Battered Woman\'s Syndrome Involves Both

Battered Woman's Syndrome involves both physical and emotional abuse of a woman at the hands of her intimate partner, whether husband or lover.

The battered woman syndrome involves repeated episodes of physical assault on a woman by a man with whom she lives, and most often result in serious physical and emotional damage to the woman (Battered pp). This violence follows a predictable pattern, occurring in cycles, and with violent episodes becoming more frequent and severe over time (Battered pp). Found at all socioeconomic levels, it is estimated that between one million and two million women are beaten by their husbands or lovers per year in the United States (Battered pp). The battered woman syndrome is much more recognized today than it was ten years ago, resulting in several different agencies available to assist and protect women, such as social service departments, battered women's shelters, and counseling services' hotlines that can provide both emergency services and long-term help (Battered pp).

The three phases involve verbal abuse, then physical abuse, then comes contrition on the part of the batterer, and then the cycle begins all over again (Orr pp). Thus, the woman become perpetually fearful of the man and feels helpless to improve her situation (Orr pp).

According to Susan Ditter, a forensic psychiatry fellow at the University of Virginia, "people who are emotionally and physically abused by their intimate partners develop more mental illness and substance abuse problems than those who are only physically abused" (Frieden pp). Ditter states that emotional abuse is not well studied, yet it precedes and predicts physical aggression in marriage, although "it can occur with physical abuse, but the converse is rare" (Frieden pp).

Ditter's study distinguished between two subtypes of emotional abuse: verbal abuse, involving verbal attacks and degrading behaviors, and power-and-control abuse, in which the victim is isolated and forced into traditional sex roles (Frieden pp). Of the eight thousand men and eight thousand women studied, she reports that twenty-five percent of men and twenty-seven percent of women had experienced verbal abuse, while twelve percent of men and twenty percent of women had experienced power-and-control abuse (Frieden pp). Moreover the risk of emotional abuse seemed to increase in those who were "low income, less educated, uninsured, unemployed, divorced, or single" (Frieden pp).

Researchers also discovered that both women and men who had experienced emotional abuse along with other types of intimate partner violence had more depression, more serious mental illness, more illicit drug use, and more antidepressant treatment than those who had experienced the violence with emotional abuse (Frieden pp). According to the study, men were overall more likely to experience only emotional abuse than were women, while women experienced more power-and-control abuse along with other types of partner violence (Frieden pp). Furthermore, men who had experienced only verbal abuse were much more likely to carry a gun for protection than women in that category (Frieden pp). According to Ditter, results from other studies of emotional abuse also indicate that it can be very harmful (Frieden pp).

Investigators in one study found that all of the twenty-five emotional abuse subjects that were studied had three sequelae of "battered woman's syndrome" six months after leaving their partners, 'including trauma symptoms, low self-esteem, and a paradoxical attachment to the former partner," while another study revealed that the victims of even severe intimate partner violence reported psychological humiliation as their worst battering experience (Frieden pp).