Continuum of Conflict and Control: A Conceptualization of Intimate Partner Violence Typologies

Typologies of intimate partner violence were developed to describe the heterogeneity of abusive men. They contrast with the traditional feminist ideology of abuser etiology that holds all violence is the result of power and control. Over the past 15 years, a large body of knowledge about typologies has amassed, mostly in sociology journals. Thus, very little typology research has been published in counseling journals. This article synthesizes empirically based typological research and introduces the continuum of conflict and control—a conceptual training model to help couples counselors understand the differences among violence within relationships. Keywords intimate partner violence, partner violence typologies, Duluth model, domestic violence, marital conflict Over the past 15 years, a growing body of research on intimate partner violence has focused on typologies of partner violence. Typologies were developed to describe the heterogeneity of abusive men by identifying categories of batterers based on various factors such as the severity and frequency of violence, offender psychopathology, context, and consequences of th