Communication Skills vs. Mindfulness for IPV

A Proximal Change Experiment: Testing the Effects of Communication Skills Training vs. Mindfulness Techniques on Intimate Partner Aggression

This tests the immediate impact of two brief interventions on couples reporting intimate partner violence using the proximal change experimental design. Couples will be randomly assigned to a mindfulness conditions, a communication exercise or a placebo condition. Outcome measures include observed and experimentally assessed aggression.

This pilot study is designed to test the effects of two brief interventions on communication and emotional expression between intimate partners who have experienced recent domestic violence. In addition, it will provide some basic laboratory findings on differences in distress tolerance between perpetrators and victims of domestic abuse. Specifically, using the proximal change experimental design, couples will engaged in a 7.5 minute conflict discussion while being videotaped and having their autonomic responding monitored. Then they will be randomly assigned to one of three conditions: a communication skills training exercise, a mindfulness condition, or a placebo control. Next, ,couples will engaged in second 7.5 minute conflict discussion. It is hypothesized that those in both the communication skills training and mindfulness condition will display more positive and less aggressive behavior in their second conflict discussion as compared to their first. It is also expected that they will administer less aggression (as measured by delivery of a loud noise) to their partner after both of the active interventions. In addition, multiple measures of distress tolerance will be administered to both partners. It is expected that couples with a characterologically violent perpetrator, he or she will evidence decreased distress tolerance and the victimized partner will evidence increased distress tolerance

intimate partner violence, aggression, batterers intervention, mindfulness, communication skills, couples

Male and female participants will listen to a description of John Gottman's Gentle Start-up communication skills training exercise and practice the technique in the lab for approximately 8 minutes.

Male and female participants will listen to a script about Acceptance/Willingness of unwanted emotions written by Amie Zarling and practice this technique in the lab for approximately 8 minutes.

Gentle start-up is one treatment technique in the Creating Healthy Relationship Program written by John Gottman, Ph.D.

Acceptance/willingness of unwanted emotions is treatment technique of Achieving Change through Value-Based Behavior (ACTV) written by Amie Zarling, Ph.D.

Couples randomly assigned to this condition listen to music on headphones. This may be considered an active placebo as it is similar to a Time Out technique taught in battering interventions.

Specific Affect Coding System (SPAFF; Gottman, McCoy, Coan, Collier, 1996). SPAFF categorizes 16 emotions based on facial affect, vocal tone, body language, and content of speech.

Overt aggression will be assessed using a modified version of the Taylor Aggression Paradigm (TAP; Epstein & Taylor, 1967). The TAP is an established method to study aggression in the laboratory. It is a deceptive, competitive reaction time task in which the participant competes against an "opponent" which is actually the computer program.

Inclusion Criteria: Adult co-habituating couples Reporting some violence in the past year (score > 0 on CTS2 physical abuse subscale) Exclusion Criteria: Homosexual couples Children under 18 non-English speakers

Babcock JC, Graham K, Canady B, Ross JM. A proximal change experiment testing two communication exercises with intimate partner violent men. Behav Ther. 2011 Jun;42(2):336-47. doi: 10.1016/j.beth.2010.08.010. Epub 2011 Feb 24.