Thesis (M. A. (Clinical Psychology)) -- University of the North, 2003 / Refer to the document

Despite decades of preventive education and services for intimate partner violence, such violence continues. Studies have shown mixed evidence regarding the effectiveness of current treatment options and prevention remains paramount. If victims seek therapy, the focus is typically on a single diagnosis, such as depression or post-traumatic stress disorder, rather than cause-and-effect. Emotional intelligence in abusers of intimate partner violence has been tested and studied. There is literature on victims, but they are rare, regional, and examined only female participants resulting in conflicting findings. There is a gap in research in the review of the nuances of emotional intelligence in participants of both genders. The present quantitative study explored the branches of emotional intelligence differences in intimate partner violence victim-survivor participants (N = 180) using the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test. The 4 branches explored were perception, use, understanding, and management of emotions. Using linear regressions, any differences in emotional intelligence in partner violence victim-survivors were compared to the normative population by gender, length of time a victim was abused, and the types of abuses experienced. Both genders resulted in finding lower levels of the understanding branch when compared to the normative population. Male levels were higher in use, perception, and understanding than females. The length of time in an abusive relationship and types of abuse experienced showed no significance. Testing victim-survivors' emotional intelligence levels could effect social change with personal data focusing on enhancing skills in introspection, healthier emotional responses, and help to dissuade a victim from returning to their abusive relationship.

Thesis (M.A. (Psychology)) -- University of Limpopo, 2015 / The study investigated the psychological factors that compel battered women to remain in abusive relationships. According to statistics in South Africa (SA) one in every five women is battered by her partner, and one in every four of all women in SA are assaulted by their partners weekly. The research approach was qualitative in nature. Sampling for the study was purposive and utilised eight participants who met the criteria for the investigation. The study was conducted at Tshilidzhini Hospital Trauma Centre and The Sibasa Victim Empowerment unit in Thohoyandou, Vhembe District in the Limpopo province. Data was gathered using a semi-structured questionnaire guide. Data was analysed, using Thematic Content Analysis (TCA), to gain an in-depth account of each participant’s experience of abuse. The results of the study indicate that cultural factors still play an important role in facilitating women abuse. The women in the study used religion, denial and avoidance, guilt and self-blame as coping mechanisms. Low self-esteem, depression, cognitive dissonance and relationship hope and commitment were identified as psychological factors compelling battered women to remain in abusive relationships. The study recommended that educational programmes and workshops on woman abuse be provided to empower women in rural areas.

<p>The aim of this study is to contribute to understanding of how children try to understand and interpret their own father and his (possibly) violent actions against their mother in relation to their general conceptualizations concerning fathers and violence. A general social psychological and interactionist approach is related to the children’s selves as the organizing and experiencing structures, the family as the arena for experiences and communicative interaction, and society as a structure of norms and general ideas. </p><p>The study is based on interviews with ten children, who were eight to twelve years old at the time of the interview and whose mothers had escaped from their fathers’ violence to a Women’s House. Qualitative interpretation of each child’s complex abstracted and generalized conceptualizations of fathers and violence enabled the understanding of individual themes as crucial parts of each child’s logically unified and conciliated symbolic meaning through the theoretical construct of negotiation. </p><p>The study results in the identification of three alternative theoretical approaches to meaning-conciliation. One can be described as ‘conceptual fission’ in the general conception of fathers, one as ‘conceptual fission’ in the conception of the own father and one as negotiating the extension of the opposite of violence, described as ‘goodness’. These negotiations can be understood as parts of distancing violence from either one subgroup of fathers, from the overall, essential or principle understanding of the own father within the child’s relationship with him, or from fathers altogether, including the child’s own. The children’s attempts to combine normalization of their father as an individual with resistance to his violent acts are interpreted as indicating the difficulty that the combination of the social deviancy of violence and the family context constitutes for many children. </p>

published_or_final_version / Nursing Studies / Master / Master of Nursing in Advanced Practice

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Despite growing awareness of the severity of domestic violence, the lives of battered women are too often misconstrued by the Canadian public and the judicial system. The author argues that stereotypes of victimized battered women emanating from the courts and feminist theory may both prevent women who kill their partner from making valid claims of self-defence and generally undermine women's fight against oppression. The author reviews the doctrine of the battered woman syndrome and its application in the context of self-defence to illustrate how the courts' treatment of the doctrine conveys a narrow and incomplete depiction of battered women. An alternative theoretical framework based on battered women's partial agency is proposed as a means to address feminist theory's simplified representation of battered women. Various law and policy reform initiatives in the criminal justice system are explored to assess how the law may validate and promote battered women's partial agency.

