The Abusive Personality: Violence and Control in Intimate Relationships - Tapa blanda

"Who says there is no progress in social science, especially in predicting who is likely to become chronically violent? Distilling 20 years of research on men who assault their female partners, Dutton has produced a seminal paradigm for understanding the origins, development, and occurrence of intimate aggressive behavior. Among only a handful of books of similar influence in the field of applied social psychology, I predict this work will guide thinking and research in this emerging area for some time to come."--Ehor Boyanowsky, PhD, School of Criminology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada "By far the best text on the male batterer written to date. Dutton's conceptualization of the psychology of male batterers is firmly grounded in the broader clinical psychology and psychiatric literature as well as his 20 years of extensive domestic violence research and clinical work. This book is a 'must read' for any clinician working with perpetrators or victims of violence. I am convinced that this book will stand the test of time and is destined to be a classic text on this issue." --Daniel Jay Sonkin, PhD, Psychotherapist, Sausalito, California, author of Learning to Live without Violence: A Handbook for Men

This text demonstrates that intimate-partner abuse by men is more than just a learned pattern of behaviour - it is the outgrowth of a particular personality configuration. Findings from the author's research with over 400 batterers are integrated with the literature on object relations, attachment and psychological trauma to trace the development of the abusive personality from early childhood to adulthood. The volume concludes with a discussion of clinical outcomes and a detailed, practical overview of a 16-week group treatment programme. For this paperback edition, the treatment chapter has been revised and expanded to reflect the ongoing development of the author's clinical approach. Included are new guidelines for working with borderline personality disorder and attachment disorders in the context of batterer groups.