In Session: Practicing Clinical Skills to Prevent Other-Directed Violence in Adults

Course overview

Violence is the purposeful use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself or others that results in or is likely to cause injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation (Leone & Conroy, 2019). Other-directed violence is the threat, intent, or act of seriously injuring another person. Domestic violence is a behavior pattern in an intimate or family relationship that one partner uses to gain or maintain power and control over another person (United Nations, 2020). The victims of this type of other-directed violence may include children, relatives, other household members, and dating partners. On average, one in nine men and one in four women experience severe intimate partner violence (National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 2020). The rate of intimate partner violence is substantially higher for people who are not married (Sorenson & Spear, 2018) and who identify their sexual orientation as bisexual (Turell et al., 2017).