What is it about?
Exploring the ethical obligations of mental health practitioners and the integrity of their therapeutic approach with IPV offenders. After reviewing various aspects of IPV perpetration, such as risk factors and etiology, we offer a unique perspective of the ethical concerns for the dominant treatment model, by comparing it to like characteristics of IPV perpetration.
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Why is it important?
Domestic violence has been a long standing crisis in our society. There are many wonderful resources for victims, but not much progress is made without rehabilitating the perpetrators. For the last 40 years, the dominant treatment program (used by 90% of our nation) for court-mandated offenders has a 0% efficacy rate, meaning it's scientifically proven to have little to no success. Is it a hopeless population? Most would say yes. Yet, what if it's the program that's hopeless due to a faulty process, especially since it's the norm and/or it's hard to hard to have compassion for violent offenders. Mental health professionals are missing opportunities to improve human lives and the court system mandates a treatment model that is familiar to them, unbeknownst of its flaws . If we hold people accountable for their offenses, we must also hold ourselves accountable for how we care for human life, regardless of behavior. Delivering an ineffective treatment model not only harms the client, it's counter-productive to stopping the horror of domestic violence.
Perspectives
There has been little to no improvement to the crisis of domestic violence; the impact it has on our society is catastrophic. It is common to demand justice and accountability from offenders, but how often do we demand accountability for those in the position of helping said offender? As practitioners, are we willing to be responsible with the power we possess by holding ourselves accountable for the integrity of our therapeutic approach?I hope to challenge biases/stigmas of offenders, inform readers who may not be aware of the treatment model's ineffectiveness, and encourage all to see people beyond their behavior. My theoretical framework operates from an unconditional positive regard, therefore, it is difficult to accept a prognosis for an entire population being deemed "unreachable." It is concerning and warrants attention. In this article, I am most proud of the table comparison I created to offer a simplified view of abusive characteristics, and how each can be seen in both, the abusive relationship, as well as the treatment model itself. Through this lens, I find it very easy to see the double standard at play, but most importantly, I see how much actual therapy (in leui of psychoeducation) is needed to foster growth and rehabilitation.
ASHLEY LEBLANC
University of Southern Mississippi
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Double Standard of Accountability: A Call for Treatment Integrity of IPV Offender Programs, Partner Abuse, September 2020, Springer Publishing Company,
DOI: 10.1891/pa-d-20-00005.
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