Abstract
Family violence is a serious social problem in contemporary society. The aim of this article is to indicate the correspondence between the vicissitudes of explanatory theories of family violence and the vicissitudes of treatments of family violence (especially child abuse). Risk factors theory is the most popular, but it cannot explain the difference between abusive families and non-abusive families both being exposed to the same risk factors. Then family system theory, which analyzes the family adaptation mechanism, has increased its importance among explanatory theories for family violence. Despite its effectiveness, family system theory has the limitation of not being able to explain norm-conforming violence, for example, cruel corporal punishments. Nested ecological theory outlines the reciprocal interaction of four primary levels of influence: macrosystem, exosystem, microsystem and ontogeny. It emphasizes the importance of cultural values and norm systems on violent behavior, then turns out to be an effective explanatory theory of family violence. The shift of theoretical importance from maladaptive family violence to norm-conforming family violence may also be found in the shift in treatment of family violence, that is, from family-maintaining treatment to family-intervening treatment.
