An Ounce of Prevention: A Model for Working with Couples At-Risk for Battering

Literature on preventing spousal battering before it starts is virtually non-existent. This article describes a prevention of abuse program that targets couples at-risk for battering. At-risk couples and the process of engaging them in couples counseling are described. The prevention model is based on a Bowenian approach that focuses on partner differentiation and reducing emotionality and promoting rational thinking. It is assumed that increasing differentiation decreases the risk of spousal battering. The various techniques used to facilitate differentiation are presented as well as a case example illustrating a successful prevention of abuse experience.     

Sexual Identity Development: A Base for Work with Same-Sex Couple Partner Abuse

Literature review reveals that domestic violence occurs in same-sex relationships at approximately the same rate as it does in heterosexual relationships. There are a number of dimensions common to same-sex and heterosexual battering as well as significant differences. The differential impact of sexual identity development on same-sex violence has not been addressed in the literature. Unlike the situation with heterosexual couples, there is little in the literature addressing treatment guidelines for work with same-sex couples. This article highlights some of the differences between same-sex battering and heterosexual battering and suggests the need for additional research on the interaction between sexual identity development stages of same-sex partners and domestic violence.     

Eliminating the battering of women by men: Some considerations for behavior analysis

Based on review of representative literature, history and current research indicate that battering by male partners is a major health problem for women. Use of physical aggression and verbal coercion can be described by three-term contingencies involving escape, avoidance, punishment, and positive reinforcement. These contingencies occur within societal practices, rules, and models that involve oppression of women and insubstantial consequences for men who batter. The difficulties in directly observing a couple's interactions and their aggression have been a methodological barrier to the involvement of behavior analysts in treatment of and research on domestic violence. Recommendations are made for behavior analysts to contribute to reducing battering through development and analysis of program components and application of contingency management and behavioral training technology.     

Battered Women

SUMMARY

This review of research findings on woman battering reveals how research has played a major role in changing social policy and challenging common myths and stereotypes. The earliest literature contained the ideas of a few psychotherapists who viewed woman battering as a rare phenomenon that involved masochistic women and sadistic men, which led to the myth of psychopathology as the mediating factor. Research following the birth of the battered women's movement destroyed this and some subsequent myths. It led to changes in medical practitioners' attitudes toward battered women patients and law enforcement's reaction to battering victims and their abusers. It also revealed important facts about the courts' handling of abusers and their victims and about violent relationships that result in homicide. The myth that children living in violent households are unharmed has been soundly discredited, yet despite these findings, many battered women continue to face serious difficulties when they attempt to divorce their abusers and obtain custody of their children. Other myths have been exposed by researchers on the basis of their findings. However, once ideas gain popular public acceptance, they tend to continue to exert influence. Nevertheless, positive changes have occurred in the entire spectrum of medical, legal, and social services with which battered women must interface. The research findings reviewed here help highlight current needs and suggest future directions.     

The Blameworthy Victim: Domestic Violence Myths and the Criminalization of Victimhood

Prior research shows that individual perceptions of victims play an integral role in the societal response to domestic violence, as well as victims' responses to their own victimization. However, little research has specifically examined individual perceptions of domestic violence victims who remain in abusive relationships. This study begins to fill the void in the literature by examining college students' attitudes toward battered women. Specifically, the study considers whether students adhere to common myths associated with battering and if myths lead college students to view domestic violence victims as “blameworthy.” The study relies on a sample of 370 university students attending a large Southern metropolitan university. Findings indicate that students moderately support domestic violence myths and that myth promotion is associated with support for increased criminal justice penalties such as prosecution of mothers and approval of delayed police response in cases of repeat victimization. Implications for policy, theory, and practice are provided.     

Treating the Lesbian Batterer

Summary

The phenomenon of lesbian battering challenges mainstream assumptions about battering and defies traditional ways of defining and understanding domestic violence. This article identifies and illuminates variables critical to understanding and treating lesbian batterers. In particular, intrapsychic factors in the treatment of lesbian batterers are considered via an integration of the theoretical constructs of personality development with attachment theory, state and affect regulation, shame, pathological vindictiveness, and variables specific to lesbian domestic violence. Finally, two case examples and treatment considerations are discussed.     

Resilient Response to Battering

Spouse abuse remains an important social problem. Recent research has begun to explore resiliency in a variety of areas: Why, despite harsh life circumstances, do some people survive and later thrive after experiencing trauma? What are the processes associated with a successful departure from abuse? The authors worked with a local shelter to identify three groups of women: (a) those currently at the shelter; (b) those who had been away from an abusive relationship for at least one year; and (c) those who were identified by shelter staff as having demonstrated a resilient response to battering, and compared experiences and recommendations between groups and discuss clinical and service implications.     

