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Reciprocal abuse inside care practices remain under-studied due to their invisibility and further research is required. The purpose of this paper is to explore different levels of conflicts inside organisations.

The paper is based on a self-administered questionnaire filled out by care workers (n = 150), in 16 Portuguese care homes.

Results indicated that, overall, 54.7% of care workers had observed abuse, in their daily practice, in the preceding 12 months: 48.7% psychological; 36.0% neglectful care practices; 14.0% physical and 3.3% financial abuse. The figures decreased significantly as regards abuse committed themselves, with 16.7% of those admitting to having committed at least one of these behaviours. The highest figures were also recorded for psychological abuse (13.3%) and neglect (6.7%). However, there is a statistically significant relationship between abuse committed by care workers and abuse committed by residents. Overall, 52.0% of care workers reported having been the target of at least one such behaviour by residents.

This paper has its limitations as the sample consisted of only 16 nursing homes (12 not-for-profit and 4 for-profit nursing homes). The fact that only 4 of the 16 LTC homes were for-profit is a potential limitation both in general and in particular because research has shown that lower quality of care and elder abuse and neglect are more common in for-profit nursing homes at least in Portugal. The results were also based on self-reported measures.

A reactive behaviour, the risk of retaliation, after a complaint, the difficulty in dealing with dementia and the residents' aggressive behaviour, an absence of a training and support policy in an environment where difficult working conditions prevail, are factors enhancing a reciprocal process of abuse. The analysis followed by a discussion of potential implications to prevent institutional elder abuse and neglect, based on communication and social recognition, including better working conditions and training, and a cooperative work environment.

Conflict is much more than reducing an interpersonal relationship problem between residents and staff (care workers, professional staff, managers) and extending to the whole organisation. Therefore, there are still uncertainties on how organisations, staff and residents interact between themselves, and affect care practises.

Reciprocal abuse in nursing homes is an important area of research and this paper enabled a discussion of potential implications concerning the quality of care, which required the identification of levels of conflict, in an organisational system, including interactions, the context where care is provided, difficult working conditions, lack of training and levels of support. All these factors are important when considering elder abuse and neglect and this calls for special attention by policymakers and researchers.

The feasibility and prevalence of reciprocal, hierarchical and paternal patterns of family aggression hypothesised by Dixon and Browne (2003) were explored within a sample of maltreating families. The psychological reports of 67 families referred to services for alleged child maltreatment that evidenced concurrent physical intimate partner violence and child maltreatment were investigated. Of these, 29 (43.3%) cases were characterised by hierarchical patterns, 28 (41.8%) by reciprocal patterns and 10 (14.9%) by paternal patterns. Significant differences in the form of child maltreatment perpetrated by mothers and fathers and parent dyads living in different patterns were found. In hierarchical sub‐patterns, fathers were significantly more likely to have been convicted for a violent and/or sexual offence than mothers and were significantly less likely to be biologically related to the child. The findings demonstrate the existence of the different patterns in a sample of families involved in the child care protection process in England and Wales, supporting the utility of a holistic approach to understanding aggression in the family.

Cognitive analytic therapy (CAT) has a developing evidence base for working with complex cases including personality disorder. This article describes the use of CAT with a single 25‐year‐old male patient with severe personality difficulties who was residing in a medium secure hospital. It is suggested that, in treatment of severe personality difficulties, rather than aiming at ‘cure’, therapy may have a more modest goal such as movement from personality‐disordered functioning to adequate or optimal personality functioning.

Holding domestic violence perpetrators accountable for their abusive behavior is the number one objective of batterer intervention programs (BIPs), typically consisting of same‐sex psychoeducational counseling groups. However, such programs have been found to be only marginally successful in reducing recidivism rates. To be more effective, programs need to take into account the complexities of intimate partner violence. The purpose of this article is to offer clinicians working in the field of partner violence suggestions to help them enlist client cooperation and teach responsibility while taking into account the prevalence of mutual abuse dynamics.

The article draws on findings from the research literature as well as the author's 20 years of clinical experience conducting domestic violence offender treatment groups for both men and women.

Among individuals court‐mandated to batterer intervention, many are involved in mutually‐abusive relationships. Emerging literature indicates that some are also primarily victims. This poses a dilemma for batterer intervention group facilitators, who must work within a legal framework in which individuals are deemed to be either perpetrators or victims.

Implications of this article for partner violence policy and practice include a need for more flexible, evidence‐based laws on partner violence.

There are few practice articles on working with the various forms of abuse dynamics within a clinical setting, and this is the first that is focused on group treatment. The article should be of value to clinicians working directly with domestic violence perpetrators and victims, as well as to the policy makers who conceptualize, create and fund these programs.

Drawing on the social exchange theory, this study aims to investigate the destructive impact of abusive supervision and supervisor undermining on quiescent silence and turnover intentions among frontline employees. Whether quiescent silence and the desire to seek revenge mediate the path from aggressive supervisory behaviors to turnover intentions is explored.

Following a time-lagged design, the authors collected data from 350 frontline banking officers in Thailand by a survey. For data analysis purposes, structural equation modeling procedures are used through Smart partial least square version 3.2.0.

Uniquely, findings suggest that abusive supervision does not result in any form of retaliation. Supervisor undermining has a trickle-down effect on the desire to revenge, quiescent silence and turnover intentions. For supervisor undermining, the direct path, as well as mediating roles are supported by data.

The findings of this study suggests organizational systems should discourage supervisors from undermining the subordinates. There is a need to offer regular training to supervisors. Furthermore, employees should be provided some platforms and the freedom to positively speak at work. Above all, supervisors should be more inspiring which can dilute negative perceptions of abuse.

