He Battered woman syndrome Is a pathological adaptation disorder that occurs in women who are Victims of gender violence As a result of continuous mistreatment.
Usually victims who live in this type of abusive and frightening relationships usually hide it for a long time, either from fear, terror, shame, their children, etc.
In the United States, the battered woman syndrome is associated with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and is used in court cases when the woman has killed her abuser.
Although the evidence for this syndrome was not initially admitted, it is increasingly recognized despite doubts about its validity as a psychological disorder. It is currently admissible in 76% of US territory (39 states since 2000).
Article 1 of the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women states that:
Any act of violence based on belonging to the female sex that has or may result in physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering for the woman, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether or not Occur in public or private life.
Therefore, domestic or family violence are all those acts of physical or emotional , Normally produced within the household by an individual belonging to the family and causing in the victim fear, isolation, guilt, fear or humiliation.
Lenore Walker Was who defined the Cycle of Violence from his investigations with women. It is currently the most accepted model and used by professionals.
Cycle of violence
The cycle of violence according to the Cycle of Maltreatment Theory consists of three stages:
- Accumulated voltage phase . In this phase, the victim tries to calm his aggressor by trying to help him reason to calm down.
At this stage, she is already moving away from her support group as friends and family. The victim tries to be nice to his aggressor and strives to please him as best he can. Starts to intensify the tension with the increases of voice and verbal abuse .
- Acute maltreatment phase . From this moment on, when the accumulated tension provokes a state of rage with episodes of physical abuse and sexual . The aggressor mistreats his partner by insulting, humiliating, shouting, using force, etc.
- Phase of calm and reconciliation . It is also known as"honeymoon". It is characterized by the absence of tension or violence, which acquires a positive value.
It is here that the aggressor perceives the loss of confidence of the victim. For fear of losing her ego, she blames the woman for what happened and excuses herself by even changing her attitude towards the victim, making her believe that it will not happen again and that everything will go well.
But this only lasts until the voltages appear again, starting the cycle again.
Phases of the abused woman syndrome
- Trigger . When the first mistreatment occurs, these already break the security that should be played by the couple and in whom the woman has placed her trust and expectations. What gives rise to a disorientation, loss of referents, even being able to suffer depression .
- Reorientation . In this phase the woman begins to look for new referents, but their social networks are already much depleted and therefore is alone. With their perception of reality already distorted, Self-incriminating Of the situation and enters a state of defenselessness and passive resistance.
- Coping . Here he assumes the mental model of his partner, trying to handle the traumatic situation without success.
- Adaptation . The woman casts the blame on others, on the outside, and the Syndrome of learned indifference Is consolidated through an identification process.
Psychological Stages
Denial
The woman flatly refuses to admit, even to herself, that she has been mistreated or that there is a problem in her marriage. She often offers excuses about her husband's violence and firmly believes that it will not happen again.
2- Guilt
At this stage you already recognize that there is a problem, but the error comes to be considered as responsible for it. Likewise, she feels that she"deserves"to be treated that way well for her shortcomings, or because she understands that she is not up to the expectations of her husband.
3- Illustration
During this phase, the woman no longer assumes responsibility for the abusive treatment she suffers. At last she begins to recognize that no one deserves to be mistreated. At this stage she stays with her husband because she still thinks or hopes that problems can be solved.
4- Responsibility
Finally, it is time to accept that her husband can not or does not want to eliminate his violent behavior, and it is here when he becomes aware of starting a new life.
Symptomatology
-Because of the abusive nature of abuse, the woman's ability to respond diminishes, so that her personality becomes passive, and submissive with a low self-esteem .
- These women often have mixed feelings because, although they hate being beaten, sometimes they also think they deserve it because they themselves are considered the cause of the problem.
- They live in complete guilt.
- They are considered failures.
- Have anguish, moodiness, depression, feeling of powerlessness, Suicide attempts and insomnia .
- Drugs abuse Y eating disorders .
- Suffer abdominal pain, headache , fatigue , etc.
- They have states of fear, even panic , Before any change in their daily lives.
- They have no control over their life.
- They lose any cognitive ability to perceive any success, since they are fully convinced that any behavior they adopt will not bring them any favorable results.
