Abstract
IntroductionCouple violence (CV) affects many, and the consequences of those actions are grave, not only for the individual suffering at the hand of the perpetrator but also for the other persons in the family. Violence often happens among more than just the adults within one family. Even if CV has been thoroughly investigated in the general population very few studies have investigated this objective on a clinical sample, and none of these have included family violence.AimThis article identifies and describes the group of clients that have issues of physical couple and family violence. It analyses a model that can help to discover physical violence and help therapists to assess what actions to take in therapy to prevent further physical violence.MethodologyDescriptive analysis, t-tests, and structural equation modeling (SEM) are used on a sample of clients receiving couple and family therapy (CFT) in Norway (N = 830). Family violence is modeled by the partner’s expectations toward each other, levels of anger, sexual satisfaction, and self-control.ResultsOne-in-five clients experienced physical CV in their current relationship and one-in-four experienced physical family violence. The group of clients who experienced CV differed from those without such experiences in having lower income, more prior experience with psychotherapy, more experience with alcohol abuse in childhood, and far more physical family violence in their current family. Our model predicting physical couple and family violence explained as much as 53% of family violence and had three positive, significant predictors (expectation, anger, and sexual satisfaction) and one, significant negative predictor (self-control). Somewhat unexpected, sexual satisfaction was a positive, and not a negative, predictor of violence.ConclusionOur study identified one-in-four clients in CFT experience physical CV. Unreasonable expectation from one partner toward the other, anger and sexual satisfaction were positive predictors of physical violence, while self-control was found to be a negative predictor of physical violence. Implications for therapeutic work and the prevention of physical violence are discussed.
Highlights
Couple violence (CV) affects many, and the consequences of those actions are grave, for the individual suffering at the hand of the perpetrator and for the other persons in the family
I am sexually frustrated in this relationship I am sexually satisfied with my partner Had urges or impulses that you could not control Had fits of rage you could not control approach to the first research question was to analyze the clients’ responses to family violence
This study has found that the prevalence of couple and family violence in a clinical sample is high, indicating that many couple and family therapy (CFT) therapists encounter this topic in therapy
Summary
Couple violence (CV) affects many, and the consequences of those actions are grave, for the individual suffering at the hand of the perpetrator and for the other persons in the family. Even if CV has been thoroughly investigated in the general population very few studies have investigated this objective on a clinical sample, and none of these have included family violence. Studies from the United States have found that up to 61% of clients seeking couple and family therapy (CFT) have experienced couple violence (CV) (Jouriles and O’leary, 1985; Cascardi et al, 1992; Vivian and Malone, 1997) and it is reasonable to believe that these numbers are relevant for other comparable countries as well, such as Norway (Ormhaug et al, 2012). Current studies have solely focused on CV and did not investigate the family violence that most often co-occurs and includes children. In the present study, we wanted to investigate both the physical CV and the physical family violence within a CFT sample
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