Abstract
Intimate partner violence results in extensive negative mental health outcomes including depression, posttraumatic stress, and anxiety. Moreover, victimized partners who experience cumulative episodes of abuse over time can also present severe affect dysregulation and interpersonal difficulties. Preliminary evidence for existing psychological treatments shows that these are globally effective on a symptomatic level and in reducing revictimization. Nonetheless, systematic reviews show high attrition rates and suggest that future interventions need to address a wider range of emotional difficulties and contextual challenges according to readiness for change. In this article, our goal is to contribute to the development of more responsive interventions that are tailored to individual experiences of violence with a focus on personal values, self-determination, and autonomy, as well as promoting adaptive coping and safety. More specifically, we describe how the intervention principles and experiential tasks of a neohumanistic model, emotion-focused therapy, can be integrated into a mediating readiness for change framework to help victimized clients receiving psychological treatment. We address four main problematic content-affective states that may hinder the therapeutic progress (interrupting fear of change, decisional pain, overwhelming safety concerns, and long-term interpersonal injuries), their association with stages of change, and how they can be resolved in-session using emotion-focused principles and interventions. The implications for future research are also discussed.
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