Aren batterers mentally ill?
A small percentage of violence against adult intimates is illness-based behavior rather than domestic violence. Individuals with diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s chorea, or psychosis may strike out at an intimate partner. It is relatively easy to distinguish illness-based violence from learning-based violence. The violence is not be part of a pattern of coercive control. With illness-based violence, there is usually no selection of a particular victim (whoever is present when the short circuit occurs will get attacked: e.g., health care provider, family member, friend, stranger). With learning-based violence, perpetrators use targeted violence with the intent to maintain control over a specific victim. With illness-based violence, there is a constellation of symptoms that indicate a disease process. With learning-based violence there is no indication of a disease process.
