The role of psychiatry in family violence treatment

The aim of the paper is reassessment of the role of psychiatry in the treatment of family violence within the context of contemporary approaches and researches. There are prejudices in the general and professional public that perpetrators of family violence are usually persons with mental disorders and that psychiatry is primarily in charge of their treatment; it has been shown that severe mental disorders do not increase the risk of violence. Application of classical psychiatrics approach to family violence treatment is discussed, as well as the roles of psychiatry in current theoretical and therapeutic approaches to this issue, including systemic family therapy, social psychiatry primarily concerned with their treatment. Studies have shown that severe mental disorders do not increase ecology, unwillingness therapy and model of protection of family violence victims that is developed in Serbia. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 47021]