Since 1988, Dr. Walter DeKeseredy has consistently found that male peer support is one of the most powerful determinants of woman abuse in intimate relationships. His presentation; Male peer support and violence against women, reviews empirical and theoretical work on how all-male peer groups perpetuate and legitimate woman abuse; and suggests policies, based on 25 years of research.

There is much interest in and increasing debate about the idea of different types of intimate partner violence. Michael Johnson introduced his intimate partner violence typology in 1995, differentiating between ‘intimate partner terrorism’ and ‘common couple violence’. Johnson, collaborating with various other scholars, has since, and incrementally, revised his typology resulting in the current five categories (situational couple violence, coercive controlling violence, violent resistance, mutual violent control, and separation-instigated violence). Ellen Pence and Shamita Das Dasgupta also developed an intimate partner violence typology, which broadly concurs with Johnson’s. Typologies of violence seem to offer a plausible explanation for the decades-long debate on gender symmetry in intimate partner violence; but the stakes are high if the typology is flawed or erroneously applied.

This seminar, with Emeritus Professor Michael Johnson, Dr Shamita Das Dasgupta, Dr Jane Wangmann and Dr Rae Kaspiew, explores the theory and practice of typologies of intimate partner violence, including a critique and reflections on practice in the Australian context.

Dr David Adams, Ed.D. is co-founder and co-director of Emerge, the first counselling program in the USA for men who abuse women. Founded in 1977, Emerge has pioneered effective and culturally relevant abuser education strategies for men as well as those for abusers in same-sex relationships, and is the most widely replicated psycho-education model in the US and many other nations. Currently, 35% of Emerge’s clients are self-referred and another 10% are referred by child welfare agencies. Dr Adams outlines the primary purposes about abuser education programs, highlights strategies for community outreach and client recruitment as well as strategies for client retention, engagement and accountability. The latter includes a brief description of key group intervention techniques used at Emerge that have been adapted to other treatment settings to address partner abuse and promote parenting awareness. These exercises are geared to promote client accountability and engagement, both for the individual client as well as group members and their social peers.