This article examines the barriers facing victims of domestic violence and offers therapists an integrated model of intervention combining both case management and psychotherapy strategies. Visually represented, The Barriers Model places the battered woman in the center of four concentric circles. Each circle represents a layer of barriers in the battered woman's experience that potentially impedes her safety. These layers include: barriers in the environment; barriers due to family, socialization, and role expectations; barriers from the psychological consequences of violence; and finally, barriers from childhood abuse/neglect issues. Therapists are provided with an explanation of each layer of barriers, questions to help identify the extent to which these barriers are preventing the woman from becoming safe, and strategies to address these barriers with the battered woman.
This paper describes two related studies. Study 1 is a literature review of existing adult partner domestic violence assessment scales. Results of the review revealed that the scales varied on the available amount of empirical evidence for validity and reliability. More importantly, results showed that the content of the scales focused most heavily on the physical abuse aspects of domestic violence. Study 2 is a factor analysis performed on the results of 64 items taken from the Artemis Intake Questionnaire, a clinically relevant tool constructed by treatment providers used in working with the victims of domestic violence. Results indicate that reported humiliation and blame of the victim accounted for the largest amount of variance, followed by controlling the victim, and then physical violence. Results of this factor analysis suggest that greater emphasis must be put on factors other than physical violence in the construction of future domestic violence scales.KEY WORDS: domestic violence; emotional abuse; assessment; literature review. INTRODUCTIONIn the last 10-15 years, domestic violence against an adult partner (DV) has been identified as a major health and safety concern (Browne & Williams, 1993;Campbell, 1995a;Walker, 1994). Consequently, research in this area has exploded and, as seen in a literature review addressed in this paper, numerous DV assessment scales have been created (e.g., Dutton & Golant, 1995;Dwyer, 1999;Kropp & Hart, 2000;Marshall, 1992;Shepard & Campbell, 1992;Straus et al., 1996). This paper presents two related studies. The overall purpose of these studies is two-fold: (a) to determine the type of psychometric evidence employed in the development of these current domestic violence measurement techniques and the constructs that are commonly incorporated, and (b) to determine whether the constructs of intimidation, power, and control (in addition to physical violence) are supported by victims' responses and should thus be emphasized in future domestic violence scales and models. The first study consisted of a literature review of existing domestic violence scales in order to examine what constructs are commonly incorporated into the scales, and whether they had been psychometrically evaluated. The review focused on two issues: (a) the types of psychometric support used during the development of these scales, and (b) the overall content of these scales to determine what constructs were most heavily represented. There were two general hypotheses. The first hypothesis concerning the review of these scales was that the majority would focus psychometrically on demonstrating construct validity (convergent, divergent, factor analytic), with some providing evidence for content validity and only a few using predictive validity (concurrent and/or future). Further, we expected that the majority of scales (probably greater than 60%) would provide evidence of 340Strauchler, McCloskey, Malloy, Sitaker, Grigsby, and Gillig reliability consisting of internal consistency and/or temporal stability. The ...
Mental health providers need to know that the problem of intimate partner violence (IPV) is ubiquitousthat is, seemingly everywhere at once-within populations that access health care services. Because IPV is a gendered phenomenon where women predominantly tend to be victimized and because women tend to access psychological services at higher rates than men, there is an increased probability that victims of IPV will access services. Without this awareness, diagnostic procedures may be inaccurate, and providers may not intervene to reduce lethality if IPV is not evaluated as part of routine assessment procedures. This article provides concrete procedures for IPV screening and assessment in order to adequately address the problem and also presents initial safety-planning strategies.
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