Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Women Victims of Domestic Abuse

A Pilot Study

Iverson, Katherine M.
Shenk, Chad
Fruzzetti, Alan E.

¹University of Nevada, Reno
²Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center

Editor's Note. This is one of six accepted articles received in response to an open call for submissions on interventions for intimate partner violence/domestic violence.—MCR.

Katherine M. Iverson received her PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Nevada, Reno, and is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Women's Health Sciences Division of the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in the Boston Veterans Affairs Healthcare System. Her interests are in the conceptual understanding and treatment of survivors of interpersonal trauma, as well as innovative approaches to the dissemination of cognitive-behavioral therapies.

Chad Shenk received his PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Nevada, Reno. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Division of Behavioral Medicine and Clinical Psychology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. His areas of research interest include emotion dysregulation, adolescent psychopathology, family interactions, psychotherapy outcome, and the developmental sequelae of childhood maltreatment.

Alan E. Fruzzetti received his PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Washington. He is associate professor of psychology and director of the Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Research Program at the University of Nevada, Reno. His research interests include understanding the relationships between emotion dysregulation and couple and family interactions, developing and evaluating effective treatments for problems such as borderline personality and related disorders, depression, and family violence, and training and dissemination of effective treatments.

The program described in this article was supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Justice and the State of Nevada Office of the Attorney General, awarded to Alan E. Fruzzetti. A special thank you is extended to the many therapists who worked in this program, often in a pro bono capacity, including Hillary LeReux, Kirsten Lowry, Brie Moore, Megan Oser, Heather Pierson, and Alethea Varra.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Alan E. Fruzzetti, Department of Psychology (298), University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557. E-mail: [email protected]

Received November 2, 2007; Revision received June 9, 2008; Accepted June 16, 2008

Professional Psychology: Research and Practice 40(3):p 242-248, June 2009. | DOI: 10.1037/a0013476

This article describes a brief, 12-week dialectical behavior therapy program modified for female victims of domestic abuse and provides a preliminary examination of this intervention. Dialectical behavior therapy is a comprehensive cognitive-behavioral treatment, which was originally developed to treat multiproblem clients with severe and chronic emotion dysregulation, and was adapted for this study to treat female victims of domestic abuse. From pretreatment to posttreatment, participants (N = 31) showed significant reductions in depressive symptoms, hopelessness, and general psychiatric distress as well as increased social adjustment. Additionally, participants reported high levels of consumer satisfaction with the treatment. Findings support the possible utility of dialectical behavior therapy for enhancing psychological and social well-being in female victims of domestic abuse.