- His Emotional well-being Is very resentful, which can lead to the development of depression and anxiety.
-They usually have Cognitive distortions , Such as minimization, dissociation, or negation.
- They show difficulties in interpersonal relationships.
They have concentration problems Or irritability.
-They may even suffer Sexual dysfunctions .
Treatment
If at any time it has been possible Prevent family violence , We must go to treatment. The majority of abused women do not respond to Cognitive techniques And not affective initially, although, finally, both become part of the treatment plan.
As cognitive clarity develops, attention, concentration and memory will be improved. A battered woman is often so anxious during the initial interview that she may not remember much of what has been said.
Thus, the repetition of the areas discussed in the interview can be important, especially until the woman regains attention and concentration.
It is often helpful to recommend that you participate in more and different types of activities with other people so that you can put into practice the social and communicative skills with the rest.
Such activities help many women to escape from the isolation in which they live because of their aggressors. She has to understand that she may still be in danger, even if her partner has completed a treatment program.
Treatment of the Abused Woman syndrome also includes a combination of feminist therapy and trauma therapy.
Feminist Therapy
Feminist therapy recognizes that in the psychotherapy , The relationship between client and therapist is also part of the intervention.
Recognize the Lack of equality Which still exists in society between men and women, is going to help her accept that she can still try to change some of the factors that she can control.
On the other hand would be the legal action, so that the woman can make use of it, either to obtain both a restraining order or protection, and to be able to exert pressure for their aggressor to be arrested.
Trauma Therapy
Regarding trauma therapy, this helps the woman to understand that she is not"crazy"and that she is not the only one who has to deal with the psychological symptoms that come from exposure to trauma.
It is clear that without the use of trauma-specific therapy techniques, a woman may be unable to move the barriers that make her situation more difficult.
Therefore, it is necessary to focus on the triggers external to the"trauma", rather than your own internal problems, as this will help mitigate the symptoms of the mistreated woman syndrome.
As for the typical trauma triggers, these include: bad words, shouting, a particular phrase that you use to humiliate or even the shaving lotion you use or other odors you emit during abuse.
Behavioral Techniques
We can also make use of behavioral techniques. These include Relaxation training , Guided visualization and successive approximation with high excitation incidents. These behavioral and Cognitive-behavioral Can help women develop cognitive clarity over time.
Finally, symptoms such as startle response and hypervigilance will be the last to extinguish.
Although in many women these signs or traumas are never completely disappearing, it is necessary that when starting a new relationship with another person, be patient and understanding, as long as it is not an abusive relationship.
Despite the myth that women often go from one abusive relationship to another, the data suggest that less than 10% of all battered women do so again.
STEP Program
Finally, another type of program is STEP, which is a combination of feminist therapy and trauma.
This 12 unit program is empirically validated with clinical populations and prisons and is useful for women who abuse toxic substances as well as people with interpersonal violence problems.
In clinics and in private practice, each unit of passage can be developed over several sessions.
When asked about their level of satisfaction after each session, all women who participated in this program gave positive feedback that was highly correlated with the reduction of their scores in the Beck Depression Inventory .
Warning signs
- She wants to be with you constantly.
- He writes you messages or calls you frequently throughout the day.
- Show strange behaviors like checking your car's mileage or asking friends to spy on you.
- It requires you to give you your passwords from your email account or your social networks.
- Have your time or make plans without including yourself or consulting.
- Act as if you do not have the ability to make good decisions.
- He constantly asks you what you do, with whom you talk, where you go...
- It requires you to ask permission to do anything.
- It tells you that you are the only person who can make you feel that way.
- Press to commit.
- It is very dependent on all needs.
- Hope you're perfect.
- He says things like,"I am everything you need. You are what I need"
- Try to isolate yourself from friends, family, support resources.
- It insults all people.
- Your friends are criticized, and / or accused of cheating on them.
- Control the relationship with your family.
- It tells you that they really do not love you like him.
- You blame everything that goes wrong in the relationship.
- He insults you constantly by devaluing yourself, making sure that you are useless or you are not worth anything.
Do not hesitate, if you have a friend, family, or you are going through a similar situation, call 016 and report.