Editorial

Abstract

When the wife of the president of the United States has recently been on a lecture tour warning about the dangers of domestic violence we know the subject has at last entered public consciousness. As the authors of our annotation, Terrie Moffitt and Avshalom Caspi, put it “Research on partner violence has struggled to gain scientific legitimacy”. Moffitt and Caspi discuss the topical issue of adult partner violence and its possible consequences for the health and well-being of children. A disturbing number of detrimental consequences for children could arise from their exposure to violence between adult partners in the home. The authors suggest clinical practice with children should take into account those parental influences that children carry forward with them into their own adult family life. They make the point that violence between couples may begin during dating in adolescence, and is as often perpetrated by females as males. They point out that an important but hitherto unappreciated link has been found, from the results of longitudinal epidemiological investigations, between childhood conduct problems and adult partner violence. That link has probably been missed in former retrospective studies of adults who are abusive to their partners, asked about their own upbringing. Interventions for conduct problems in adolescence and beforehand are clearly of importance if the cycle of intergenerational violence is to be broken. Questions we all need to address, as clinicians, include: “What is the impact on young children of violence within the home between adults, to which they may repeatedly be exposed? How is such experience likely to affect their attitudes to violence, especially when in a similar relationship themselves?” Partner violence is concentrated among young men and women who cohabit but are not married, and who bear children at a young age, especially if they have a history of conduct problems themselves. How often is domestic violence a subject of enquiry when drawing up the initial formulation of a new clinical referral?