PRESS RELEASE: THE WAY FORWARD IN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE PREVENTION IN AUSTRALIA

In its 2025 Yearly Report to Parliament, the Australian Government’s Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission has acknowledged that the approach applied to date to address the problem of domestic violence is failing:

“The Institute of Criminology has since confirmed what many of us feared: 2023-24 saw a 35% increase in the number of women killed by intimate partners, following a 31% increase from the previous year…” (p.4)

In Australian high level prevention think-tanks and committees, it has been proposed to end violence against women and children in one generation – an unrealistic proposal based on a lack of knowledge about the origins and dynamics of dysfunctional or problematic human behaviour.

Credit for bringing to light the problem of domestic and family violence needs to be given to the feminist movement, but that movement has also produced a misdirection in prevention efforts. A complication in the domestic and family violence domain to date has been that politics have taken precedence over scientific psychological knowledge: the feminist lobby has successfully shut down the sharing of psychological information with the community about the causes of human problems, in favour of a catchy male-blame thesis that “the primary driver of domestic violence is gender inequality” – a falsehood that has gained worldwide popularity, acceptance and eminence. The truth is somewhat different, as explained in articles, old and new, that I have written.

Attached are 2 documents that shed light on the developmental (childhood) causes of violence; and the type of information that needs to be shared with the community to produce a healthier Australia. (In part that information pertains to the vulnerability and basic needs of children that have to be accommodated to produce psychologically healthy and well-adjusted adults).

Document 1: Contains 2 articles submitted to Senate Finance and Public Administration Committees on domestic violence (2013): “Childhood origin of domestic and other violence”; &“Improving community wellbeing by modifying coping strategies for dealing with the long-term effects of negative childhood events.”
Document 2: “Addressing the causes of violence” (2008; Republished 2024) offers information relevant for community education to encourage persons at risk of engaging in violence to recognise unresolved emotional pain from childhood, and seek psychological help.

Available upon request is Document 3, “Psychological insights into the problem of coercive control” (2024). which explores the childhood origins of dominance and controlling behaviour in adults. Also available by request is Document 4: A table of short term and enduring effects of negative childhood experiences, & “A CASE OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FROM GERMANY” (2025).

In order to progress and truly impact on the prevention of violence against women and children three neglected areas of community education need to be addressed: (1) information about the psychological needs of infants, children and adolescents that need to be fulfilled in order to produce healthy adults, as opposed to sufferers of emotional, mental health, or behavioural disturbances; and (2) information about the role of unresolved childhood distress in shaping addictions, habits and destructive human actions and decisions in adults; and (3) making freely available the knowledge referred to above in multiple ways, together with referral systems that guide and encourage troubled adults to address their internal problems for their benefit and that of others.

The media can play an important role in informing the community about prevention, and I sincerely hope it will do its part in helping to steer the prevention of violence against women and children in a proper, scientifically-based, direction. The 2025 Report to Parliament cited above states that “Prevention must begin in childhood” (p.6). That is true, but is only one pillar – the other pillar is education and counseling services that help those at risk of violence to recognise their childhood-acquired pain, and address it in wholesome ways.
Let’s do it.

More information:
Contact: Mercurio Cicchini
Clinical Psychologist (semi-retired) WA
Email: [email protected] Phone: 0414 730 866