Spousal abuse: causes, impacts, and interventions

Spousal Abuse

This wire story is about the increase in the, and the continuously increasing, of women in reported spouse abuse arrests since the passing of the "Primary Aggressor Law" in 1997 in the state of California (Clifford 1999). In the past, police officers were accustomed to handling domestic violence calls from women and delivering the men straight to jail. Now, the police in at least 24 states receive training on how to decide who between the partners the "primary aggressor" is. It does not automatically point to the party who strikes first or causes the most severe damage. Police must check out on a long checklist of factors, including a history of violent or coercive behavior.

The news account notes that, in 1987, those arrested in California's domestic violence cases, only 5% were women (Clifford 1999). This figure rose to 15% after the passage of the Primary Aggressor Laws in 1997. While there were less domestic arrests in California last year, the number of women involved increased. Social scientists and police departments believe that it is because women have become more aggressive or are beating other women and that male victims are now likelier to come out and become more credible to police officers. Other critics and analysts think that there are more female police, who do not let a woman go the way some male cops do or might. Women's groups also fiercely and heavily campaigned for the passage of those primary aggressor laws meant to protect battered women who avoid the trauma of getting arrested for fighting back or defending themselves.

These primary aggressor laws are structured for the prosecution of men (Clifford 1999). Under these laws, the first caller wins and that is usually the woman. The guidelines used by the California police have that slant, when they ask if the complainant has already called a battered women's hotline or if he has hit her before. The copy of these guidelines sent to this wire agency overemphasizes the male as the likelier aggressor than the female partner. The news account describes the trends of domestic violence or spousal abuse in the state of California and how gender bias has come to assume that the aggressor is more likely the male partner. It may, indeed, be because of the surge of empowerment among women that they have come to give expression to their suppressed desire for revenge and dominance.

The training or re-training of police officers in 24 states on how to determine who between the spouses is the primary aggressor is in the correct direction. The law enforcement community is the direct implementers of these laws, and it has the prime responsibility to make sure it is enforced. But they and lawmakers have the primary duty and responsibility to modify the view that men are the likelier domestic aggressor, as recent statistics strongly indicate.

There are several models of couple's therapy for domestic violence or spouse abuse that have been used but are still not empirically tested (Stith et al. 2003). These are the Ackerman Institute Model, the Cultural Context Model, and the Solution-Focused Brief Therapy. The Ackerman Model holds that neither the feminist nor the psychological or system perspectives by themselves are enough to explain the complexity of the violence attached to relationships. There is ambivalence in both of them as both experience conflict and love for each other. The Cultural Context Model is drawn from a feminist analysis of the important part played by culture in determining many levels of behavior, including violence in attached relationships. And the Solution-Focused Model is similar to typical couples' therapy and involves two therapists, one who conducts the session and the other, observing behind a one-way mirror.

Dorothea E. Orem (1991) focuses on a person's ability to care for him or herself and on his or her ability to care for dependents. The model seeks to enhance the individual's responsibility for self-care and care for dependents. It views self-care deficits as resulting from environmental situations, such as compensatory, partly compensatory and educative. Under the compensatory system, the interventionist nurse performs total care for the client or patient. It becomes a cooperative activity under the partially compensated environment, wherein nurse and clients share responsibility for their car. And under the educative situation, the client has the primary responsibility towards his or her health and that the nurse has only a consultative role.

The theory is drawn from the premise, which holds that individuals can take care of their health and that of others (Stein 2004). Orem assumes that individuals generally have the capacity to take care of themselves and their dependents. She describes nursing interventions as treatments, based on valid and reliable measures, which are developed and continually evaluated and refined to keep clients' functioning and development at levels compatible with life. Nursing interventions aim at maximizing each client's potentials for self-care.

Orem's wholly compensatory category provides nursing interventions in all their self-care activities and needs (Stein 2004). Partly compensatory interventions are applied only in identified areas of self-care deficit. And the third type interventions would only support and educate clients in relation to their ongoing health maintenance needs. The nurse needs to identify the client's self-care deficits and the barriers to self-care before determining the kind of nursing interventions suited for the client.(Stein).