Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wyoming, 2006. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on June 30, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 130-139).

Although sexual and physical abuse have clear definitions, psychological abuse is difficult to define and conceptualize. Though men can and have experienced psychological abuse, there is limited research on heterosexual men's experiences with psychological abuse and much of the research on abuse has been on women. Therefore, this qualitative phenomenological study, grounded on control theory, the social choice framework, and narrative theory, was conducted to investigate how heterosexual men describe their experiences with psychological abuse. A phenomenological qualitative approached with purposeful sampling was used to draw a sample of heterosexual male participants (N = 6), ages 30 to 42 were interviewed, and transcripts were created from their responses for content analysis. The data was analyzed and coded to identify categories and themes. The results of this study indicated that heterosexual men do experience psychological abuse and they define this phenomenon with the underlying behavior of manipulation where physical abuse may or may not be prevalent. This research may also provide behavior health practitioners an opportunity to develop treatment strategies that address heterosexual men who experience psychological abuse. This research may also provide understanding to policy, lawmakers and law enforcement into understanding the lived experiences of heterosexual men who experience psychological abuse. This research has the potential for social change by adjusting both perspective and clinical definition as it pertains to heterosexual men who have experienced psychological abuse.

Thesis (M.A.)--Marshall University, 2002. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iii, 28 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 13-15).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of North Texas, Aug., 2007. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Abstract not available

The current exploratory study examined the relationships between intimacy or mutuality and expression of violence among a sample of Spanish-speaking immigrant men (N = 70) mandated to a batterer intervention program in the Western United States. Correlations, hierarchical regressions, ANOVAs, and t-tests were used to explore the three-phase program’s effects on changes in men’s self-reports of mutuality, physical violence, and total emotional violence and its components - verbal emotional violence and controlling behavior. The study found that higher reports of mutuality were significantly related to lower reports of all three measures of emotional violence at intake. It was also found that reports of total emotional violence and verbal emotional violence, but not controlling behavior were reduced with participation in the program. Two distinct groups of participants emerged, with men measured in the second phase of intervention reporting higher initial verbal emotional violence and mutuality than those measured in the third phase. In addition, men measured in the second phase reported greater changes in both verbal-emotional violence and mutuality than those who reported in the third phase. The findings appear to show limitations of the measurement methods and instruments. They also seem to indicate that batterer intervention programs in general may need to examine other ways to address the more pernicious social and political roots of domestic violence.

Spiritual Abuse (S.A.) is a largely hidden and little understood form of abuse. Currently work in the area of S.A. is predominantly American and written by those in positions of power such as church ministers. There is a paucity of work in the UK in this area and a complete absent of research based upon survivors own stories of the experience of S.A.

Research has found that dating violence is a predictor of marital violence; however, research has been unclear about what predicts dating violence. Past research has been inconclusive. Furthermore, very few studies focus on gender differences in risk factors. This study examines a variety of risk factors for male and female perpetrators of dating violence in college dating relationships. Eight risk factors were used in this study: witnessing parental violence, experiencing childhood violence, problems with alcohol, length of relationship, relationship satisfaction, anger management skills, partner’s use of physical aggression, and partner’s use of psychological aggression. Correlations and multiple regressions were run for each gender. The study found that for males, partner’s use of physical aggression, low anger management skills and high relationship satisfaction were the strongest variables associated with male’ s use of physical aggression against a dating partner. For the females, partner’s use of physical aggression, followed by partner’s use of psychological aggression were the most significant variables. The model in this study was a good predictor of male violence, accounting for 81% of the variance, however, it only accounted for 51% of female violence which indicates that other unknown factors are influential in female’s use of physical violence. / Master of Science

Research has documented an association between sustained overt psychological abuse and women's self-concept and psychological distress. However, the focus on overt domination and control limits our understanding of its impact and is a weakness addressed in this study. Women in distressed relationships who had sustained severe psychological abuse from a partner and either no, moderate, or serious violence met inclusion criteria.

Forskning kring våld i nära relationer handlar ofta om fysiskt våld. Fysiskt våld uppfattas som mer allvarligt än psykiskt våld. Psykiskt våld har visats vara mer vanligt och skadorna går inte att upptäcka med blotta ögat. Studiens syfte var att undersöka uppfattningar om psykiskt våld i nära relationer. Etthundrasextionio högskolestudenter, varav 88 kvinnor läste en av två fiktiva vinjetter om psykiskt våld i en nära relation där förövaren var antingen man eller kvinna. Därefter svarade de på en enkät relaterat till vinjetten med frågor från mätinstrumentet Opinions on Domestic Violence Scale (ODVS). Tvåvägs variansanalyser för oberoende mätningar visade att kvinnorna uppfattade situationerna mer allvarligt än männen. När en kvinna blev utsatt för våld uppfattades det mer allvarligt. Resultaten var i linje med tidigare forskning om fysiskt våld. Det är av värde att fortsätta undersöka psykiskt våld i nära relationer för att våldet ska upphöra.