Going beyond gender-specific treatments in wife battering: Pro-feminist couple and family therapy

There has been lingering debate as to whether couple and family treatments should be employed in situations of conjugal violence. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the theoretical and clinical issues at the center of this controversy, and to offer an argument for the sequential use of relationship therapies as a “second phase” to follow gender-specific individual and group treatments of perpetrators of violence and their partners. Basic elements of pro-feminist couple and family treatment are described. Key intake questions, as a prelude to marital and family treatment, are suggested to assess the appropiateness of relationship therapies and to protect victim safety.