When something is about masculinities it is not always about men. Kosofsky-Sedgwick (1995 :12) Any society that is lauded for its exemplary National Constitution that asserts and affords their citizens basic human rights is accountable for how those rights are translated into the "lived experiences" of its citizens. In South Africa, a pronounced and violent identity has become notoriously established by the blatant disrespect for women's rights, a reality predominantly present within the marital dyad. Unfortunately, even after eighteen years of political liberation and some fourteen years after the promulgation of the much-lauded Domestic Violence Act No. 116 of 1998, the culture of human rights has not demonstrably translated into women's rights as countless women continue to be challenged in their marriages by the dictates and privileges of hegemonic masculinities that their husbands subscribe to. In order to engage with this prevailing and destructive state of disharmony and abuse in marriages, this study concentrates on a simple yet logical question of "why do men do what they do?" centred as it is within the compass of their violent relationships with their wives. This exploratory research project afforded an in-depth understanding and examination of seven married men who were afforded an opportunity to engage in four focus group discussions to describe and detail their subjective narratives of their violent relationships. This research provided spaces for men's reflective accounts of their violence, thereby offering insightful interpretations of the contours of the contradictions contained in the social construction of masculinities which in South Africa is multi-faceted. The sample frame comprised of men who reside in Phoenix, a large township, north of the city of Durban. According to racial profile, all were South African Indian. Their ages ranged from 34 to 61 years, while their wives were between 35 to 60 years of age. Years of marriage ranged from 3 to 35. Three respondents were in their first marriage, while four were married for the second time. Five respondents had matriculated; while one possessed a post-matriculation qualification and one had completed Standard Six (present High School Grade 8). Concerning their religious affiliation, six of the respondents were Christian and one was Muslim. Utilising critical, freminist and masculinity theories, the 'authoritative discourses' offered by the respondents were meaningfully interrogated, examined and analysed. In particular, the study paid careful attention to the inextricable links between the constructions of masculinities, domestic violence and the sociology of religion. Emergent meta-themes that emanated from the extensive narratives of the men on their violent relationship with their wives included the priveleges of patriarchy; religion and male privelege, and finally the clash between religious belief and the South African criminal justice system. It is within the acknowledged space of the "web of associated factors" which contribute to domestic violence, that conclusions were reached. The study logically concludes that a deliberate, coherent, sustained, and spiritual ethos is needed in South Africa so as to ameliorate the damaging and destructive effects that are presently and overwhelmingly dictated by the presence of hegemonic masculinities. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2012.

The High Risk Assessment Review Team (HART) in Belleville, Ontario is a community coordinated initiative that reviews domestic violence cases before the criminal court. Record analysis was conducted on 60 case files that had gone through criminal court in that jurisdiction. The purpose was to determine if a sample of cases reviewed by HART (n=30) would yield a higher rate of conviction and increased contact with community agencies when compared to a sample of cases (n=30) prior to this team being implemented. A logistical regression yielded no statistically significant results but did demonstrate a higher rate and likelihood of conviction in the HART sample as well as a greater involvement and likelihood of involvement with community agencies.

The aim of this study was to examine women shelters conditions as an organization and how these conditions affect their work with children who have experienced family violence and live in their shelters. In order to achieve a more profound and comprehensive view of the women shelters and their work with these children we selected to execute a qualitative method with semi-structured interviews with collaborators from nine different shelters in Sweden. We found that the women shelter as a non-governmental organization was bicameral and complex where their work with children distinguishes on several areas. We discovered that the women shelters were an organization, affected and formed by its environment. From our empiricism we could distinguish differences on a municipality level where collaborations with schools and social services occur in a resource guided hierarchy which influences the women shelters work with children. The women shelters work also showed to have a focus on the mother, even when they worked with the children. We also found that the shelters work varied in ways of including ideological foundations of moral to its work and therefore where directed and adapting their work with children from different approaches to its working procedures. As a conclusion, women shelters work with children can appear as a lottery of support and help due to its variations in what help the children are offered on their shelters.