Loving someone is a source of great joy. It is also a challenge because loving and the sharing of intimacy sometimes lead to abusive behaviour — as seen in crimes of passion or in chronic forms of domestic violence.
If love and relationships always secrete forms of violence, why do some people act on their violent feelings while others — the majority — don’t? What causes some people to succumb to domestic violence, and how can they stop being violent? What can the rest of us learn, about ourselves and our own relationships, from the couples that have succumbed to domestic violence?
Roland Coutanceau deciphers passion and its various forms of expression: the desire of fusion, jealousy, possessiveness, the temptation to dominate. He shows us how to recognise the different types of relationships between partners — possessive, domineering-dominated, fusional, libertarian, egalitarian — and to understand the causes of violence so as to assess the situation and make use of the adequate psychological and social solutions that are available.
Roland Coutanceau, a psychiatrist and criminologist, is an expert at the Court of Appeal of Versailles, approved by the Supreme Court of Appeal and President of the French League of Mental Health. He is the author of Vivre après l’inceste (2004).