title: Female-perpetrated intimate partner violence: an examination of three cases using multiple sequential functional analysis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Recent empirical evidence suggests that women assault their intimate partners at approximately the same rate as men. However, a general historical reluctance to acknowledge women as significant perpetrators of intimate partner violence (IPV) has limited clinical understanding of this phenomenon and the processes by which such behaviour may develop.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The following paper uses multiple sequential functional analysis (MSFA), an idiographic case formulation method based on functional analysis, to explore the development and functional value of IPV in the case histories of three women.
  
  
  METHODS
  Data from comprehensive clinical interviews, file review and collateral professional interviews are synthesised using MSFA to examine the development and maintenance of IPV across each participant's lifespan.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Although there appeared to be important differences between participants, the analyses broadly indicated that all three participants used violence instrumentally to achieve some aspect of control or coercion over their intimate partners, and to meet their primary intimacy needs.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The MSFA appears to be a useful methodology for understanding female-perpetrated IPV and, importantly, may lend itself more readily to effective formulation-informed interventions than other qualitative-narrative case methods. The strengths and limitations of MSFA as a pragmatic case formulation method are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Clinical Psychology, University of Lincoln, Lincoln, UK.
authors.forename: Lyndsay
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Mappin
authors.forename: David L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Dawson
authors.forename: David M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Gresswell
authors.forename: Kerry
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Beckley
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior; D000328:Adult; D032763:Behavior Control; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D008297:Male; D012747:Sexual Partners / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014754:Violence / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult