This is a psychotherapy model to help male aggressors involved in partner violence. The objective is to promote psychological flexibility to reduce aggression, working on low tolerance to emotional problems, low empathy (especially towards the abused partner), and the inability to perceive or identify emotions.
The program consists of 12 weekly sessions, with 2 hours of group work:
1) First session, introduction and values: personal introductions and explanation about the group work format and protocol. The basis for identifying and clarifying the types of desired relationships and impeditive behaviors are worked on.
2) Second session, mindfulness: exercises for non-judgment of psychological and situational events.
3) Third and fourth sessions, emotional intelligence: improvement of abilities to identify and differentiate emotional states and their responses to emotions.
4) Fifth and sixth sessions, acceptance: development of emotional acceptance, its benefits and emotional regulation consequences, and of tools for monitoring and evaluating emotional willingness versus emotional unwillingness.
5) Seventh and eighth sessions, disaggregation: understanding the dynamics of the mind and the pros and cons of language and human cognition.
6) Ninth and tenth sessions, behavior change: clarification of new values and identification of barriers to adaptive behavior change, emphasizing daily life choices and processes rather than outcomes.
7) Eleventh and twelfth sessions, review and closure: continued practice of new skills, including interpersonal skills, review of initial group material, analysis, and discussion of the overall group experience.