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The Batterer: A Psychological Profile

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About the Course:

University of British Columbia psychology professor Donald Dutton specializes in treating batterers. A batterer’s mind, he says, is “a place of anguish and self-loathing.’‘ Writing with Golant (coauthor with Rosalyn Carter of Helping Yourself Help Others) he discusses the symptoms, characteristics and, in some cases, the cure for such violent behavior. Most repeat batterers, he maintains, suffer from a fragile sense of self, usually the result of a shaming father, an only intermittently available mother and violence in the family. For the batterer, an episode of violence involves three stages: buildup of tension, battering and contrition. Dutton rejects neurological and metabolic causes and sees symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in the fear-filled attachment of the batterer to the woman he batters, whom he needs. Dutton shows how group therapy has occasionally been successful in treating batterers. With dramatic case histories that shed light on the dark secrets of spousal abuse, and with its singular focus on the personality of the abuser, rather than that of the victim, The Batterer provides the missing link to show how men can harm the women they love and how we can begin to put an end to violence behind closed doors.

This course is based on the book, The Batterer: A Psychological Profile created by Donald G. Dutton, Ph.D. and Susan K. Golant

Journal/Publisher:

Basic Books

Publication Date:

(c) 1995

Course Material Authors

Course Material Authors authored the material only, and were not involved in creating this CE course. They are identified here for your own evaluation of the relevancy of the material this course is based on.

Donald G. Dutton, Ph.D.
Don Dutton received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Toronto in 1970. In 1974, while on faculty at the University of British Columbia, he began to investigate the criminal justice response to wife assault, preparing a government report that outlined the need for a more aggressive response, and subsequently training police in "domestic disturbance" intervention techniques. From 1979 to 1995, he served as a therapist in the Assaultive Husbands Project, a court mandated treatment program for men convicted of wife assault. In the course of providing therapy for these men, he drew on his background in both social and clinical psychology to develop a psychological model for intimate abusiveness. He has published over one hundred papers and ten books, including _The Domestic Assault of Women_, _The Batterer_ and _The Abusive Personality : A Psychological Profile_. Dutton has served as an expert witness in criminal trials involving family violence, including his work for the prosecution in the O.J. Simpson trial. He is currently Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia.
Susan K. Golant
Susan Golant is the author of fifteen books, including _Helping Yourself Help Others_, with Rosalynn Carter.

Course Creator

Recommended For:

This course is recommended for health care professionals, especially addiction counselors, psychologists, mental health counselors, social workers, and nurses who seek knowledge about male batterers. It is appropriate for all levels of participants' knowledge.

Course Objectives:

After taking this course, you should be able to:

  1. Explain how a shaming, emotionally rejecting, or absent father, an intermittently available mother, and exposure to violence can combine to produce a cyclical batterer.
  2. Explain the significance of diagnoses of borderline personality disorder or antisocial personality disorder in the understanding of batterers.
  3. Explain why a grasp of both the feminist view (i.e., power and control theory) and social learning theory is necessary, but not sufficient, to a full understanding of the behavior of cyclical batterers.
  4. Distinguish between psychopathic, overcontrolled, and cyclical batterers.

Disclosures

Disclosure of Relevant Financial Relationships

Disclosure of Relevant Financial Relationships

CE Learning Systems, LLC is an independent provider of continuing medical education. CE Learning Systems, LLC has no proprietary or financial interest in medical or healthcare products over which the FDA (USA) or EMA (EU) has regulatory authority.

In accordance with our disclosure policies, CE Learning Systems, LLC is committed to ensuring balance, independence, objectivity, and scientific rigor for all accredited continuing education. These policies include assigning relevance to, and mitigating, all perceived or real conflicts of interest between any individual with control over the content and any ineligible company (commercial interest).

Any individual with control over accredited content, including planner, faculty, and reviewer, is required to globally disclose:

  1. Individual relationship(s) or lack thereof, and its nature, with any/all ineligible company, and
  2. any investigational, off-label, or non-FDA approved content or discussion

CE Learning Systems, LLC has reviewed these disclosures, assigned relevance based on the relationship and scope of content, and identified those with the potential to compromise the goals and educational integrity of the education. Relevant relationships, or lack thereof, are shared with the learner.

Education has been independently peer-reviewed to validate content, mitigate identified conflicts of interest, and ensure:

  1. All recommendations involving clinical medicine is based on evidence that is accepted within the medical profession as adequate justification for their indications and contraindications in the care of patients.
  2. All scientific research referred to, reported, or used in accredited continuing education in support or justification of a patient care recommendation conforms to the generally accepted standards of experimental design, data collection, and analysis.
  3. Content is appropriate, fair and balanced, unbiased, referenced, and non-promotional.
Planners

The planners have reported the following: There are no relevant disclosures.

Course Material Authors

The authors have disclosed any disclosures within the material.

Course Creator: Keith Gibson, Ph.D.
There are no relevant disclosures.
Commercial support

There is no commercial support for this distance-learning course.

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Course Retired
Course Number 100945
6 CE credit hours
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