ABSTRACT
In Western, especially North American literature, it was the psychological perspective to domestic violence that had initially dominated the thrust and content of research. While Western feminist psychological literature has engaged with the conceptualisation of power and its intersections with aspects of social location and embodies as a consequence a socio-political perspective, the feminist critique of psychology in India has, by and large, remained on the periphery. The beginnings of feminist therapy in the West are traced to the consciousness-raising groups spawned by the women’s movement in the late 1960s. This chapter highlights the significance and relevance of feminist psychological insights and practices for addressing and handling domestic violence. Recent psychological conceptualisations of violence have been more nuanced and offer an interrelation of socio-economic, psychological and biological factors in explaining domestic violence.