The proposed mediation of desire to revenge and quiescent silence is unique to this study. Moreover, the challenge to the traditional trickle-down effects of abusive supervision is a unique intervention in the organizational behavior literature.

Studies on restrictive engulfment (RE) – a subtype of psychological aggression in intimate relationships – have focused either on insecure attachment or relationship satisfaction, not both. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate relationship satisfaction as a potential mediator of the associations between anxious and avoidant attachment and RE perpetration among college students.

A sample of 322 college students (178 women, 137 men, and seven other gender-identified) completed the experiences in close relationship inventory, relationship assessment scale, and RE subscale of the multidimensional measure of emotional abuse.

Among the sample, 89.3 and 90.5 percent of the college women and men, respectively, reported to have used isolating, restricting, monitoring, and controlling behaviors. The results of structural equation modeling revealed that all direct paths except for that from avoidant attachment to RE were significant. Moreover, significant indirect paths were identified from anxious and avoidant attachment to RE via relationship satisfaction.

The results of this study should be interpreted with consideration of the study’s limitations. First, the data were drawn from a convenience sample of Turkish college students. Second, the design of the study is correlational; therefore, we cannot assume causality. Finally, this study utilized self-report and retrospective data.

Though the findings are preliminary, they may inform college counselors and other mental health practitioners about the nature of RE within college students’ dating relationships. College students who are unhappy with their dating relationships but still in those relationships (i.e. they choose not to leave) should be assessed for whether they are the perpetrators and/or recipients of psychological aggression, especially in light of the high rates of this form of aggression in the current and previous studies. Furthermore, assessing psychological dating aggression perpetrators for insecure attachment styles may help mental health professionals who work with college students, envisage the sessions toward areas in the need of improvement, such as their views of themselves and others. Self-esteem, feelings of insecurity and inadequacy in relationships, and dependency can be worked with these clients.

The results of this study also have implications for the prevention of psychological aggression before it occurs. The need for prevention programs is evident in the high rates of psychologically controlling behaviors among college students. It may be useful to implement campus wide programs to raise awareness regarding psychological aggression, such as through events, seminars, posters, flyers, and talks with student groups.

Despite the limitations of this study, its findings offer insight into the factors that influence the perpetration of psychological aggression within dating relationships among college students. Adult attachment theory offers a useful lens for understanding the possible driving forces behind college students’ controlling behaviors toward their dating partners. In particular, college students who demonstrate an insecure attachment style – and especially an anxious attachment style – combined with low levels of relationship satisfaction appear to be at a high risk for perpetrating RE behaviors.

The study of theoretical models explaining elder abuse has been one of the main gaps in the literature of the field. The extent of support of each theory is not clear. This study aims to conduct a systematic review to examine research supporting or opposing six theories of elder abuse: caregiver stress theory, social exchange theory, social learning theory, bidirectional theory, dyadic discord theory and the psychopathology of the caregiver.

This study conducts a systematic review of the literature. Seven databases were searched six times using different keywords about each theory.

This paper finds 26,229 references and then organised and analysed these references using pre-established criteria. In total, 89 papers were selected, which contained 117 results of interest; these papers were summarised and assessed for conceptual, methodological and evidence quality. The results showed evidence in favour of all the explored theories, except for social learning theory, whose results indicate multiple interpretations of the theory. This study finishes this paper by proposing that each of these theories might explain different facets of elder abuse and that more research is necessary to understand how the predictions of these different theories interact.

This paper presents an extensive review of the literature on theoretical explanations of elder abuse. The findings can be of value for selecting theories for prevention programmes or providing a summary of the evidence for researchers and practitioners interested in the theoretical explanation of elder abuse.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the experiences of psychologists in considering the barriers to people with intellectual disabilities being able to access mainstream mental health services.

The information relating to participant experiences was gathered by conducting two focus groups: one with psychologists working in the adult mental health service and the second with psychologists working in the learning disability service. A thematic analysis was used to determine the main themes from each of the focus groups.

The overarching themes for the psychologists in the adult mental health service related to: service restrictions; confidence in their ability/skills; and resistance to change. The overarching themes for the psychologists in the learning disability service reflected: future thinking; protection; pessimism; and clarification around mental health and learning disability.

The discussion includes consideration of the dynamic positions of the two services and recommendations for an integrated system of working.

Based on the social exchange theory and the reactance theory, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of workplace abuse from two sources. The study explores the linkage between abusive supervision and co-worker abuse on the targeted employee’s organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior and intention to quit as mediated by procedural justice. Furthermore, this study extends understanding workplace abuse consequences by investigating its effects on organizational citizenship behavior directed to individuals and organizational citizenship behavior directed to the organization.

To test the proposed hypotheses, a cross-sectional research design was used. The sample comprised 500 employees working in various private and public sector organizations in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. Using a split-sample approach, mediation analyses were performed on the test and validation samples.

The research results showed that procedural justice mediated the relationship between abusive supervision and affective and normative commitment, organizational citizenship behavior directed to individuals and intention to quit. Procedural justice was found to mediate the relationship between co-worker abuse and affective and normative commitment, and intention to quit.

This study extends previous academic studies on workplace abuse by comparing the effects of abusive supervision and the lesser researched source of co-worker abuse on the targeted employee’s organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior and intention to quit. It also reports on the effects of each source on an employee’s organizational citizenship behavior directed to individuals and organizational citizenship behavior directed to the organization, as there is limited empirical research within the workplace abuse literate on these two dimensions.