The conference is divided into 4 invited lectures and 6 parallel sessions held throughout the two days, where posters, individual and panel presentations are given. In this respect it is no different to most of the large conferences we attend – the usual suspects are present: bad coffee and endless powerpoint presentations. But in many ways it is also very different – I hope to capture this in the commentary.

It was disappointing for everyone that Jeffrey Edleson was not able to make the conference due to poor weather. His keynote address in the morning was due to focus on directions for program development and evaluation around the subject of parenting by men who batter their intimate partners. It was made up for in part however by a stimulating session where researchers from Duke University presented some sophisticated analyses around the mechanisms underling the continuity and discontinuity of violence between generations. The data from their studies suggest that policy and practice implications should be focused on social support mechanisms, carer depressive symptomatology and carer’s social cognition (or internal representations related to their use of violence).

I attend perhaps the most controversial of panels at the conference: a series of papers exploring the mutual perpetration of violence, and victimization of men and women by their intimate partners and its underlying correlates. It is not an understatement to say that such presentations would have labelled you a heretic in recent time but a handful