Duluth Model - Criticism

Criticism

According to critics, programs based on the Duluth Model may ignore research linking domestic violence to substance abuse and psychological problems, such as attachment disorders, traced to childhood abuse or neglect, or the absence of a history of adequate socialization and training. Some criticize the Duluth model as being overly confrontational rather than therapeutic, focusing solely on changing the abuser's actions and attitudes rather than dealing with underlying emotional and psychological issues. Donald Dutton, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia who has studied abusive personalities, states: "The Duluth Model was developed by people who didn't understand anything about therapy."

The exclusive focus on males as perpetrators and the rejection of system dynamics models has been criticized from perspectives influenced by psychology and family therapy. The fields of psychology, psychiatry, and social work all provide for application of skill learning, improved social understanding and practiced behavioral mastery to provide for corrected and alternative behaviors. By contrast, the Duluth Model presents only "once an abuser, always an abuser" constructions to this important social problem.

Read more about this topic:  Duluth Model

Famous quotes containing the word criticism:

    I consider criticism merely a preliminary excitement, a statement of things a writer has to clear up in his own head sometime or other, probably antecedent to writing; of no value unless it come to fruit in the created work later.
    Ezra Pound (1885–1972)

    As far as criticism is concerned, we don’t resent that unless it is absolutely biased, as it is in most cases.
    John Vorster (1915–1983)

    Like speaks to like only; labor to labor, philosophy to philosophy, criticism to criticism, poetry to poetry. Literature speaks how much still to the past, how little to the future, how much to the East, how little to the West.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)