Practitioners’ Views on IPV and Its Solutions: An Integrative Literature Review

Abstract

There are ongoing debates in the scientific community and in practice settings about how intimate partner violence (IPV) should be defined and understood and about how various interventions must be carried out. If these debates are to bear fruit, however, we must first gain a comprehensive understanding of each stakeholder’s viewpoints on IPV and its solutions. This article seeks to contribute to this goal by summarizing empirical studies investigating how practitioners who work with IPV perpetrators understand the problem and its solutions. Based on an integrative review of the literature, it focuses on how practitioners define IPV and its causes, how they perceive the perpetrators and victims, and on the solutions they put forward in order to work against this social problem. The limitations of our current knowledge are outlined as well as the implications of this review for IPV debates.