Spouse Abuse

The Catholic Church has had a strong influence on the Chilean legal and social landscape in ways that have adversely affected victims of intimate partner violence; e.g., it succeeded until just five years ago in blocking efforts to legalize divorce. At the same time, quantitative studies based on survey data from the United States and other countries show a generally favorable influence of religion on health and many other domains of life, including intimate partner violence. The present study explores the puzzle posed by these seemingly opposing macro- and micro-level forces.

This study describes the specific conflicts which suicidal women experience in their intimate relationships with men. Fifty women who had made suicide attempts were studied with a focus on the contributing role of their relationships with men to the genesis of the suicidal acts. Four major themes were found in the relationships: "smothering love", infidelity, battering, and denial of affection. The women experienced these conflicts as major precipitants in their suicidal behaviors. Examples of the four themes are described and analyzed.

This paper describes one variation in the battering phenomenon which was initially observed among low-income women. The strategies of coercion and deception utilized by the abusive male in these relationships are described and compared with similar strategies of "mind control" utilized in more traditional "cultic" systems. The debilitating effects of these techniques on the battered female are described, as is the battering male's own separation reaction, and the probable dynamics of the men and women involved in this pathological family system.

This article presents a multidimensional, theoretical model for the understanding of relationships in which men are violent toward women. It argues that abusive relationships exemplify, in extremis, the stereotypical gender arrangements that structure intimacy between men and women generally. Moreover, it proposes that paradoxical gender injunctions create insoluble relationship dilemmas that can explode in violence. A multifaceted approach to treatment, which incorporates feminist and systemic ideas and techniques, is described.

An intimate partner's initiation of forced sex may signal the escalation of tyranny in physically abusive relationships and failed plans to obtain mutual consent for sexual intercourse in dating relationships. Providers of obstetric and gynecologic care are in strategic positions for primary detection of and intervention in physical and sexual abuse. To assist nurses with the understanding of women's responses to abuse and to enhance implementation of interventions, this article describes the dynamics of and a process for intervening in such abuses.

The factor structure, reliability, and validity of a 49-item scale designed to measure Stockholm Syndrome (also referred to as "traumatic bonding" and "terror bonding"), that is, bonding with an abusive partner, were assessed for college women in heterosexual dating relationships.

Shame-proneness has been found to be related to anger arousal and a tendency to externalize attributions for one's own behavior, both common features of men who assault their wives. The present study examined a potential origin of a shame-prone style by analysing reports of shaming experiences by ones' parents as reported by a population of assaultive males.

Violence against women within sexual relationships is a neglected area in public health despite the fact that, in partially defining women's capacity to protect themselves against STDs, pregnancy and unwanted sexual intercourse, it directly affects female reproductive health. This paper presents the findings of a qualitative study conducted among Xhosa-speaking adolescent women in South Africa which revealed male violent and coercive practices to dominate their sexual relationships.

Incidents of domestic violence are frequently not reported to police (e.g., Johnson, 1990; Langan & Innes, 1986; Roy, 1977), and people commonly assume that women's reasons for not calling about violence by a current or former partner are intrapersonal (e.g., shame, embarrassment, love). However, few researchers have asked battered women themselves about the frequency of their police contacts and their reasons for not calling the police.

Research on the process of leaving an abusive male partner has focused on surviving abuse and the crisis of leaving. Little is known about the experience of women who have left abusive male partners and not gone back. In this feminist grounded theory study of women leaving abusive partners, the researchers discovered the basic social-psychological process of reclaiming self in which women voyaged through 4 stages: counteracting abuse, breaking free, not going back, and moving on.