Kay Johnson posted:Dear Liane,
How do you know whether or not a batterer has a narcissistic/borderline personality disorder? Do you have any statistics on this subset? The majority of professionals including mental health professionals and family court judges cannot distinguish a narcissistic/borderline parent from a healthy parent. I am not sure if anyone realizes that there are 32 million narcissistic/borderline adults in the U.S. alone. There are 22 million targeted parents, who are people like me that married and had children with a narcissistic/borderline and didn't even know it until he had already caused so much psychological damage that my two children and I will struggle with physical and mental impairments the rest of our lives.
There are indeed research studies looking at personality types in those who go on to commit intimate partner violence ---- it's been a while since I was involved in that area -- 20-30 years or so, but if you're prepared to survey the literature that far back you'll certainly find the studies -- and I'd be surprised if that literature hasn't been followed up.
Being a bit of an "old codger' myself, perhaps Donald Dutton -- probably now Professor Emeritus at UBC -- might be able to provide some further info -- he's got over 30 years of research in the literature. He might also have some research on the experience of adverse childhood experience in that group -- although it would have been done, mostly at least, without using things like the ACEsQ. I certainly remember his having included measures of such in his "Propensity for Abusiveness Scale".