The author discusses relevant historical and contextual information, presents an overview of domestic violence, and describes the evolution and current status of public and professional awareness and response. The review includes research studies and discursive papers that view wife abusers from sociopolitical and psychological perspectives. The author proposes an integrated model for understanding etiological, dynamic, and intervention issues and concludes with a discussion of clinical and research implications and recommendations. She indicates that the clinician who provides treatment services to wife abusers walks a thin line between therapeutic advocacy of the client and responsible accountability to the victim. Therapeutic issues of confidentiality and privilege are both complex and controversial. Based on the perspective of the ecological theory of male violence toward female intimates, the author suggests that researchers need to document the extent and correlation of selected variables within each layer of influence. In addition to batterer-versus-nonbatterer comparisons, researchers need to contrast intrapsychic, interpersonal, and sociocultural data within the population of batterers. 184 references, 1 table, and 3 figures