The concept of domestic violence: causes, forms, effects. Typology of domestic violence

The concept of domestic violence: causes, forms, effects

Other forms of violence

  • verbal abuse
  • environment abuse
  • social abuse (isolation)
  • spiritual abuse
    • the abuser laughs if a victim is very religious
    • uses religion against her
  • cyber abuse
  • negligence

What is domestic violence? (video)

  • pattern of abusive behaviour
    • mantain power and control over another
    • intimidation
    • manipulation
    • humiliation
  • married couples
  • cohabiating
  • partners
  • dating partners
  • relatives
  • 1 in 3 women
  • 1 in 4 men
  • most common age: 18-24
  • Forms
    • psysical
    • harder to detect
    • emotional
      • verbal criticism
      • belittling
      • shaming
      • guilt trip
      • name calling
      • threats
      • sarcasm
      • jealousy
    • sexual
      • forcing/coercing partner sexually unwanted kissing, touching or rape
      • threats to
      • child marriages
      • forced marriages
      • “traditional” marriages
      • genital mutilations
    • economic
      • forcing financial dependence
      • forbidding work
    • spiritual
      • forbiddance to practice beliefs
      • misuse of passages
      • behaviour/belief
  • relationship started off well
  • frequency and intensity of abuse varies
  • may apologize
  • just lost control
  • almost always intensifies

Discussion of a film

The most dangerous moment: when the victim tries to escape

  • victims are usually killed while trying to escape

The abusers almost never change

Sexual violence often comes together with the psysical violence

Low self-esteem is the most popular personality disorder that abusers have

Abusers often use disguised tactics

Fear is a typical effect that abuse has

  • living in a constant fear can feel like a torture

Some abusers are abusive only at home

Victims are the ones blamed

If a woman feels pressure to stay in the marriage, it’s even more difficult to break the cycle

Violence is not provoked, it’s inside of the abuser

Main characteristics of domestic violence

  • latent
    • it’s not easy to detect it
    • underreported
  • multiform, multidimensional, multifaceted, complex
  • cyclic
  • systemic
    • it’s not separated accidents, it’s systemic tactic of the abuse
  • gender asymmetry
  • negative cumulative effect
    • every single accident cumulates its negative effect, so it becomes double or triple
  • is always a pattern of abusive behaviour
    • abusers have a personal pattern how to do it

Typology of domestic violence (Johnson)

Types of violence

1. coercive controling violence
  • non/violent tactics
  • one partner seeks to dominate over the other (analogy to kidnapping)
  • Pattern of violence
    • physical and sexual violence
    • intimidation
    • isolation
    • control of personal life
    • activities
    • appearance
    • support
    • social life
    • family
    • employment
    • health issues
    • intimate relationships
    • legal issues
    • children
  • systemic
  • escalating
  • very frequent
  • very severe
  • most common type that is faced by victim support organizations, health sector, and law enforcement
  • gender assymetry is very clearly expressed
    • women are mostly victims and men are mostly abusers
2. situational couple violence
  • escalation of a conflict when it turns into agression
    • incident-based
    • an accident happened and that’s it
  • no controlling behaviour
  • less prevalent, non-escalating
  • gender assymetry is very clearly expressed
3. violent resistance
  • a woman tries to resist to controlling behaviour, due to this she becomes violent
    • self-protection
  • no controlling behaviour
4. mutual coercive control
  • both partners are violent and controlling
  • least prevalent
  • some researchers say that there’s no such thing as mutual violence, there’s always original abuser and the other partner just reacts

Male batterer typology (Holtzworth-Munroe, G.L. Stuart)

  • based on the personal characteristics of an abuser
  1. family-only violence

   

  1. friendly in public, violent at home
  2. most dangerous for the victim, because it’s difficult to find evidence
    1. Dysphoric - borderline batterer

   

  1. rarely violent in public
    1. Low level antisocial batterer

   

  1. violent both in family and public
    1. Generally violent / antisocial behaviour

   

  1. violent everywhere with everyone
  2. addicts, substance abusers
  3. criminal behaviour

Female batterer behaviour (S.L. Miller, L. Meloy)

  1. generalized violent behaviour (5%)

   

  1. both in family and in public
    1. frustration response (30%)

   

  1. violence is just a response to violence
    1. defensive behaviour (50%)

   

  1. self-defence
  2. defending children or pets