NCJ Number
161225
Date Published
1996
Length
35 pages
Annotation
This chapter describes the dimensions, consequences, and appropriate treatment of battered women in mental health settings.
Abstract
Its major theme is that the distinctive psychosocial profile identified among battered women is elicited by a dual trauma that consists of coercive control and inappropriate clinical intervention. Accordingly, effective intervention requires a dual response that combines reformulated trauma theory with the advocacy and empowerment strategy used by community-based domestic violence services. The challenge to traumatic therapy with victims of domestic violence is to admit an individual and interactive element without blaming the abused woman, to recognize the serious threat posed by violence without compromising personal issues for family peace, and to establish a sense of current options while remaining respectful and emotionally unreactive to the woman's choice to change or not to change her living situation. The therapeutic response must adapt to the complex profile the abused woman presents of dependence and autonomy, power and vulnerability, ambivalence toward conventional roles, and fear of punishment if she changes. Putting an end to coercive control, however, entails communitywide initiatives to promote zero tolerance for domestic violence and to challenge what are widely held to be prerogatives of the normal male role. Even as therapists provide for the personal safety, empowerment, and autonomy of those put at risk by violent partners, they can have an important political role by highlighting the paucity of alternatives for men as they expand those available to women.