Naming violence: Counselling practices among Danish social workers in a men’s centre, a women’s shelter, and a national hotline service

The understanding of Intimate partner violence (IPV) has changed in Denmark over the last decade. Various forms of violence have come to light in research and the broader society, and new legislations have been passed that impose expectations and requirements on professionals that deal with IPV in the field. This article explores how social workers understand the concept of psychological IPV and how these conceptualizations are reflected in their counselling practices at a men’s centre, women’s shelter, and national hotline in Denmark. The study is based on four months of ethnographic fieldwork across these sites. We demonstrate how social workers use different approaches to help victims regain their agency. Through comparison of findings in the three fields, we discuss how these approaches to counselling are influenced by cultural perceptions of violence and gender as well as structural conditions that sustain these perceptions. We conclude by arguing that social workers risk reproducing different types of ingrained social imaginaries related to gender and the nature of violence.