Debby Schwarz Hirschhorn, PhD

The Annals of The American Psychotherapy Association, 2001, vol. 4, No. 5, pp.15-17.

Do not be fooled into thinking the percent of battering victims (about 16%) in this country is small. Stripped of the obfuscation of statistics, that comes to between two and four million (Medical Education Group Learning Systems, 1997) and 8.7 million women a year (Feld & Straus, 1990) resulting in "more injuries to women victims than accidents, muggings, and cancer deaths combined" (Valentine, Roberts, & Burgess, 1998, p. 29). Twenty-five percent of abused women try to commit suicide (MEGLS). Eighty percent of male batterers aggress against parents, children, pets, and outsiders. Arrests and convictions for other violent behavior of these men is significantly higher than for the general population (Walker, 1984). Domestic violence kills police too, at the rate of 25% of all slain on duty (Guerney, Waldo, & Firestone, 1987). Violence also has a medical cost: over 50 million dollars (Hart, 1993).

The costs in people hurt or killed and dollars spent are actually not the worst aspect of violence. In the long run, its most pernicious element is that it takes place within families--the precise location where people expect a safe harbor from harm, and, even worse, it is intergenerationally transmitted (Straus, Gelles, & Steinmetz, 1980). Conservative estimates of the number of children whose parents assault them while beating each other ranges between 1.4 and 1.7 million (Hotaling, Straus, & Lincoln, 1990). Unfortunately for child victims, not only are they the likely recipients of their father's anger at their mother, but women's likelihood to aggress against their children increases when living with their abusers (Leeder, 1994); according to Walker (1984), "eight times as many [women] may use physical violence against the children when with the batterer as with the nonbatterer" (p. 29). Sibling violence is directly proportional to the amount and severity of spouse and child abuse (Hotaling et al.). Whereas 15% of nonabused children severely assault siblings, 76% of "repeatedly abused" children "repeatedly and severely assaulted a sibling" in direct proportion to the abuse they receive from parents (Straus 1990, p. 407). Only one child in four hundred of nonviolent parents strikes that parent, but half of abused children do so, and it is to a degree that would be considered aggravated assault were parents to press charges (Straus et al., 1980).

Given the intensity of the problem, one would think that therapists have rolled up their sleeves to grapple with it. Not so. It frequently slips by the most gifted therapists--and for good reason. Perpetrators like to look good and certainly won't tell. Besides, they must minimize its significance in their own eyes in order to face themselves every day. Victims, terrified to tell, would not bring it up in therapy sessions. Screening tools like Murray Straus' Conflict Tactics Scale (Gelles & Straus, 1988) and Sonkin, Martin, and Walker's (1985) anger and violence inventories should be routinely filled out as part of the intake process. But what if your agency does not want to make this addition? What if you are in the middle of working with a couple and it would not seem natural to administer an intake form at this point? Here are some red flags that may cue you in to investigate further:

• The presence of a gun is a major risk factor.

• Excessive alcohol use is a risk factor

• Abusive parents of either member of the couple raise the risk of current abuse.

• Dashed expectations. Adult survivors of childhood abuse are often attracted to one another because their common history implies that the partner somehow "knows" their pain and-leaps of logic notwithstanding-can heal it. Needless to say, that is not the case, and intense disappointment in the partner can be a red flag for current or future abuse.

• Inability to separate love and violence. Because parents who abuse their children frequently show them love in other ways, children may actually not believe the two are separable. O.J. Simpson reveals such a confounding, quoted in a Florida newspaper: "'Let's say I committed this crime. Even if I did do this, it would have to have been because I loved her very much, right?'" (Yup, 1998, January 7, p. 2A).

• Inability to reason with one another. Abusers are highly sensitive to what they perceive of as criticism. Even mild suggestions like, "Why not ask Jake for a job?" remind the perpetrator of his lack of that job. When discussions between partners seem to disintegrate into accusations and counter-accusations a severe abuse history is most likely lurking in the shadows and current abuse may be going on as well.

Tags: Abuse and Violence

About the Author

Dr. Deb is a specialist in both marriage counseling and abuse and trauma with