Assessment of Partner Violence: A Handbook for Researchers and Practitioners

Assessment of Partner Violence: A Handbook for Researchers and Practitioners provides a comprehensive review of assessment information spanning five decades of research and three types of assessment methods: interview, self-report measures, and analogue assessment/behavior coding devices. This one-of-a-kind handbook offers detailed descriptions and critiques of several dozen instruments in an easy-to-read reference format.

Like its companion book—Assessment of Family Violence: A Handbook for Researchers and Practitioners—this volume covers target population, equipment needs, format, administration and scoring guidelines, psychometric analysis, primary and related references, and scale availability as well as advantages, limitations, and general recommendations.

In addition, the authors provide invaluable contexts by discussing key psychometric concepts and research issues as well as practical clinical issues in the assessment of partner violence. No other work provides this breadth and depth of coverage.

List of Measures

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

I. Issues in the Assessment of Partner Violence

1. Why Assess? Purposes of Assessment in Partner Violence
2. Modalities of Assessment in Partner Violence
3. Assessment of Partner Violence in Clinical Practice
4. Research Considerations in the Assessment of Partner Violence: Scale Development, Psychometrics, and Measuring Treatment Outcome
5. Research Issues and Challenges in the Assessment of Partner Violence

II. Assessment of Partner Violence

6. Interview Measures
7. Self-Report Measures Specific to the Assessment of Partner Abuse
8. Self-Report Measures: Assessment of General Relationship Functioning, Anger and Hostility, and Other Correlates of Partner Abuse
9. Analogue Methods and Behavioral Coding Devices

References

Author Index

Subject Index

About the Authors

Jill H. Rathus, PhD, is associate professor of psychology at Long Island University, C.W. Post Campus (LIU) in Brookville, New York, where she is director of the specialty track in family violence. She received her undergraduate degree from Cornell University and her doctoral degree in clinical psychology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. At Stony Brook she specialized in the study of marital discord and in the etiology and treatment of spouse abuse. Her clinical internship was at Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, New York, where she then remained as research coordinator of the Adolescent Depression and Suicide Program until she accepted her faculty position at LIU.

In addition to training, consulting, and presenting her research nationally, she has published numerous articles and chapters on marital discord and domestic violence as well as on assessment issues, treatment of adolescent suicidality using dialectical behavior therapy, personality disorders, and anxiety disorders. She has authored several books, including Marital Distress: Cognitive Behavioral Interventions for Couples. In her clinical work, she has developed an adaptation of dialectical behavior therapy for the treatment of partner violence and maintains an active private practice specializing in couples, families, and adolescents.

Eva L. Feindler, PhD, is professor of psychology at the Long Island University (LIU) doctoral program in clinical psychology. As a faculty member of the specialty track in family violence department and as director of the Psychological Services Clinic, she is directly involved in programs to help children and families manage their anger and resolve conflict. She received her undergraduate degree in psychology from Mount Holyoke College and her master's and doctoral degrees from West Virginia University. Her clinical internship training was completed at the Children's Psychiatric Center in Eatontown, New Jersey. Before her position at LIU, she was associate professor of psychology at Adelphi University, where she also directed the master's program in applied behavioral technology.

She has authored several books, including Adolescent Anger Control, Cognitive–Behavioral Strategies, Handbook of Adolescent Behavior Therapy, Assessment of Family Violence as well as numerous articles on parent and child anger and its assessment and treatment, and she has conducted professional training workshops internationally. She has also served an appointed term on the New York State Board for Psychology and a term on the Board of the Nassau County Psychological Association, and she was the program coordinator for the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy Conference in 1995. In addition, she served on the American Psychological Association (APA) Commission on Violence and Youth from 1992 to 1995 and on the APA Task Force on Violence and the Family.

Highly recommended.
—CHOICE Magazine