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Domestic Violence is Not Caused by Stress
Life is filled with many different sources of stress and people respond in a wide variety of ways. People choose ways to reduce stress according to what they have learned about strategies that have worked for them in the past. It is important to hold individuals responsible for the choices they make regarding how they reduce stress, especially when those choices involve violence or other illegal behaviors. Many episodes of domestic violence occur when the batterer is not emotionally charged or stressed. Since domestic violence is a variety of tactics repeated over time for the purpose of controlling the victim, specific stresses are less meaningful in explaining a pattern of abusive control.
Domestic Violence is Not Caused by the Victim’s Behavior or by the Relationship
Focusing on the relationship or the victim’s behavior as an explanation for domestic violence removes the batterer’s responsibility for the violence and supports the batterers’ minimization, denial, blaming, and rationalization for the violent behavior. Other person’s relationships can be in conflict and experience negative feelings about the behavior of their partner without choosing to respond with violence. Research indicates that there are no personality profiles for battered women and they are no different from non-battered women in terms of psychological characteristics. One study found that no victim behavior could alter the batterer’s behavior, suggesting that the victim’s behavior is not the determining factor in whether or not the batterer is abusive. Both adult and adolescent batterers bring into their intimate relationships certain expectations of who is to be in charge and what mechanisms are acceptable for enforcing that dominance. Those attitudes and beliefs, rather than the victim’s behavior, determine whether or not they are violent.
PHASES OF VIOLENCE
Although it is not the same in all relationships, the pattern of domestic violence usually consists of three phases: increased tension building, the acute battering incident, and a calm or a lessening of tension.
Phase 1: Tension or Build Up
The tension-building phase may last weeks, months or years. With time, this phase becomes shorter and shorter, in some cases it could be as short as a few minutes or hours. An increase in verbal or physical abuse and a decrease in loving communication characterize it. This is a time when the victim may be amenable to resources in the community and may even seek them by a visit to a member of the clergy, a physician or another authority figure she trusts. She tries to keep the man as calm as possible, fearing that any escalation in tension will also increase his dangerousness. Sometimes a battered woman who has been through the cycle before knows that an acute battering incident is about to occur. She may do things she believes he will explode over, sometimes in front of other people. Her goal is to get the abuse over with while his violence level is still relatively low. The batterer may also feel increased tension, but will deny this to himself. The batterer is unwilling to seek or listen to help at this point.
Phase 2: Battering Incident
In the second phase, the tension has reached a certain point and an explosion or fight will occur. This is usually when the physical violence occurs. He knows, or will learn, that his use of violence seems to decrease his stress and change his partner’s behavior. Either partner may initiate the acute battering phase. It is during this phase that law enforcement or EMS become involved. If there are serious injuries requiring medical care, they usually occur during this phase. Immediately following this phase, the batterer and the survivor may be amenable to intervention. She is hurt and frightened, and he often feels guilty, humiliated and ashamed.
Phase 3: Calm or Honeymoon
In the calm or “honeymoon” phase there is a perception of reconciliation and resolution. The man is usually contrite, offers excuses such as drinking, and promises that it will never happen again. This phase tends to be shorter than the tension phase. The honeymoon phase does not exist in all relationships, and in other relationships, decreases and disappears over time as the man’s power and control needs are achieved by increasing frequency and severity of the violence. The survivor is least likely to be amenable to intervention at this time, because it is the period when she receives the most rewards for being in the relationship. She is reminded of the earliest period of courtship, when the batterer behaved in a loving and nurturing manner with no observable violence. In contrast, the batterer may be more amenable to intervention at this time, because typically he is remorseful and wishes to keep his partner. Later in the phase, as soon as he believes he has again won over his partner, he is decreasingly amenable to intervention. During the height of this phase, both parties minimize the violence and may excuse, distort, or actually forget what happened.
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