l systems (National Institute of Justi!
             ce, 1996). In addition, the American Medical Association (AMA) published guidelines for Health care professionals to use in identifying domestic violence victims. Violent families are easy to describe but difficult to explain. Research on family abuse has, on a consistent basis, found that the phenomenon is associated with intergenerational transmission, low socioeconomic status, social and structural stress, social isolation, and personality problems or psychopathology (Giles-Sims, 1983). Traditional theories on the causes of domestic abuse focus on such factors as people's individual characteristics and life experiences, including the presence of problems such as social and structural stress, social alienation, unemployment, poverty, substance abuse, past child abuse, personality disorders, psychopathology, and depression (Giles-Sims, 1983). However, theories centered on these variables fail to explain why the majority of the population that does not experience domestic abus!
             ...