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Men's Gendered Constructions of Intimate Partner Violence as Predictors of Court‐Mandated Batterer Treatment Drop Out
Author(s) -
Catlett Beth S.,
Toews Michelle L.,
Walilko Vanessa
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1007/s10464-009-9292-2
Subject(s) - denial , domestic violence , hostility , psychology , spouse , health psychology , masculinity , social psychology , qualitative research , poison control , intervention (counseling) , suicide prevention , drop out , injury prevention , clinical psychology , developmental psychology , public health , psychiatry , medicine , psychotherapist , medical emergency , sociology , nursing , social science , anthropology , psychoanalysis , economics , demographic economics
The purpose of this study was to explore the meaning men make of their violence toward intimate partners and to examine if and how these meanings and constructions of violence predicted who drops out of batterer treatment prior to program completion. We used both qualitative and quantitative data collected from 154 men court‐mandated to participate in a batterer intervention program. The qualitative findings indicated that the men in this sample minimized and denied responsibility for the violence they used towards their intimate partners while simultaneously rationalizing and justifying their violent behavior. Such findings provide insight into how denial and minimization and, more broadly, men's constructions of masculinity might predict their tendency to drop out of batterer treatment. Furthermore, building upon our qualitative findings, logistic regression analysis revealed that men who were lower income, no longer intimately involved with the women they abused, and who reported lower levels of physical violence and higher levels of hostility were more likely to drop out of the batterer treatment program.