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Discourses of Abuse and Recovery: Talking about Domestic Violence and Its Implications for Therapy

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The Palgrave Handbook of Adult Mental Health

Abstract

Research has generated considerable knowledge about the prevalence, nature, and consequences of abuse of women by their male partners. Specifying what constitutes intimate partner violence (IPV) is still controversial however (e.g. Adams, Sullivan, Bybee, & Greeson, 2008; Fawole, 2008; Follingstad & Bush, 2014; Hines & Malley-Morrison, 2001; Johnson, Leone, & Xu, 2014; Statistics Canada, 2011), and the predominant line of research has served to increase the complexity by adding categories and subcategories. Within a social constructionist and discursive framework, the instability of meanings becomes a topic for research, and a productive line of inquiry is to explore the meaning of IPV within a specific social context.

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Recommended reading

  • • Follingstad, D. R., & Bush, H. M. (2014). Measurement of intimate partner violence: A model for developing the gold standard. Psychology of Violence, 4(4), 369–383.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • • Todd, N., & Wade, A. (2004). Coming to terms with violence and resistance: from a language of effects to a language of responses. In T. Strong & D. Pare (Eds.), Furthering talk: Advances in the discursive therapies (pp. 145–161). New York: Kluwer Academic Plenum.

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Authors
  1. Henderikus J. Stam
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  2. Michaela Zverina
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  3. H. Lorraine Radtke
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  4. Robbie Babins-Wagner
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Leicester, UK

    Michelle O’Reilly (Senior Lecturer) (Senior Lecturer)

  2. Indiana University, USA

    Jessica Nina Lester (Assistant Professor) (Assistant Professor)

Copyright information

© 2016 Henderikus J. Stam, Michaela Zverina, H. Lorraine Radtke, and Robbie Babins-Wagner

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Stam, H.J., Zverina, M., Radtke, H.L., Babins-Wagner, R. (2016). Discourses of Abuse and Recovery: Talking about Domestic Violence and Its Implications for Therapy. In: O’Reilly, M., Lester, J.N. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Adult Mental Health. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137496850_34

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