The Feminist Meets the Cybernetician: An Integrated Approach to Spousal Violence

This paper examines the therapeutic communities’ concern about the use of conjoint treatment for spousal violence. However, support is offered for the view that this approach can be effective in some cases. Through therapy with seven couples, the authors have developed a four level assessment intervention framework. The framework integrates a feminist view of power with a systemic interpretation of cybernetics. The paper describes the framework as well as the “Peace Agreement”, a tool developed by the authors for the dual purpose of intervening on an interactional level in spousal violence and to assess the appropriateness of conjoint therapy.