Culturally Responsive Family Counseling for Intimate Partner Violence in Black Communities: A Systemic, Intersectional, and Advocacy-Oriented Review

Abstract

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a relational and public health concern with consequences that extend across couple, family, community, and service systems. Black women who experience IPV may encounter overlapping barriers related to racialized gender stereotypes, economic constraints, mistrust of formal systems, limited culturally responsive services, and concern about the consequences of criminal-legal involvement for partners, families, and communities. This conceptual literature review integrates family systems, ecological, intersectional, trauma-informed, and advocacy perspectives to examine IPV in Black communities and translate the literature into implications for marriage and family counselors. Recent research on transformative justice, gaps across the IPV service continuum, and the mental health of urban Black women since the COVID-19 pandemic is used to update the clinical discussion. The review emphasizes that systemic conceptualization should contextualize violence without diffusing responsibility for coercive or abusive behavior. Clinical priorities include behaviorally specific IPV assessment, separate screening before conjoint work, survivor-defined safety planning, culturally humble inquiry, trauma-informed treatment, attention to children and intergenerational processes, and coordination with community resources. Counselor education and supervision should prepare clinicians to recognize coercive control, racialized and gendered barriers to help-seeking, telehealth safety concerns, and circumstances in which couples counseling is contraindicated. A culturally responsive family counseling approach can expand survivor choice while supporting safety, accountability, resilience, and relational healing.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. The Family Journal, 2026 · DOI ↗