Author Description

About the Author Ola W. Barnett is a Distinguished Professor Emerita of Psychology at Pepperdine University, Malibu, California. She earned her undergraduate and doctoral degrees in Psychology at UCLA, specializing in Learning. Her initial research centered on batterers, and she later studied battered women and dating violence. She has coauthored two best-selling Sage books (with Alyce D. LaViolette) on why battered women stay with abusive partners. These books provide a scientific explanation, grounded in learning theory, for understanding the obstacles battered women face in trying to break free. She remains active in the field of family violence by reviewing articles for a large number of journals and performing as an external grant reviewer for a few organizations. She serves on the editorial board of the new journal, Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice. She also continues research on the impact of transitional housing on the lives of battered women. Lundy Bancroft has 14 years of counseling and clinical supervising experience in over 2,000 cases working with batterers. He also served extensively as a custody evaluator and child abuse investigator, appeared as an expert witness in child custody and welfare cases, and led groups for teenage boys exposed to domestic violence. He has been training judges, probation officers and other court personnel on men who batter and on battering’s effects on children. He co-authored articles in the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of Contemporary Psychology and is co-creator of two nationally marketed curricula, one for working with batterers and one for teen-dating violence in schools. In addition, he completed a study for the state of Massachusetts on approaches to meeting the service needs of children exposed to domestic violence.