The Heart of Intimate Abuse - Linda G. Mills

The Heart of Intimate Abuse
New Interventions in Child Welfare, Criminal Justice, and Health Settings

Author: Linda G. Mills, PhD, LCSW, JD

Pub Date: 08/1998
296 pp Hardback
ISBN13: 9780826112163

List: $60.00

Description | Table of Contents | Reviews | Author Biographies

This startling analysis of violence within intimate relationships contends that every abusive relationship has, paradoxically, a heart of its own. Practitioners must acknowledge and engage this dynamic emotional center in order for interventions to succeed.

The Heart of Intimate Abuse takes a broad, critical view of standard responses to abuse by today's criminal justice, social work, and medical systems--especially those that respond to violence with coercive interventions such as mandatory arrest, prosecution, and reporting laws.

Here is a bold vision of the core dynamics of abuse in families--a vision that professionals can use to realize new policies and implement effective interventions that reach the heart of intimate abuse.

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Table of Contents

Part I: The Heart of Intimate Abuse

Intersections and Tensions in Domestic Violence and Child Welfare Practice
The Heart of Intimate Abuse and the Dynamics of Domestic Violence

Part II: Systems' Responses to Domestic Violence

The Criminal Justice System's Response to Domestic Violence
The Public Child Welfare System's Response to Domestic Violence
The Health Care System's Response to Domestic Violence

Part III: Empowerment Strategies and Affective Advocacy

Engaging the Battered Mother: Empowerment Strategies and Affective Advocacy
Systems Strategies for Working with Battered Mothers and Their Children
Empowerment and Affective Strategies I: Meetings in Criminal Justice
Empowerment and Affective Strategies II: Meetings in Public Child Welfare
Empowerment and Affective Strategies III: Meetings in Health Care

Part IV: Future Interventions

An Empowerment Model for Battered Women and Their Children

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Reviews

"This delightfully readable book is a must for all child welfare workers. Through her strength of scholarship and critical analysis, Mills has produced a groundbreaking work that will be the basis of redirecting future research, training, and professional practice. She is truly a pioneer."--Duncan Lindsey, author of The Welfare of Children; Editor, Children and Youth Services Review

In this compassionate study of domestic violence, Linda Mills has revealed a rarely-traveled path, the one into ourselves. The Heart of Intimate Abuse decisively shows that the best answers to domestic violence will not be found in systems and institutions. The answers are within those human beings willing to consider the roles of culture, fear, religion, and most ignored of all, love. Mills compels us to wonder how we ever thought we could do it any other way. Linda Mills effects change by affecting the heart."--Gavin de Becker, author of The Gift of of Fear

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Author Biographies

Linda G. Mills, PhD, LCSW, JD, is Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and University Life and Professor of Social Work, Public Policy and Law at UCLA. She is also an attorney and expert in domestic violence and disability policy and has written extensively on these topics.

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