Domestic Violence

POWER & CONTROL IN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE 

Abusive relationships are based on the mistaken belief that one person has the right to control another person. When the abusive partner feels that the actions described in the spokes of the Power & Control Wheel are no longer effective, he/she resorts to physical and/or sexual violence. The relationship is based on the exercise of power to gain and maintain control.

When one person in a relationship repeatedly scares, hurts, or puts down the other
person, it is abuse. The Power & Control Wheel lists examples of each form of
abuse. Remember, abuse is much more than slapping or grabbing someone.

TYPES OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Physical

Physical abuse includes spitting, scratching, biting, grabbing, shaking, shoving, pushing, restraining, throwing, twisting, slapping (open or closed hand), punching, choking, burning, and using weapons (household objects, knives, guns) against the victim. Some assaults result in physical injury and some do not. Sometimes a seemingly less serious type of physical abuse (for example, a shove or push) can result in the most serious injury. The perpetrator may push the victim against a couch, a wall, down a flight of stairs, or out of a moving car – all resulting in various degrees of trauma.

Emotional/Verbal Abuse

Emotional abuse is abuse that is intended to hurt or destroy another’s feelings and emotional well-being. Emotional abuse is often referred to as verbal abuse. This type of abuse includes name calling, put-downs, ridicule, belittling someone, and constant criticism. Another form of emotional abuse is referred to as psychological abuse. Psychological abuse is the constant intimidation and use of harassment to control someone’s thinking or behavior. There are often mind games and "crazy-making" behaviors included as psychological abuse. The batterer will use emotional and psychological abuse as a means of control over the victim. When the batterer feels that this means of abuse is no longer effective, he will often turn to physical abuse as a threat to reinforce the control the emotional abuse has.

Sexual

Like physical abuse, sexual battering includes a wide range of behaviors from pressured sex when the victim does not want sex, to coerced sex by manipulation or threat of physical force, to violent sex. Victims may be coerced or forced into a kind of sex they do not want (for example, sex with third parties, physically painful sex, sexual activity they find offensive) or at a time when they do not want it (for example, when they are exhausted, in front of children, after a physical assault, when they are asleep, when they are not interested).
 

Sometimes victims will resist and then they are punished, and sometimes they comply in hopes that the abuse will end quickly. For many battered women this sexual violation is profound and may be difficult to discuss. Some battered women may be unsure whether this sexual abuse is really abuse, while for others it is clearly the ultimate betrayal.