Understanding Domestic Violence
What is abuse?
Abuse takes many forms. No one type of abuse is worse than another. All abuse has a negative impact on the victim.
The Power and Control Wheel examines the types of abuse. The wheel is divided into sections. Inside each section there is a heading (the category of abuse) followed by examples of tactics used in that category of abuse. At the centre of the wheel is written “power and control”. This indicates that all tactics of abuse are used to maintain power and control in the relationship.
It is difficult to list all different types of abuse in one small Power and Control Wheel. This is a more complete list with a brief description of the category of abuse:
- Psychological/ mental abuse: any act intended to undermine mental well-being
- Physical/threat of physical abuse; any unwanted physical contact or threat of physical contact
- Verbal abuse: any use of words or volume of voice used to threaten, belittle or injure
- Sexual abuse: any unwanted sexual contact
- Spiritual abuse: any word or action that damages the individual spirituality
- Using children: any involvement or use of children in the abuse
- Social abuse: any attempt to cut the individual off from sources of support and care
- Cultural abuse: any use of cultural ideas as a way to dominate the victim
- Emotional abuse: any act intended to undermine emotional well-being
- Intellectual abuse: any act intended to make the victim question her intellectual ability
- Financial abuse: any intentional act that deprives the victim of financial security or limits her access to financial decision making
- Abuse of pets and property: hurting pets or damaging property in order to intimidate, control or hurt.
The Pattern of Abuse
There is a pattern of behaviour called the Cycle of Violence. Each phase is abusive but in different ways and with different effects. There are three distinctive phases to the cycle:
1) Honeymoon phase – There is some very new analysis about the stages of abuse that proposes that the stages of abuse begin with the honeymoon stage. The abusive
relationship begins with the man who needs to know “everything” about his partner. He needs to know where she is at all times. Women often mistake this for “romance”. She
interprets this control as him being “so interested in me”. She interprets his wanting to spend every moment with her to the exclusions of friends and family as a testimony of his love when in fact it is one more sign of abuse and control…isolation, control and jealousy.
Even the honeymoon phase post acute episode of violence is about control. He insists on her forgiveness, sends her flowers and has family intercept with his pleadings that he is sorry and will never do it again. The woman is not given the option or respect of refusing to accept his apologies.
2) Tension-building – The cycle begins with a period of tension-building. This phase will vary in length. The abuser’s behavior during this time may be angry or hostile, or disinterested and distant.
3) Explosion - If the cycle has continued for years, the explosion phase becomes marked by increasingly brutal attacks, whether they are physical, verbal, psychological or sexual. The attacks also occur more frequently than at the beginning of the relationship.
Consequences of Abuse
In addition to common physical symptoms of abuse (bruises, cuts, abrasions, broken bones) victims often face continuing physical symptoms as a result of abuse. Eating and sleeping habits are often severely disrupted. Back and stomach pains are common, as are head and muscle aches. Hearing, vision and dental problems are often on-going.
It is common for domestic abuse victims to report that the psychological impact of their experience is worse than the physical effects. Victims may experience anxiety, loss of self esteem, depression and post-traumatic stress. Depending on the nature, extent and duration of the abuse, the effects may appear immediately, or emerge over time.
Abuse can also be devastating for those who are not the intended target. Children who are exposed to violence in their homes may experience serious effects that threaten their health, safety, behavior, emotional, physical and social development, and educational progress in addition to trauma, neglect, isolation, poverty and transient lifestyles.
Research informs us that when the impacts of domestic violence are not resolved children perform poorly in school which contributes to a significant rate of high school dropout. Other characteristics include difficulty in forming attachments and building healthy relationships, the presence of learning disabilities, absence of age appropriate social and emotional development, poor peer relationships, substance abuse, poor physical health, a chronically depressed immune system, compromised mental health and the increased likelihood of juvenile justice system involvement. The resulting impacts become barriers to these children and youth fully participating in their community and fulfilling their life potential.
Some of the parenting issues that have been identified in violent relationships are:
- Perpetrators of domestic violence are more likely to be deficient or abusive as parents. Common characteristics are lack of warmth, rejection of the children, and coercive tactics.
- Abusive parents are poor role models for children. Children will mould their future relationship on the behavior they have witnessed creating a “cycle of violence” that repeats itself through generations unless broken.
- Abusive ex-partners tend generally to undermine the victim’s parenting role.
- Victims of domestic violence often show diminished parenting capacities. Anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and post traumatic stress disorder can all compromise the parenting skills of the abuse victims.
Domestic violence has enormous economic costs for Canadian society. The first research study to estimate the cost of various forms of violence against women, including woman abuse in intimate relationships, (L. Greaves and O. Hankivsky, Selected estimates of the costs of violence against women, 1995) found that this problem costs Canadian society about $4.2 billion per year in social services, education, criminal justice, labor, employment, health and medical costs.
“How can I help?” is a question often asked by those who know someone who is an abusive situation. It is often difficult for friends and family to understand the abusive situation and provide the support that an abused person needs, but open communication is one of the most helpful things you can do. Something as simple as letting the abused person talk to you and “vent” can make such a considerable difference in their accessing support and services to help them heal.
There are a variety of ways you can help a person who is experiencing domestic violence:
- Get educated. Learn what you can about domestic violence so you can be empathetic and supportive of your friend or family member.
- Listen. Indicate that you care. Be sensitive to the emotions around disclosure.
- Help them receive help. See to it that they receive sensitive and competent attention from a doctor or counsellor. Seek out shelters for emergency and/or long-term residence and support services.
- Recognize your own limitations in dealing with the abuse. If the abused person is someone you really care about, you are probably experiencing a number of different emotions from outrage to helplessness. Try to keep your emotions in check and just pay attention to the person in need.
- Remember to take care of yourself. It can be emotionally exhausting to be supportive to the abused person, while keeping your feelings bottled up. Find someone you can talk to because your feelings matter too. By sharing your feelings with someone other than theabused person, you will be better able to provide the continuing support that the person is abused needs.
- Remember to put your frustration and anger where it belongs. When someone you care about is abused, it is tempting to want retaliation against the perpetrator. Your personal revenge against the abuser will not help, and in fact only make matters worse.