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Intimate Partner Violence Perpetrator Treatment: Tailoring Interventions to Individual Needs

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Abstract

Intimate partner violence (IPV) remains a devastating public health issue in the United States. Given the high stakes of IPV, it is imperative that treatment provided to perpetrators be efficacious to prevent further victimization and not lull survivors into a false sense of security. Unfortunately, the historically dominant modalities of perpetrator treatment, group-based Duluth and cognitive-behavioral therapy, show small effects at best in deterring re-assault. Because of this, new directions are needed. In this article, we report on a literature review that centered on IPV perpetrator treatment. Results suggest a prominent theme in the literature is a shift from these blanket approaches to treatment based on individual need and co-occurring issues. Specifically, practitioners should be aware of (1) demographic factors affecting treatment completion and re-assault, (2) perpetrator typologies, (3) perpetrator readiness to change and use of motivation-based approaches, and (4) common individual co-occurring concerns, including substance use and mental health issues. For each of these, we discuss treatment implications and make recommendations for future research. We envision a future where the landscape of perpetrator treatment is tailored to individual treatment needs and argue that social work practitioners bring a critical person-centered perspective to IPV perpetrator treatment.

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Acknowledgements

Portions of this manuscript were derived from an unpublished technical report produced by the Utah Criminal Justice Center at the University of Utah, which was funded by a generous grant (#161712) from the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Social Work, Utah Criminal Justice Center, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

    Robert P. Butters, Jessica L. Seawright, Brad Lundahl & Lauren Whitaker

  2. Department of Social Work, University of Mississippi, G310 Garland Hall, University, MS, 38677, USA

    Brian A. Droubay

  3. Department of Sociology, Social Work, and Anthropology, Utah State University, Logan, UT, USA

    Derrik R. Tollefson

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Correspondence to Brian A. Droubay.

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Appendix: Search Terms

Appendix: Search Terms

For the preliminary search, the following search terms were divided into three clusters, connected with the Boolean operator AND. The operator AND signifies including all three clusters. The asterisks signals adding none or more characters, while the quotation marks denote to search for an exact phrase. The operator OR indicates searching for one or more phrases within the parentheses.

  • Cluster one: (“domestic violence” or DV or “intimate partner violence” or IPV).

  • Cluster two: (“systematic review” or meta-analy*).

  • Cluster three: (“batterer intervention” or “batterer treatment” or “perpetrator intervention” or “perpetrator treatment”).

For the main search, the following four search clusters were used, again separated by the Boolean AND:

  • Cluster one: ("domestic assault" or "domestic violence" or "family violence" or "spous* abuse" or "partner abuse" or "domestic abuse" or duluth or "intimate partner violence" or DV or IPV).

  • Cluster two: (program* or treatment* or intervention*).

  • Cluster three: (effective* or outcome* or evaluat* or experiment* or quasi* or randomize* or reoffen* or "random assign*" or recidiv* or efficacy).

  • Cluster four: (batter* or offender or perpetrat*).

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Butters, R.P., Droubay, B.A., Seawright, J.L. et al. Intimate Partner Violence Perpetrator Treatment: Tailoring Interventions to Individual Needs. Clin Soc Work J 49, 391–404 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10615-020-00763-y

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