ABSTRACT
This chapter takes a critical look at the ways in which ideological differences among stakeholders have influenced research and practice agendas, particularly the sociological feminism versus psychology debate and the debates within psychology itself, particularly feminist, and qualitative psychology. Feminist campaigns to bring domestic abuse and violence to the fore over the past 30 years have been highly influential in explaining the causes and consequences of intimate partner violence and abuse. Activists in the USA, Canada, the UK and the European Union have effectively ensured that domestic violence and men’s abuse of women is clearly identified by both government and non-government agencies as socially and morally unacceptable, a crime recognized as a worldwide problem of women’s human rights, a public and physical health issue and community welfare crisis. However, domestic violence has not stopped.
It has been proposed that because psychological theories take an individualistic view by definition they blame women for the man’s violence or at least for the consequences of it on the mental health and the care and safety of their children. But there is a world of difference between focusing on women’s experiences of domestic abuse and blaming women for living with violence and abuse. What is needed now is the careful and systematic re-consideration of women’s relational actions and lived experience within and around violent and abusive relationships.
