Citation

Catlett BS, Toews ML, Walilko V. Am. J. Community Psychol. 2010; 45(1-2): 107-123.

Affiliation

Program Women's and Gender Studies, DePaul University, 2320 N. Kenmore, 571 SAC, Chicago, IL, 60614, USA, bcatlett@depaul.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1007/s10464-009-9292-2

PMID

20087762

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the meaning men make of their violence toward intimate partners and to examine if and how these meanings and constructions of violence predicted who drops out of batterer treatment prior to program completion. We used both qualitative and quantitative data collected from 154 men court-mandated to participate in a batterer intervention program. The qualitative findings indicated that the men in this sample minimized and denied responsibility for the violence they used towards their intimate partners while simultaneously rationalizing and justifying their violent behavior. Such findings provide insight into how denial and minimization and, more broadly, men's constructions of masculinity might predict their tendency to drop out of batterer treatment. Furthermore, building upon our qualitative findings, logistic regression analysis revealed that men who were lower income, no longer intimately involved with the women they abused, and who reported lower levels of physical violence and higher levels of hostility were more likely to drop out of the batterer treatment program.

Language: en