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Post tags: conflict, conflict resolution, couples, domestic abuse, psychology, Relationships, research-based, violence
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