This article is in response to Fergusson, Horwood, and Ridder (2005), "Partner Violence and Mental Health Outcomes in a New Zealand Birth Cohort" and appears in the same issue of the Journal of Marriage and the Family (as does Holtzworth-Munroe, 2005, "Male Versus Female Intimate Partner Violence: Putting Controversial Findings in Context"). Fergusson et al. explore the relationship between domestic violence and mental health outcomes in a birth cohort of 1,003 participants involved in the longitudinal Christchurch Health and Development Study, assessed at age 25. The authors sought to dispel the belief that domestic violence is gendered, typically involving a male offender and a female victim. Their findings indicate that men and women had similar rates of victimisation and perpetration of partner abuse; exposure to domestic violence had a positive relationship with mental disorders; and mental health outcomes were similar for men and women. Johnson argues that Fergusson et al. only discuss one of three types of violence according to the control-based typology of intimate partner violence he has developed: situational couple violence. The other two types are: intimate terrorism, the form of violence most commonly associated with the imprecisely, but commonly used term domestic violence; and violent resistance, a response to intimate terrorism which does not necessarily meet the legal definition of self-defence. He further argues that intimate terrorism is undeniably primarily male perpetrated, is most definitely a gender issue, and that the failure to acknowledge the major differences among these three types of intimate partner violence inevitably leads to serious errors of fact, theory and intervention. In support of this argument, Johnson highlights that, when his typology is able to be applied retrospectively, the results of studies differ depending on where sampling has taken place. For instance, community-based samples like Fergusson et al. generally show situational couple violence and gender symmetry, while agency and hospital samples provide evidence of male perpetrated intimate terrorism. When these typologies are not 'operationalized' errors in fact lead to errors in theory because evidence of situational couple violence is applied to issues related to intimate terrorism, and vice versa. When this form of evidence-based talking past each other affects intervention he argues that the consequences of applying situational couple violence solutions to women's experiences of intimate terrorism can have fatal consequences. Lastly, Johnson argues that a positive aspect to this study is that, even though it deals only with situational couple violence, and very little of that, the authors are able demonstrate effects on a variety of mental health outcomes. He posits what they might be able to achieve if they 'operationalized' intimate terrorism/domestic violence.

xxu

Journal of Marriage and Family 67(5) December 2005 : 1126-1130