There is little debate about domestic violence, across disciplines, in how to frame it.
Domestic violence is NOT mental health, it is Power and Control (Duluth Model, n.d.) Domestic violence can trigger mental health conditions due to its trauma, such as PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder, that is included in numerous diagnoses within the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), (Breslau & Kessler, 2001). But, in itself, domestic violence is not mental health. There is also no DSM for it in the American Psychological Association, likely for the very reason that domestic violence is power and control. Some abusers may present with some mental health condition. But, the domestic violence itself is the power and control the abuser has over his victim and uses that power and control to victimize them. Like Rape, which is also about power and control, when there is a combination of these and other related acts of violence in the family; this is Family Violence.
Abusers are master manipulators who use their power and control to purposefully manipulate victims and systems designed to support victims, to cause victims harm. While abusers perpetually manipulate, mostly to keep themselves positively portrayed, abusers do not abuse with everyone. Abusers’ can control their abuse and who they abuse when they want to because it is behavioral. In opposition, when a person has a mental health condition, they have it all of the time and with everyone. Abusers may abuse one person, but will not abuse a different person. Abusers may abuse in one relationship, but not abuse in another relationship. Often, they make a conscious and deliberate decision in selecting and grooming who they will abuse and make decisions about who they will not abuse. This is about power and control, not mental health.
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