Trauma and Domestic Violence

Traumatic Origins and Consequences

The most interesting aspect of the relationship between domestic violence and trauma is that trauma is both a cause and consequence of domestic violence. The early work in the field was devoted to investigating and documenting the negative consequences of abuse for battered women. It was learned that, relative to women who have not been victimized, battered women (or survivors as they are also called) are significantly more likely to have mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and substance abuse problems and both suicidal ideation and attempts. Intuitively, this situation certainly makes sense as we consider what it must be like to exist in those types of hostile and violent environments. What is less obvious is that many of these health-related problems are fixable if battered women's exposure to violence can be eliminated or reduced. Specifically, emerging research suggests that there is a positive linear relationship between violence exposure and trauma and, if we can reduce the level of exposure, we can also reduce the magnitude of traumatic consequences.

Despite this good news, the nature of domestic violence makes it difficult to achieve. What makes domestic violence so persistent is that it is unlike violence that occurs between strangers. In domestic violence, there is regularly an ongoing relationship between the victim and the offender (e.g., married, cohabitating). Lenore Walker described this relationship as a cycle of violence, which is characterized by alternating stages of violence, repentance (which she termed the honeymoon phase), and tension building. She symbolized this cycle with a circle and suggested that the whole relationship is captured by progression through three stages; time speeds up the cycle and intensifies the violence. Consequently, as the violent episodes increase in frequency and intensity over time, there is also a concomitant decrease in the likelihood that women can escape the relationship.

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