Michael Johnsons book, A Typology of Domestic Violence: Intimate Terrorism, Violent Resistance, and Situational Couple Violence provides an in-depth analysis of intimate partner violence, broken up into four different categories in hopes to clarify past research that has created misleading, problematic and contradictory findings. The four different types of intimate partner violence, according to Johnson, are intimate terrorism, violent resistance, situational couple violence, and mutual violent control. Johnson argues that intimate partner violence is not a unitary phenomenon and that understanding intimate partner violence as having different types will help those in the field of domestic violence to diminish overgeneralizations and provide better support for women experiencing intimate partner violence.
Johnson formulates his book with an initial overview of the four different types of intimate partner violence and how determining which type of intimate partner violence, either intimate terrorism, violent resistance, situational couple violence, or mutual violent control, will help researchers move forward with their findings and the various conclusions that have surfaced over the past thirty years. Johnson dedicates three chapters of his book, one to intimate terrorism, and another to violent resistance, and a third to situational couple violence, claiming that these are the most prevalent forms of intimate partner violence found today. Johnson does not dedicate a chapter to mutual violent control, simply because he claims it is found in only a very small number of cases.
Beginning with intimate terrorism, Johnson claims that this is the most commonly thought of form when we talk about “domestic violence.” Intimate terrorism in sum is a pattern of ongoing emotional, sexual, and or physical violent abuse carried out by only one partner in an intimate