Shelter workers' perceptions of battered women

Research suggests that battered women vary in their perceptions about battering, and women holding certain causal explanations to external and stable causes are more likely to state that they want to leave the abusive situation than women holding internal and unstable attributions (Frieze, 1979). The present study addressed the impact of battered women's causal explanations for the violence in their lives on shelter workers' perceptions of their clients. The results partially confirmed the hypothesis that shelter workers would react more positively to battered women who attributed their battering to stable and external causes than battered women who attributed their battering to unstable and internal causes. The implications of the findings for counseling battered women are discussed.     

Attributions about spouse abuse: It matters who the batterers and victims are

The present study examined college students' (86% white) reactions to scenarios of three types of domestic violence situations. Subjects read a brief newspaper report of a battering incident and afterwards rated the situation and participants on a variety of scales. The scenario described either a (1) husband battering his wife, (2) wife battering her husband, or (3) gay male battering his lover. In addition, there was or was not an apparent verbal provocation by the victim. Results showed the harshest evaluation of a batterer who was not provoked. A greater responsibility was placed on the victim in the battered husband scenario, which generally was taken less seriously than the battered wife case. Results suggest the need to examine a diversity of battering situations and variables in order to fully understand attributions made about such situations.     

Woman battering: The response of the clergy

This paper examines the response of the church and the clergy to the problem of woman battering. A critical review of the theological foundations which may or may not contribute to violence directed toward females is presented. The research examining the response of the clergy to battered women is reviewed. Clergy report being confronted with the problem of woman battering and experiencing much difficulty in handling situations of this nature. In a study conducted by the authors, traditional attitudes were reflected by some modern day clergy; several clerical responses included female-blaming statements. More progressive clergy in this and other studies recognized woman battering as unacceptable; some are even studying ways to more effectively handle woman battering situations. A series of recommendations are included.Summary of Master's Thesis, Indiana University of PA, Indiana, PA 15705.     

Wife abuse and battering in the sociocultural context of Arab society

Despite increasing public, professional, and scientific interest in the problem of wife abuse and battering, little has been written about the importance of sociocultural sensitivity in intervention with abused and battered women in Arab society. In this article, I describe central family values in that society and discuss their relevance to wife abuse and battering. Specifically, the discussion focuses on values such as mutual family support and interdependence, family reputation, women's inferiority and male supremacy, and family cohesion and the relevance of those values to wife abuse and battering. In addition, I present Arab women's perspectives on this problem, as revealed in their responses to open-ended questions that were part of larger studies conducted by me. In this regard, five dimensions of their perspectives are considered: (1) Women's definitions of violence against women; (2) their awareness of the problem; (3) their justification or condemnation of violence against women; (4) their awareness of the risk encountered by battered women; and (5) their approach toward coping with the problem. The results are discussed from the perspective of the sociocultural context of Arab society. The article concludes with recommendations for socioculturally sensitive intervention with battered women in this society.     

Alcohol,Fear, and Woman Abuse

Although there is ample evidence that alcoholusage is associated with greater frequency, incidenceand severity of spouse battering, there is alsoconsiderable evidence which does not support a direct linkage. This research investigates aheretofore neglected area, the role of substance use ininducing fear in victims. As part of a larger study ofthe police response to battering, 419 female victims of male offenders participated in intensiveinterviews; the sample consisted of 69.9% Black and28.9% White women. All the women had been victims of atleast one occurrence of misdemeanor-level abuse, and many were in chronically abusive relationships.The women participating in this study were moderatelyeducated and relatively young, with a mean age of 30years old. Relationship status was bimodal with roughly equal numbers of married and cohabitingcouples; there were relatively few who were divorced orseparated from their assailants, or were ex-cohabitants.The male partners of women represented in this sample were extremely heavy drinkerscompared to a national sample. The quantity andfrequency of alcohol use was less predictive ofthreatening or physically battering behavior than wasmale drunkenness. Frequent drunkenness was highly correlated withboth threats and with battering. Similarly, victims'fear of their partners was much more strongly associatedwith how frequently they were drunk than with drinking itself.     

BEYOND THE MEASUREMENT TRAP

Many areas of women's health, including battering, suffer from conceptual and methodological deficits. This article uses the "measurement trap" (Graham & Campbell, 1991), a set of conditions defined by lack of information resulting from a narrow conceptualization of the problem, poor existing data sources, inappropriate outcome indicators, and limited measurement techniques, as a framework for describing how current approaches to conceptualizing and measuring battering hamper research and program efforts in the field of domestic violence. We then describe an alternative conceptualization–and–measurement approach that is based on battered women's experiences. We argue that an experiential approach, which grounds measurement in women's lived experiences, improves our ability to conduct research that correctly identifies, monitors, and explains the epidemiology of this phenomenon and provides a solid basis for policy and program development.     

