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Domestic Violence, Intimate Partner and Child Abuse
Robert Geffner, PhD, is the founder and president of the FamilyViolence and Sexual Assault Institute in San Diego, California. He is a clinical research professor of psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology, Alliant International University. Dawn A. Alley, PhD, is a post doctoral fellow, Center for Forensic Studies, Institute on Violence, Abuse, and Trauma, at Alliant International University. Here, they discuss the definitions of family violence, the characteristics of batterers and victims, the effects of family violence on victims and children, and intervention approaches. This lecture and the post-test is worth 2.0 credit hours. The authors make the distinction between abuse and aggression and discuss emotional maltreatment and psychological violence in spouse abuse. They contend that sexual abuse and violence is the most difficult aspect of family abuse to identify and discuss. They describe five types of batterers, while noting that it is "less socially acceptable" for women to be abusers than it is for men to be abusers. Violence prone women, they say, may develop an affinity to violence early in life, and were usually abused physically or sexually as children. The lecture, which contains more than 60 slides, covers alcohol and drug abuse in domestic violence, as well as the issue of abused women with posttraumatic stress disorder... and the questions that therapists might ask such women. Moreover, the authors discuss the profound effects that domestic violence can have on children. They describe a study showing that adverse childhood experiences are the most basic cause of health risk behaviors, morbidity, disability, mortality, and health care costs. They provide a questionnaire on identifying spouse abuse. The lecture concludes with a recommendation that perpetrators of abuse must be thoroughly assessed, and they provide a list of guidelines for victim assessment as well. |
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