Psychological and Physical Aggression in Couples: Causes and Interventions

Approximately 10% of men and women in the United States have experienced physical aggression from their partners within the last year. Most, if not all, of these instances were preceded by psychological aggression. Yet despite the integral relationship between psychological and physical aggression, the two topics are often researched and treated separately.

This book investigates the interplay of psychological and physical aggression between partners. It examines the history of research in this area, discusses new, cutting-edge studies, and suggests promising applications in clinical settings. Different levels of severity and types of aggression are explored, illustrating that for both risk factors and interventions, "one size does not fit all."

The three major sections of the book focus on prevalence, etiology, and intervention. Within these sections, contributors discuss sociocultural, familial, genetic, and psychological factors associated with partner aggression; prevention; individual and group interventions; couples therapy; and more. With its unique combination of research and clinical findings by well-known experts in the field, this volume will inspire both service providers and researchers to think about partner aggression in new ways.

Contributors

Introduction
—K. D. O'Leary and E. M. Woodin

I. Prevalence

1. Prevalence of Partner Aggression in Representative and Clinic Samples
   —Anita Jose and K. Daniel O'Leary

2. Sexual Aggression in Intimate Relationships
   —Candice M. Monson, Jennifer Langhinrichsen-Rohling, and Casey T. Taft

3. Partner Aggression Across Cultures
   —Heidi Lary Kar and Claudia Garcia-Moreno
   
   II. Etiology

4. Psychopathological Correlates of Male Aggression
   —L. Kevin Hamberger and Amy Holtzworth-Munroe

5. Family and Relationship Predictors of Psychological and Physical Aggression
   —Miriam K. Ehrensaft

6. The Psychophysiology of Intimate Partner Violence: Are There Physiological Markers of Psychological and Physical Aggression?
   —Jared D. Michonski and Julia C. Babcock

7. How Much Variance in Psychological and Physical Aggression is Predicted by Genetics?
   —Denise A. Hines and Kimberly J. Saudino
   
   III. Interventions

8. Approaches to Preventing Psychological, Physical, and Sexual Partner Abuse
   —Vangie A. Foshee, Heathe Luz McNaughton Reyes, and Sarah C. Wyckoff

9. Group Interventions for Intimate Partner Violence
   —Alan Rosenbaum and Tracii S. Kunkel

10. Individual Services and Individual Therapy for Partner Abuse Perpetrators
    —Christopher M. Murphy, Laura A. Meis, and Christopher I. Eckhardt

11. Couples Treatment for Psychological and Physical Aggression
    —Sandra M. Stith and Eric E. McCollum

12. Substance Abuse and Intimate Partner Violence
    —William Fals-Stewart, Keith Klostermann, and Monique Clinton-Sherrod

Afterword
—Erica M. Woodin and K. D. O'Leary

Index

About the Editors

K. Daniel O'Leary, PhD, is Distinguished Professor of Psychology and past chairman of the Psychology Department at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, New York. Dr. O'Leary was among the top 100 cited psychologists in the English-speaking world (American Psychologist, December 1978). He received the Distinguished Scientist Award from the clinical division of the American Psychological Association in 1985, and he was installed to the National Academies of Practice in Psychology in 1986.

Dr. O'Leary is the author or coauthor of 10 books. The most recent include Depression in Marriage (1990, with S. R. H. Beach and E. E. Sandeen), The Couples Psychotherapy Treatment Planner (1998, with R. E. Heyman and A. E. Jongsma Jr.), and Psychological Abuse in Violent Domestic Relations (2001, with R. D. Maiuro). He has shown how marital problems can lead to depression, and his research with S. R. H. Beach showed that marital therapy for clinically depressed and maritally discordant women leads to both increases in marital satisfaction and decreases in depression.

Since 1980, Dr. O'Leary has conducted research on the etiology, prevention, and treatment of partner aggression. In 2007, with A. M. Smith Slep and S. G. O'Leary, he evaluated the relative predictive power of socioeconomic, family history, personality, physiological, and relationship variables as predictors of partner aggression.

Erica M. Woodin, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. She received her graduate training in clinical psychology at Stony Brook University and is a licensed clinical psychologist in British Columbia.

Her work examines the causes of psychological and physical aggression in couples, the impact of these behaviors on family functioning, the effectiveness of treatment efforts to reduce aggressive behaviors, and the use of prevention efforts to avert aggression in early adulthood. She is also interested in the links between partner aggression and substance abuse and is affiliated with the Centre for Addictions Research of British Columbia.

She has received funding from the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, the Melissa Institute for Violence Prevention, and the British Columbia Mental Health and Addictions Research Network.