Compounding the Triple Jeopardy:

Over the last 15 years, societal awareness of spouse abuse has resulted in an extensive network of services, legislative reform, and research initiatives focused on increasing the public response to this serious social problem. More recently, battering in intimate lesbian relationships has gained the attention of women's and gay/lesbian organizations that deal with domestic violence issues. Lesbians in violent relationships differ significantly from heterosexual couples where battering occurs due to the powerful effect of societal homophobia that silences them from seeking help. This article will address the unique challenges faced by lesbians of color in violent relationships due to the interface not only between violence and homophobia, but racism as well. Analysis of community response by lesbians of color, and clinical issues presented in therapy by lesbians of color who are battered will also be discussed.     

BLAMING THE PERPETRATOR Language that Distorts Reality in Newspaper Articles on Men Battering Women

In an earlier article, Lamb (1991) showed that journal authors, when writing about men battering women, wrote in a way that avoided assigning responsibility to men as perpetrators, and that this kind of writing was more common among male authors as well as female authors who wrote with men. This study examines first whether this kind of writing occurs in newspaper articles on men battering women, and whether two problematic styles of writing have an effect on the reader. Three versions of a newspaper article were developed to differentiate active voice, passive voice, and writing that implies shared responsibility for a man's violence. One hundred and eighty subjects read one of the three versions and endorsed one of five possible punishments for the man in the story who had been violent. Results showed that subjects did not differ in their selection of punishments for the active voice versus the passive voice version, but were much more lenient towards the man after reading the shared responsibility version.     

Beliefs about and experiences with battering: Women and men in two populations

A questionnaire was developed to measure beliefs about and experiences with violence in the family. Two groups of persons in two different states who had attended conferences on battered women participated in this research. Of the 177 subjects (84% women, 16% men), none of the men had been battered, yet over one-third of the women had been; more older women reported having been adult battering victims than did younger women; the women had less formal education than the men; the women in the lower educational groups were more likely to have been battered and to report fear of becoming victims; and the social service workers reported little fear of battering.     

Black Battered Women: A Review of Empirical Literature

The authors review and discuss five areas of the empirical research on Black battered women: incidence, social support networks, psychological profile, responses to battering, and use of services. Implications for practice and research are discussed.     

Lesbian Partner Abuse: Implications for Therapists

Silence surrounds the issue of lesbian battering. Lesbian victims of partner abuse are even less likely than are their heterosexual counterparts to seek help in shelters or from counselors because of the overlay of homophobia that exists both in the battered women's movement and among mental health professionals. In addition, many lesbian and many lesbian-supportive therapists hold an idealized and unrealistic picture of the nature of lesbian relationships, leading them to deny the existence of buttering among lesbian couples. The nature, severity, and prevalence of abuse in lesbian relationships is addressed; current counseling and treatment models dealing with battering relationships are analyzed; and a counselor advocacy model for working with lesbian partner abuse, drawing from the experience of activists in the battered women's movement and our clinical experience, is suggested.     

A comparison between strategies used on prisoners of war and battered wives

Comparisons were made between strategies used on prisoners of war (POWs) and battered wives to determine whether battering tactics are gender specific and thus a result of sexism, or whether battering is a reflection of societal violence. Similarities found between strategies used by captors and batterers were (a) psychological abuse within the context of violence; (b) the use of emotional dependency based on intermittent reinforcement; and (c) isolation from the victim's support system resulting in validation of assailant's beliefs and behavior. Both captors and batterers were successful in destroying the individual's self-identity, as well as eliciting and controlling certain kinds of behavior, when the victim remained isolated from a democratic setting. Differences in the experiences of POWs and battered wives center around the type of a hierarchical structure. In the case of battered wives, a patriarchal family legitimates male domination over women; therefore, the violence occurs within a sexist context.     

PATTERNS OF VIOLENCE AGAINST ENGAGED ARAB WOMEN FROM ISRAEL AND SOME PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

The present study focused on 1,111 engaged Arab women in Israel, examining the different patterns of abuse and battering they experienced by their fiancés. The results revealed that between 8% and 48% of the respondents had experienced psychological aggression by their partners and between 1% to 10% had experienced physical aggression. Moreover, between 5% and 11% of the respondents had experienced acts of sexual abuse at least once during the engagement period. In addition, some mental health consequences of these experiences were examined. Analysis of variance revealed that, when negotiation tactics were not used to resolve conflicts and when respondents had experienced different patterns of abuse and battering by their fiancés, they also expressed relatively low levels of self-esteem and relatively high levels of depression, anxiety, and stress. Regression and multiple regression analyses revealed that the main predictors of the study explained larger amounts of the variance in mental health than did some of the background variables. Finally, the article discusses the limitations of the study and implications for future research, as well as recommendations for prevention and intervention activities.