Domestic Violence

Domestic Violence
Statistics
Contributing Factors
General Behaviors of Men Who Batter Their Partners
Reasons Women Stay in Abusive Relationships
Risks to Children
Interventions

Domestic Violence

By Alice Baland, MA, LPC, RD/LD

1-800-799-SAFE (7233) National Domestic Violence Hotline.

Domestic violence in America is a health care and criminal problem of enormous magnitude affecting not only the family, but the medical community, the court, legal, and law enforcement systems, the workplace, the school system, and the insurance industry, for starters. It can happen to anyone. It occurs in all social and economic classes, races, and religions. Although 95% of the time partner abuse involves a male abusing a female, the opposite may also be true. Whatever the circumstances, abusing an intimate partner is inappropriate behavior, and criminal when an assault occurs. From a religious standpoint, domestic violence is an abuse of priesthood power and privilege. (See “Proclamation to the World,” Gordon B. Hinckley, 1995).

Women who were victims of their husband’s physical abuse had significantly more somatic (physical) complaints, a higher level of anxiety, and more symptoms of depression.

Children of battered women may be at an elevated risk of displaying behavior adjustment problems that interfere with family and school activities.

Women enmeshed with verbally abusive and emotionally abusive partners suffer deep wounds. Because these injuries are not visible to the eye, victims often suffer in agonized silence. One’s perceptions are mistrusted and the existence of this very real pain is often denied to oneself and others. Porterfield, 1989, offers a 12-step program to help women regain self-esteem and extricate themselves from emotionally poisonous relationships with men.

Charlotte Bronte said,

“I avoid looking forward or backward and try to keep looking upward.”

The process of breaking free and recovery requires help from numerous sources; however, there is hope!

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Statistics

Every 15 seconds a woman in the U.S. is beaten. California Coalition for Battered Women in Prison, 1996.
One California state prison study found that 93% of women who had killed their mates had been battered by them (source above, 1996).
Of all women killed in Texas, 38% are murdered by their intimate partners. This is higher than the national average of 30%. Texas Dept. of Public Safety, 1993.
Battering is the #1 crime and cause of injury to women in the United States.” U.S. Surgeon General.
Seventy percent of men who batter their wives, also batter their children.” National Woman Abuse Prevention Project.
Being abused or neglected as a child increases the likelihood of arrest as a juvenile by 53%, as an adult by 38%, and for a violent crime by 38%.” National Institute of Justice, 1992.
Family violence costs the nation from $5 to $10 billion in medical expenses, police and court costs, shelters and foster care, sick leave, absenteeism, and non-productivity.” Medical News, American Medical Association, January, 1992.
Nearly two in three female victims of crime were related to or knew their attacker.” Ronet Bachman, Ph.D., U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Violence Against Women: A National Crime Victimization Survey Report.” January, 1994, p. iii.
Violence is the reason stated for divorce in 22% of middle-class marriages. (EAP Digest, Nov./Dec. 1991).
The American Medical Association reports that each year domestic violence results in an estimated 100,000 days of hospitalization, 30,000 emergency room visits, and 40,000 visits to a physician’s office. They maintain that family violence kills as many women every five years as the total number of Americans who died in the Vietnam war.

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Contributing Factors to Domestic Violence

Partners in abusive marriages often grew up in abusive homes and suffered early disturbances in parent-child relationships; instead of having unconditional love and support, as children they were often abused, exploited and neglected, creating an infinite loop of disappointment and despair. (Wood, 1987).
Early attitudes and childhood training can be related to violence in relationships. Primary prevention programs must address attitudes about sex roles and issues about the use of power and control in intimate relationships.
Difficulty separating and individuating from their family; trouble maintaining adequate and stable levels of self-esteem; trouble making steadfast commitments to work or love; inability to resist alcoholic lifestyle; likelihood of becoming deeply and painfully involved with partners, causes, and compulsions that endanger their physical, psychological, and spiritual well-being
Abusive Personality—predicted by paternal rejection, physical abuse, and absence of maternal warmth Over-dependence on a specific person (addictive ingredient); over-entanglement and mutual self-deprivation
Personality factors (schizoid/borderline; narcissistic/antisocial; and passive/dependent)
Higher incidence of alcoholism more prevalent among batters.
Violence in a relationship is still viewed as a reflection of learned behavioral choices. Because it is learned, there is hope that it can be unlearned, and new behaviors taught.

