Treatment and Prevention of Marital Violence: An Initial Study about the Indication of Encounter Group

Abstract

This article discusses the encounter group as a psychological intervention for battered women treatment in the public health area. It shortly describes a research and its application in the Prevention of Domestic Violence Program maintained by the Consultorio Externo de la Escuela de Psicología of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. It used a phenomenological method to analyse the videotaped sessions. The results shows that the emergent content of the sessions refered basicaly to the subjects related to domestic violence towards women and the ways to cope with these situations, which confirms the hypothesis of encounter group indication for treatment in public health with battered women.