TRAUMA EXPERIENCE IN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Domestic violence is a widespread phenomenon in the United States. Although domestic violence assumes several forms, most victims of domestic violence experience physical trauma and secondary outcomes stemming from the trauma experience (Feldhaus, 2001). This paper reviews the trauma experience in domestic violence.

There are several definitions of domestic violence. One definition is that domestic violence includes all violence occurring within a home. The Family Violence Prevention Fund defines domestic violence as a pattern of assaultive and coercive behaviors ù including physical, sexual, and psychological attacks, as well as economic coercion ù that adults or adolescents use against their intimate partners (Feldhaus, 2001).

Most frequently, however, domestic violence refers to abuse occurring between intimate partners or ex-partners. The nature of abuse can be physical, emotional, psychological, verbal, and sexual (Feldhaus, 2001).

Physical trauma is a serious outcome of domestic violence. Physical trauma victims of domestic violence frequently are referred to as battered women. One definition of a battered woman is a woman who has experienced serious or repeated injury from the man with whom she lives. Another perspective delineates a cycle of battering comprising four phases, and contends that, for battering to be present, a woman must go through the battering cycle twice. An

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s. By the end of the 1980s, this assumption had been invalidated as research documented the fact that intimate partner violence occurs at all socioeconomic levels of society and among all racial and ethnic categories. Domestic violence resulting in physical trauma for victims occurs among all races, cultures, religions, geographic regions, social classes, and occupations. Estimates "indicate that as many as one-half of women around the world have suffered violence at the hands of an intimate partner" (Hastings, 2001, p. 33). Domestic violence against women resulting in physical trauma is pervasive. The scope of the phenomenon involves repeated abuse. Typically, an initial incident of battering is followed by repeated episodes of physical abuse. Approximately 47 percent of men who physically abuse their domestic partners do so three or more times a year (Krishnan, Hilbert, VanLeeuwen, & Kolia, 1997). A cycle of violence is often discussed as an integral component of the battered woman syndrome and the dynamics of partner assault. The cycle is held to include a period of tension building followed by battering. The batterer may express remorse, and a period of relative calm ensues. The cycle is reactivated after a period
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Approximate Word count = 1294
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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