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Dominance and Dialogue in Couple Therapy for Psychological Intimate Partner Violence

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Abstract

Although there is controversy concerning indications for conjoint therapy in Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), both research and practice have come to recognize that it has some important benefits. This study analyzes issues of dominance and dialogue in a conjoint therapy for psychological IPV within a naturalistic setting, in which the spouses sought couple therapy on a voluntary basis. The method used to analyze the therapy was Dialogical Investigations of Happenings of Change (DIHC). Results on dominance indicated that the male client showed more quantitative dominance, whereas semantic dominance was more present in the female client, and therapists used more interactional dominance. Results on dialogue analysis showed that dialogical dialogue might help to construct a new-shared meaning of the issue of violence. In the Discussion section some research and clinical implications of the results are derived.

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Notes

  1. To protect the confidentiality of the couple, we refer to them as Husband and Wife. Furthermore, some of the information pertaining to identity has been altered.

  2. This training took place during a research visit, funded by the CIMO Fellowship program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Campus Univeristat Autònoma de Barcelona, Edifici B, 08193, Bellaterra (Cerdanyola del Vallès), Spain

    Berta Vall

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, P.O. Box 35, 40014, Jyväskylä, Finland

    Jaakko Seikkula & Juha Holma

  3. Department of Psychology, Philosophical Faculty, School of Educational Sciences and Psychology, University of Eastern Finland, P.O. Box 111, Joensuu Campus, 80101, Joensuu, Finland

    Aarno Laitila

Authors
  1. Berta Vall
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  2. Jaakko Seikkula
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  3. Aarno Laitila
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  4. Juha Holma
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Correspondence to Berta Vall.

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Vall, B., Seikkula, J., Laitila, A. et al. Dominance and Dialogue in Couple Therapy for Psychological Intimate Partner Violence. Contemp Fam Ther 38, 223–232 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10591-015-9367-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10591-015-9367-1

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