In the Netherlands, incident reports of intimate partner violence (IPV) have risen sharply in recent years, yet the psychological mechanisms that drive perpetration remain insufficiently understood. IPV-perpetration follows psychological pathways and perpetrators present with varying psychopathological profiles that need to be addressed in treatment, which brings the need to identify the underlying psychological mechanisms through which violence unfolds forward.

Emotion dysregulation has been consistently linked to IPV-perpetration though it does not appear to directly cause IPV-perpetration, as it likely operates through other psychological processes. This study investigated two of these processes: Angry Child mode, a schema therapy construct characterized by unregulated anger and frustration in response to unmet needs and aggression. Together, these were proposed to function as a serial pathway in which Angry Child mode and aggression functioned as mediators in a serial pathway.

It was found that Angry Child mode significantly and independently mediated the relationship between emotion dysregulation and IPV-perpetration, whereas aggression did not. Importantly, the full serial pathway through both mediators was not significant. These findings point to Angry Child mode as a key psychological mechanism in IPV-perpetration, which underscores the clinical relevance of schema therapy that targets Angry Child mode expression as a possible treatment framework for IPV-perpetration prevention and treatment.