Violence in the context of personal relationships

The issue of violence in the context of personal relationships is a complex and contested one. In trying to analyse and explore the issue this chapter will first seek to give a brief historical overview of the way in which our understanding and analysis has developed and then look at current understandings and policy approaches from a variety of perspectives, including those of both practitioners and those who have used domestic violence services. In doing so, the chapter draws upon the findings of a collaborative European research project and will seek to explore violence in the context of personal relationships in relation to both intimate partner violence and broader violence involving other family, peer or friendship relationships; it will inevitably focus, though, on ‘domestic’ violence, as this has been the primary focus of most of the research in this area. It will seek to explore factors which influence violence but also strategies for providing effective support based on the experiences of those who have experienced violence. It is of course difficult to cover the full range of issues around vulnerability in a short chapter such as this and as a result the discussion which can be given to any particular issue is inevitably brief.