ABSTRACT
Violence within a private and intimate space such as marriage is a reality for many Indian women. In domestic violence (DV), the relationship is often characterised by economic, social and psychological dependence on the partner who violates. This chapter discusses commonalities between the feminist and mainstream structure of psychothrepay, focusing on some of the therapies, esepcially those influenced by their congruence with the feminist philosophy, author’s own work with women experiencing violence, and their user-friendliness. Cognitive Behaviour Therapies stresses the importance of belief systems and thinking in determining our behaviours and feelings. Behaviour therapy systematically applies experimentally-derived principles of learning to help people change learned behaviours that are unhelpful. Narrative therapy is influenced by a social-constructivist view of reality, which argues that an individual’s knowledge of the world is constructed within a social community through language.