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General Behaviors of Men Who Batter Their Partners

Holding traditional views of sex roles and parenting
Demonstrating extreme jealousy and possessiveness
Denying or minimizing the seriousness of the violence
Refusal of responsibility for the abuse, often blaming it on chemicals, stress, or even the victim.

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Reasons Women Stay in Abusive Relationships

Fear of their lives or the lives of their children
Isolation from support systems
Intense feelings of inferiority
Legal problems
Sex-role socialization
Economic dependence; lack of job skills; inability to work; must care for the children
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); can include depression, paranoia, and dissociation as a response to battering; Battered Woman’s Syndrome
Masochism—a pervasive pattern of self-defeating behavior or a conflict about her own autonomous achievements
Learned helplessness—develops when an individual does not believe that control of an outcome is possible (L’Abate, 1992)
The average battered woman returns to her abuser 8 to 12 times before leaving for good. (Many who do leave are assaulted and hospitalized or killed).

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Risks to Children

Witnessing or being a target can affect children, as well as the mother or father being abused.
Dread of violence might disrupt psychosocial development even more than the event itself; the ways children cope with this persistent fear might lead to locked-in patterns of coping in their adult lives
Paternal physical abuse, especially in its’ escalated form, predicts major depressive disorder in children Wife battery posed a significant risk factor for incest (at least 10%)
Sexual abuse of daughters might be motivated by the men’s intentions to harm or coerce their wives Hancock (1989) felt that stereotypes take over by adolescence. For example, a boy’s experience of adolescence is one of increased power; a girl’s is one of increased risk
Attention deficit disorder/hyperactivity
Trend for sexual abuse of a child to result in internalizing (excluding major depression), rather than externalizing (excluding oppositional) disorders
Concern about a family member’s vulnerability and concern about the potential for harmful behavior by someone in the family
Depression and anger
School difficulties
Lowered belief in personal ability to impact their health, or of health professionals, and other adults, such as teachers and parents, to impact their health
Greater risk of experimenting with smoking (Fick, 1995)

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Interventions

It is important that every segment of society become involved in preventing abuse by anyone.
Intervention and education must not be a one-time event, but an ongoing process to be effective. Non-violence must be modeled for all to see (administrators, teachers, coaches, staff, students in school, church).
Often, not until monetary punishments, jail time, threat of job loss, and public exposure, will a batterer be more motivated to change.
Treatment of addicted individuals must address the foremost issues of denial, fear, and resistance.
Treatment must begin with a period of freedom from battering; in a violent marriage or relationship, this is often not possible. After the violence, the husband is often calm and humble. This behavior often re-entangles the woman, seducing her into thinking her situation will change. Despite the calm, a period of separation is crucial for effective treatment.
The healing process also involves the lessening of the individual’s denial while increasing self-disclosure; the individual must begin to let go of the blaming and focus on responsibility for actions. Under no circumstances is couples therapy appropriate as long as the woman lives in fear of her partner. Partners need to be in individual therapy.
Following treatment for dealing with denial, fears, severity of the violence, and resistance, the next step toward recovery is to acquire a peer support group.
Treatment focuses on learning how to choose and develop non-violent behaviors, emotions, and attitudes, and appreciating the impact of their behavior on others.
Developing anger management skills in a group setting is crucial.

Further treatment goals include helping the male decrease feelings of isolation, develop an interpersonal support system, increase feelings of personal control and self-esteem, increase responsibility for personal behavior, increase awareness of the dangerousness of the battering behavior, increase the ability to empathize with their partners, develop control over alcohol and/or drugs, receive support from others in their lives, treat family of origin issues.

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