Marital Conflict, Intimate Partner Violence, and Family Preservation

This chapter examines the empirical literature concerning family preservation. Although many chapters include information relevant to family preservation, this chapter focuses on family problems not explicitly discussed elsewhere in the book. Thus, we discuss marital conflict in terms of not only how couple members are affected, but also how family life impacts the health and well-being of the children. We do not address specific problems, such as chemical dependency, juvenile delinquency, and eating disorders, even though these problems affect family preservation, and we discuss family violence strictly in terms of domestic or spousal abuse, rather than child abuse, sibling abuse, or elder abuse, even though these problems, obviously, affect family preservation. This chapter includes a discussion of assessment methods and intervention methods related to intimate partner violence.