Therapist Perceptions of Intimate Partner Violence: A Replication of Harway and Hansen's Study after More than a Decade

Abstract

More than a decade ago, Hansen, Harway, and Cervantes (1991) and Harway and Hansen (1993) conducted a research study examining mental health providers’ ability to accurately perceive violence within couples presenting for therapy and to intervene in a manner in which to reduce the risk of danger to couples. The results were alarming, with 40% of therapists sampled failing to perceive intimate partner violence (IPV) and virtually no therapists intervening to reduce the risk of lethality. Harway and colleagues questioned how well-trained and informed therapists were in assessing IPV. The present study replicates Harway and colleagues’ study with the expectation that, over a decade later, therapists are better prepared to accurately identify IPV issues and intervene effectively to reduce the risk of lethality. Reproducing the two main procedures used in the original study, 111 psychologists, clinical social workers, and marriage and family therapists were asked to respond to a survey. Results show that therapists have indeed improved their ability to identify IPV issues. Twenty percent of therapists predicted an increase in conflict, compared to 4% in the original sample. However, almost no therapists accurately predicted lethality in either study. Implications concerning IPV training for therapists are discussed.

Preparing Mental Health Professionals to Work With Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence: A Comprehensive Systematic Review of the Literature

“…Of the studies included, MHPs included MFTs, social workers, counselors, psychologists, IPV service providers, substance abuse counselors, welfare managers, social work students, and family and marriage therapy students. Five themes were identified including lack of preparation and inadequate training in DV (Dersch et al, 2006;Fedina et al, 2017;Karakurt et al, 2013;Kress et al, 2008;Murray et al, 2015;Raphael-Dudley et al, 2008;Schneider, 2018;Todahl et al, 2008), benefits of DV training (Forgey et al, 2013;Kulkarni et al, 2015;McCloskey & Grigsby, 2005;Payne et al, 2007;Saunders et al, 2006), need for collaboration between service providers (Capezza et al, 2014;Macy & Goodbourn, 2012;Macy et al, 2009), stigmatizing attitudes and behaviors toward survivors (Crowe & Murray, 2015), and the advocate-survivor connection (Bogat et al, 2013;Wood, 2017). These studies can be found in Table 2.…”

“…about the lack of confidence in safety planning and intervention due to a lack of course materials and clinical experience (Dersch et al, 2006;Karakurt et al, 2013;Kress et al, 2008;Murray et al, 2015). In addition, psychologists were less likely to identify IPV compared to other MHPs (Raphael-Dudley et al, 2008). Additional articles revealed that MHP students including master's-level family therapy interns (Todahl et al, 2008) and master's-level social work students (Fedina et al, 2017) were inadequately prepared to work with clients experiencing IPV with limited formal education and coursework specifically addressing IPV.…”

The Effectiveness of Human Systems Therapy (HST) on Intimate Partner Violence (IPV): An Empirical Study in Greece

“…Therapeutic interventions aim to eradicate intimate partner violence and change various individual and relational characteristics, depending on the theoretical framework and epistemology of each intervention model and the methods employed for therapy. Integrated therapeutic interventions, a trend in recent years, attempt to enhance the effectiveness of pure intervention models by expanding the points of intervention (Broderick & Schrader, 1981;Gurman & Fraenkel, 2002;Snyder, 1999;Dudley et al, 2008).…”

Treating intimate partner violence from an attachment theory perspective: a men's healing group

“…Perhaps other things such as relationship satisfaction, stress and conflict tactics should be assessed as well. Dudley, McKloskey and Kustron (2008) emphasized the need to recognize lethality risk factors during interventions and some information regarding this will be included in the facilitator manual. Oka and Whiting (20 11) warned that participants may empathize with each other in ways that reinforce their abusive patterns.…”