A complex look at the phenomenon of violence in intimate relationships: gender specificity and methodological implications

The complexity paradigm, thanks to its capacity to expand exploratory spaces, is the framework for an interpretation of the phenomenon of violence in intimate relationships that, going beyond the content, seeks its origins in the difficulties for partners to access the intersubjective dimension of the love experience. At the centre of the reflection is the subject, understood as a unitary reference and implicit organizer of the experience, who, by virtue of the species-specific quality of consciousness, is able to engage in reflective dialog with itself and with the other, in the direction of a qualitatively more understanding outlook about its own experience. It also looks at the cultural roots of violence in intimate relationships, highlighted in the gender approach, and exposes some of the critical issues related to operational practices in anti-violence centres. The quality of the intervention is set in relation to the theoretical significance reserved for the subject, in the absence of which the promotion of a reflective outlook on the complexity of its own experience is lacking.