Woman Abuse

Facts Replacing Myths

By Lewis Okun

Subjects: Women's Studies, Transpersonal Psychology
Paperback : 9780887060793, 298 pages, December 1985
Hardcover : 9780887060779, 298 pages, December 1985

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Table of contents

LIST OF TABLES

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

 

Purpose of the Present Work
Author's Interest and Experience
Values Assumptions
Terminology
Outline of the Book

I. REVIEW AND CRITIQUE OF THE LITERATURE ON BATTERING

1. HISTORY

 

Woman Abuse in Historical Perspective

 

2. THE EMPIRICAL LITERATURE

 

History
Problems with the Literature
Overall Trends
The Empirical Literature - Methods and Designs
Critique of the Empirical Literature

 

3. RESULTS OF EMPIRICAL WORKS

 

Incidence and Prevalence
Relative Incidence of Battered Wives and Battered Husbands
Age
Marital Status
Race
Religion
Socioeconomic Variables
Patterns in Woman Abuse
Sexual Issues in Woman Abuse
Not Separating, Separating, and Returning
Seeking Intervention
Assailants' Criminal Records
Military Service
Alcohol and Conjugal Violence
Child Abuse and Conjugal Abuse
Family Histories of Violence
Miscellaneous Quantitative Findings
Clinical Descriptions

 

4. THEORETICAL LITERATURE

 

Psychoanalytic Approaches
Learning Theory
Coercive Control Theory
Sociological Theories
Feminist Theories
Empirical and Theoretical Literature Compared
Universal Problems of the Theoretical Literature
Family Violence vs. Woman Abuse
The Intergenerational Transmission Hypothesis

 

5. COERCIVE CONTROL AND WOMAN ABUSE

 

Thought Reform and Woman Abuse
Coercive Control and Pimping
When Is a Family Not a Family?

II THE CURRENT STUDY

6. METHOD

 

Setting
Method
Limitations of the Present Study
Advantages of the Study
Hypotheses to Be Tested
Characteristics of the Shelter Sample
Characteristics of the Counseling Sample

 

7. COMPARISONS OF THE SAMPLES TO THE GENERAL POPULATION

 

Age Charateristics
Racial Characteristics
Number of Children
Premarital Pregnancy Rates
Employment Rates
Welfare Recipient Status
Marital Status
Childhood Exposure to Conjugally Violent Parents
Childhood Subjection to Child Abuse
Educational Level of Assailant Partners
Alcohol Abuse among Batterers
Military Experience among Batterers

 

8. CONCORDANCE BETWEEN VICTIMS' AND ASSAILANTS' REPORTS

9. FACTORS RELATING TO THE TERMINATION OR RESUMPTION OF COHABITATION BETWEEN THE BATTERED WOMAN AND BATTERER

 

Whether Partner Sought Batterers' Counseling
Age
Race
Number of Children and Age of Children
Economic Factors
Psychoactive Medications and Previous Counseling
Marital Status
Length of Relationship
Time Elapsed Since the Initial Conjugal Assault
Number of Previous Separations
Other Factors Regarding Previous Separations
Magnitude of Abuse: Number, Frequency, and Severity of Conjugal Assaults
Physical Retaliation in Self-defense by the Women
Conjugal Abuse of Shelter Residents' Mothers
Child Abuse Sustained by Shelter Residents
Concomitant Child Abuse by the Batterer
Distance Traveled by Battered Women to Shelter
Assailant's Level of Education
Assailant's Alcohol Abuse
Batterers' Criminal Record of Violent Offenses

 

10. ADDITIONAL RESULTS

 

Factors Relating to the Level of Violence
Predictors of Batterers' Counseling Outcomes

 

11 SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION OF RESULTS

 

Discussion
Indications for Future Research

 

APPENDIX A: TABLE OF VARIABLES COLLECTED FROM THE SHELTER SAMPLE

APPENDIX B: THE SHELTER INTAKE FORM

APPENDIX C: TABLE OF VARIABLES COLLECTED FROM THE BATTERERS' COUNSELING SAMPLE

APPENDIX D: THE BATTERERS' COUNSELING INTAKE FORM

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

Description

Battered women and woman abusers. Which beliefs about them are becoming substantiated by empirical evidence, and which have now been debunked as fallacies or myths?

Woman Abuse: Facts Replacing Myths presents an extensive review of the literature in the field. It provides the results of important original research conducted by the author and surveys the current literature on conjugal violence. The author highlights the parallels between woman abuse and coercive control procedures such as brainwashing. He compares reports by both the battered woman and her persecutor and also compares woman-battering couples with the overall American population of married and cohabitant couples.

Lewis Okun, Ph.D., is Staff Psychologist at the Ypsilanti Regional Psychiatric Hospital, Michigan.