Myths About Abuse

Many myths surrounding violence abuse are false. The following information is adapted from Spouse Abuse: Assessing and Treating Battered Women, Batterers and Their Children by Michelle Harway and Marsali Hansen, 2nd edition (January 2004).

Physical or Psychological Violence

Myth

A man who verbally intimidates or harasses his partner is NOT likely to lash out physically.

False

Verbal intimidation, harassment, and similar actions represent escalating attempts to control the partner (Walker, 1979). Ultimately these behaviors will lead to physical violence.

Prevalence and Seriousness

Myth

Battered women represent only a small percentage of the population.

False

Anywhere from 3.8 million to 8.7 million couples experience violence. Battering affects a substantial proportion of the population.

Married Couples - Koss (1990) indicates that 28% to 33% experience violence at some point during their relationship.

Dating Couples - Koss indicates that as many as 50% of dating experience violence.

Lesbians - Renzetti (1993) reports that as many as 59% are in battering relationships.

*Statistics vary based on definitions of battering and samples selected.

Myths about Violence

Myth

Women who repeatedly leave and return to violent partners do so MAINLY because they are emotionally unable to separate from them.

Battered women can always leave home.

False

Statistics indicate that battered women leave their batters more frequently than has been believed.

Browne (1987) indicates that battered women make an average of seven attempts to leave before they do so permanently.

When these women return, they indicated that they were not take seriously by the person they when to.

Family members have often pushed the women to try harder.

Clergy, doctor, and even psychotherapists have often urged battered women to modify their own behavior in order to effect a change in the relationship.

Goodstein and Page (1981) indicate that battered women report having visited a therapist for only one session, and did not returning because the therapist never asked about the battering.

Inability to obtain emotional support is the most common reason for returning to the abusive situation.

Other reasons include lack of financial resources and fear for the safety of the children.

Myth

A woman´s nagging is a major cause of violence in the home.

Some women deserve to be beaten.

Many battered women do things that, though unintentional, cause their husbands to hit them.

False

Violence is always the responsibility of the person who commits it.

Although nagging can be unpleasant, and battered women may engage in behaviors that are very disagreeable, a batterer has numerous alternatives to violence, such as leaving the room.

Myth

Pregnant women tend to be immune to assaults by their partners during the course of their pregnancies.

False

Pregnant women who have been battered are at high risk during their pregnancy. For some women, the first incidence of battering may occur during their pregnancy. Half of all battered women are abused during their pregnancy (Oakum, 1986).

The breasts, abdomen, and genitals seem to receive the greatest share of the blows.

Researchers describe the high incidence of battering as the result of the batterer´s frustration that someone other than himself (the growing fetus) has an impact on her.

Effect on Children

Myth

Children need their father even if he is violent

False

This myth keeps many women in a dangerous relationship for the sake of the children. Studies show that most children suffer permanent damage from viewing violence (J.S. Cummings et al., 1989).

The children may themselves become victimizers of others or may allow themselves to be victimized.

Myth

Most children who live in violent homes are unaware of the violence.

False

Until the late 70´s, the belief was that children were oblivious to the violence in their home or that it had no impact on them.

Studies of battered women themselves suggest that they underestimate the exposure of their children.

Only 25% of battered women in shelters believed that their children had been exposed to the violence. (Tomkins et al., 1994).

Another study that focused on children´s self-reports (Jenkins, Smith, & Graham, 1989) found that 71% of children living in violent homes witnessed the abuse.

There is research indicating that children who are exposed to marital violence sustain both short-and long-term damage to their cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal development.

Myth

Spouse abuse has no long-term impact on children, and once out of the abusive environment children recover without intervention.

False

Children who witness abuse often suffer from symptoms consistent with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

These symptoms persist if treatment isn´t provided (Rossman, 1994) and can be provoked by additional reminders such as contact with the abuser, experience with arguing adults, and so on.

Concurrent factors such as poverty, drug abuse, and living in shelters have their own impact on children´s functioning.

