\u201cThere is a lot of research that studies the victim of intimate partner violence, but not the perpetrator,\u201d said Julia Babcock, an associate professor in the department of psychology and co-director of the Center for Couples Therapy, a clinical research center at UH that offers therapy for couples.\u00a0 \u201cThe predominant model for IPV intervention is based on what was gleaned from women in battered women shelters and focuses on men\u2019s patriarchal attitudes about power and control. Since most domestic violence occurs in the context of an argument, the experiment I conducted evaluated whether I could change how the communication goes during an argument with the batterer and his partner. The findings indicated the batterers could learn communications skills and when they applied them in an argument with their female partners, the argument improved and the participants felt better about the argument and more understood<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n Babcock notes this research is significant in that it breaks new ground in applying experiments to domestic violence and may improve batterers\u2019 intervention programs. In a review of the research studies on the efficacy of batterers\u2019 intervention programs, Babcock found the results disappointing. There was a small change when a perpetrator completed a batterers intervention program and only a 5 percent reduction rate in repeat offenses. \u201cThere is definitely a need to improve batterers\u2019 intervention programs, since research suggests that they\u2019re largely ineffective, but frequently prescribed by courts as a remedy for convicted IPV perpetrators,\u201d said Babcock. Babcock\u2019s research focuses on male batterers because men are the perpetrators in about 85 percent of the abuse cases, and women are 10 times more likely to be murdered by an intimate than are men.<\/p>\n By listing an advertisement in local papers that said, \u201ccouples experiencing conflict,\u201d the research team recruited 120 couples in the Houston area qualified for the experiment.\u00a0 Candidates for the study were screened over the telephone to make sure they met criteria. To meet the criteria to participate in the study, two acts of violence had to occur in the last year that might include: pushing, shoving, choking, using a weapon or a beating. If there was no physical abuse, but the couple scored low for marital satisfaction, Babcock included them as a comparison group.<\/p>\n The couples were then invited to participate in an experiment in the \u201cEmotions in Marriage Lab,\u201d where the research team observed a couple in a 15-minute argument. Both male and female partner were connected to monitors to measure heart rate, respiration, skin conductance, movement, pulse, transit time of blood flow from the periphery to the heart, skin temperature while affect (such as anger, contempt, fear, disgust, etc.) was noted. Midway during the 15-minute argument, the researchers interrupted the argument at 7\u00bd minutes and randomly assigned the male batterer to one of three conditions: 1) a time out; 2) a request to edit out the negative, where he makes the same points in a more neutral fashion; or, 3) a request to accept influence, where he listens to the female\u2019s ideas, trusts that the partner may be right and validates her idea even if his idea is different. The male batterer was taught these communication skills then asked to use them in the second half of the argument.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we found is that the interventions worked to make the second half of the argument better<\/strong>,\u201d said Babcock. \u201cBatterers could learn these communication skills and when they applied them in arguments with their female partner, it decreased aggressive attacks on the female partner, contemptuous behavior, criticism and put downs in both the woman and the man. The idea is that reducing such psychological abuse may reduce intimate partner violence. Whereas most therapies are built top down from theory, the new technology allows us to build a therapy package–technique by technique–from the lab up.\u201d<\/p>\n Babcock\u2019s article based on this UH experiment, \u201cA Proximal Change Experiment Testing Two Communication Exercises with Intimate Partner Violent Men,\u201d won the \u201cBest of 2011 Violence Research\u201d award for the most exemplary research being conducted on violence and aggression. Five senior researchers convened by the Psychology of Violence Journal<\/em> selected articles they believe have the potential to advance the field and direct the future research on violence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the University of Houston press release: A new University of Houston (UH) experiment takes an unconventional look at the treatment for domestic violence, otherwise known as intimate partner violence… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,7],"tags":[13,287,120,12],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5236"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5236"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5262,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5236\/revisions\/5262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/images\/blogpics\/DomesticViolence.jpg\" "\\"IPV\\"")
A new University of Houston (UH) experiment takes an unconventional look at the treatment for domestic violence, otherwise known as intimate partner violence (IPV), by focusing on changing the perpetrators\u2019 psychological abuse during arguments rather than addressing his sexist beliefs<\/strong>.<\/p>\n