Sophia's suicidal response to
the battering trauma is even clearer if the origins of stress are considered.
Gerhardt (1979) proposes that if the origin of particular stresses can be traced
to individual sources, personal coping strategies will be appropriate. If, however,
the origin of the stress is social, a strictly individual coping response will
probably not succeed. What this means is that stress is poised in a complex interactional
relation with differential origins, on the one hand, and the nature of the crisis,
the strategies for crisis management, and the results of the resolution, on the
other. The traditional classification of crisis into situational and developmental
types mirrors the theories and practice traditionally posited to explain battering
and why women stay: e.g. personality traits, intergenerational cycles of violence,
marital stress factors. Just as domestic violence was presumed a 'private' matter,
so crisis theories have omitted categories designating the public aspect of this
problem.
To compensate for this omission in explanatory models,
this study reclassified emotional crises according to the origins of the events
leading to crisis. Thus, crisis origins fall into three categories: situational,
transitional state, cultural/social-structural.
Situational
origins: Crises identified as situational originate from three sources:
(1) material or environmental (such as fire or natural disasters); (2) personal
or physical (heart attack, diagnosis of fatal illness, loss of limb or other bodily
disfigurement from accidents or disease); and (3) interpersonal or social (death
of a loved one or divorce). Crisis counseling and grief work (Parkes 1975) will
usually result in a positive outcome (unless psychopathology was present before
the crisis) from crises originating in such unanticipated traumatic events.
Transition
state origins: Crises originating from transition states consist of two
types: (1) universal life cycle transitions consist of normal human development
phases from conception to death; (2) non-universal transitions are true passages
signaling a shift in social status, such as migration, retirement, the change
from worker (including homemaker) to student, from a violent to nonviolent marital
relationship, or from married to single parent.
Cultural/social-structural
origins: The third source of crisis is cultural values and the social
structure. Crises from social/cultural origins include job loss stemming from
discriminatory practice based on deeply rooted cultural values about race, age,
and sex (as opposed to job loss from illness or poor personal performance, which
can be viewed as a result of a prior crisis of illness). Also in this category
are crises resulting from deviant acts of others, behavior which violates accepted
social norms: robbery, rape, incest, and physical abuse. Crises from these sources
are never truly expected; there is something shocking and catastrophic about them,
as seen from the accounts in this study. In crises originating from complex social/cultural
or interrelated sources the implications for intervention are also more complex
than in crises arising from universal transition states or other unexpected events.
It is most important, then, that social and cultural factors not be misconstrued
as individual, personal liabilities producing crises (Gerhardt 1979). To do so
is to contribute to the process of victim blaming.
The relationship
between the origin of a crisis and its positive or negative resolution is depicted
in the Figure below. This model of the crisis process encompasses both the personal
and socio-cultural factors involved in a woman's coping with battering. It suggests
that if a crisis is to be resolved positively, the aids to positive resolution
(or 'resistance resources' against traumatic stress) need to correspond to the
distinctive origins of the stress. Battering in this model can be defined as a
traumatic event originating from the deviant behavior of one's mate, which in
turn expresses certain values about women, marriage, the family, and violence.
This is not to say that 'situational' factors such as stress related to job loss
or interpersonal conflict around marital infidelity, for example, are not also
involved. Since a battered woman usually undergoes a change in marital status,
the model depicts that the triple origins of crisis are often intertwined. However,
if crisis resolution strategies around an event like battering are not tailored
to its complex origins, positive outcomes of the crisis are less probable.
 Crisis Process.JPG)
To return to Sophia's situation, all the initial strategies
used were confined to the top circle, which includes interpersonal situations.
The conflict was defined by the family as only between the couple; formal network
members not only were not involved, but they were written off, e.g. 'Welfare won't
support you.' (Analysis in Chapters 5 and 6 shows that when formal networks are
involved, the definition is still largely a personal or interpersonal one.) Accepting
this interpersonal definition of the problem, Sophia returned to her husband as
her brother-in-law advised, having been assured that she would obtain no public
support if she left. She then tried everything at her 'personal' disposal to resolve
the conflict and prevent more battering - talking, 'being nice', fixing coffee,
etc. All to no avail. Finally the only recourse she saw was suicide.
Sophia
could also be viewed as in the process of passage from a violent to a
non-violent marriage relationship. In so far as she had insufficient social support
for a successful passage, Sophia could be said to have remained in a 'subliminal'
state, with resulting personal security and an ambiguous status in the community
(van Gennep 1960) for which 'rites of passage' are indicated, as discussed in
Chapter 9.
This interpretation of battering episodes and the
emotional crises that may follow from them views the victim as actively involved
in the process of crisis resolution. Nevertheless it also reveals that the victim
is necessarily limited in producing positive outcomes if social strategies are
not joined to her personal efforts. In other words, individual strategies applied
to social problems will probably be ineffective. Social problems demand social
solutions by collectivities of individuals united in the political pursuit of
social change. Inattention to crisis origins with consequent mismatching of strategies
toward resolution can result in negative crisis outcomes such as suicide and addictions,
or constitute the basis for development of chronic episodes of battering.
Thus
a woman may be beaten again and again not because she likes it, has learned
to be helpless, or fails to follow through when pressing charges, etc. Rather,
she is acting in a pattern that logically follows from a definition of battering
as primarily an interpersonal, private matter between intimates. For example,
the legal obstacles a woman faces if she presses charges are one manifestation
of the predominant interpretation of battering as a private matter. Clearly, then,
definitions of the problem can contribute to its perpetuation, as Sophia's case
illustrates.14 Static definitions of the problem and consequent masking of its
socio-cultural origins also explain the frequent failure of institutional sources
of support available to battered women, apart from recently developed refuges.
Even
if such services were sensitive to the socio-cultural and political aspects of
the problem, many battered women either do not know of them, or, since they accept
the problem as personal, something they are responsible for alone, would not think
to use them. For a woman, then, to leave a violent relationship and avoid killing
either herself or her mate, requires external social resources, a 'definition
of the situation' that no longer targets her as the source of the problem, and
her ability to combine these external and internal resources in an action plan
that preserves her own and others' lives.
- Hoff, L. A., MA. (2000). Battered Women as Survivors. London, England: Routledge.
Online Continuing Education QUESTION
17
A woman may be battered again and again not because she likes it, has
learned to be helpless, or fails to follow through when pressing charges; but,
what is her real motivation for staying? Record the letter of the correct answer
the .
|