Cultural Issues

Myth

Unlike poorer women, middle-class women are not likely to get battered.

Minority women are battered more frequently than Anglo women.

Battered women are uneducated and have few job skills.

False

Most studies indicate that battering occurs across socioeconomic, racial, ethnic, and educational levels.

A battered woman is everywoman. She may come from any walk of life and is a likely to be a successful professional woman as a ghetto dweller (Gelles & Straus, 1989).

Poorer women who are battered are more likely to come to the attention of the authorities than are wealthier women.

A battering incident happening to a woman who lives in a poorly built apartment with thin walls is more likely to be heard by neighbors than is the beating received by a woman whose closest neighbor lives in the mansion a mile down the road.

Myth

Religious beliefs strongly decrease the probability of becoming a batterer.

False

Battering does not discriminate; it can happen to any woman. Belonging to a certain religious group does not protect a woman from being battered or prevent a man from battering her (Gelles & Straus, 1989).

Battering is just as likely to occur in Christian homes as in Jewish ones; in homes where religiosity is a big focus of the family as well as in homes where religiosity is nonexistent.

Dynamics of Battering

Myth

Alcohol causes battering when the man drinks.

False

Although many batterers are also alcoholics or problem drinkers, research indicates that men who abuse alcohol tends to do most of their battering when sober (Browne, 1987; Gelles & Straus, 1989).

Even when battering is done under the influence of alcohol, the alcohol cannot be blamed for the battering, even though alcoholic batterers will often blame the violence on the drinking.

When these men are treated for alcoholism and cease drinking, they continue to abuse their partners unless the battering, too, is treated.

Myth

Batterers will cease their violence once the couple gets married.

In a battering relationship, often the batterer spontaneously stops being violent permanently, if he is happier.

False

If a man is violent prior to marriage, it is likely the violence will increase once the couple gets married.

Battering often escalates and needs to be treated.

A common misconception of battered women - if they could only figure out how to make their mates happier, if his job situation got better, or if he could control his drinking, then the violence would cease.

The battering is a characteristic of the batterer and not something the woman has control over. In most cases, it must be treated for it to cease. (Hansen & Harway, 1993).

Myth

Signs that a partner will become a batterer are usually present in the first few weeks of the relationship.

False

There are no consistent patterns regarding when abuse first appears or how it manifests.

Violence may occur early in the relationship or take some time to develop.

Usually, there has been a progression of abuse from verbal to increasingly violent physical abuse over some extended period of time.

Assessment and Treatment Issues

Myth

Upon hearing that a woman is in an abusive relationship, the majority of mental health professionals are most concerned about the woman´s safety.

False

Mental health professionals should be most concerned about the woman´s safety upon assessing that she is being battered. However, two studies (Hansen et al., 1991; Harway & Hansen, 1990) suggests otherwise.

Most mental health professionals do not focus first on the woman´s safety but rather are more concerned with issues such as the couple´s interpersonal dynamics.

Clearly more training is needed to ensure that battered women are adequately treated.

As Good stein and Page´s research (1981) indicates, if the battering is not identified and dealt with immediately, it is unlikely that the woman will return for a second session.

Myth

Most women would rather experience psychological abuse than physical abuse.

False

Many women experience the psychological component of abuse as far more devastating than the physical component. A review of the research by O´Leary (1999), ridicule is identified as the worst type of abuse.

Couple´s Therapy

Myth

Working on relationship issues in couple´s therapy can help decrease the violence.

False

The consensus is that it is ineffective to do couple´s therapy when violence exists, and at worst downright dangerous.

Couple´s therapy may increase the risk of harm to the woman. Couple´s therapy forces the couple to deal with problems in the relationship, which is likely to lead to more conflict and perhaps increases in the violence.

Couple´s therapy is ineffective in stopping the violence because the batterer´s behaviors are independent of the behaviors of the victim. Research by Jacobson et al., (1994)

2nd edition (January 2004)

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