<p>This dissertation explores the struggle between the impulse to cover up intimate violence and the impulse to make it public and consumable in nineteenth century England. It shows that intimate violence was both spectacular and unspeakable, rendering woman abuse a highly contested site of representation. It also reveals, however, that these ostensibly diametric modes of portraying violence worked in tandem to test the limits of what was socially and culturally representable during the period, and, in turn, to challenge hierarchies of genre, gender, class, and sexuality.</p> <p>This thesis is therefore both a study of the ways in which representations of intimate violence have avowed the imagined differences between members of disparate social categories and a study of how these differences often break down in the face of brutality. Chapter One shows that although street literature's representations of abuse seem invested in spectacularizing working-class violence, they often gesture towards the failures of middle-class domestic life and thus presume a unique vision of cross-class, shared moral experience. Chapter Two explores how feminist poet, pamphleteer, and novel writer Caroline Norton conflates multiple female identities to emphasize the importance of women's creative self-imagining as a means to resist physical violence and the rhetoric that encourages or allows it. Reading Anthony Trollope's Barchester Towers, Chapter Three intersects discourses on abuse with disability studies to interrogate how the conspicuous bodies of battered women can disrupt male homosocial interactions and complicate discourse on trauma and representation. Finally, Chapter Four considers the ways in which displacements of intimate violence in Wilkie Collins's The Woman In White create sympathetic bonds that blur subjective distinctions between abusive men and violated women to test male authority over representation.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p> This mixed methods study seeks to explain women's decision making regarding intimate partner violence disclosure in urban emergency departments. It contributed to an overall program of research led by Dr. H.L. MacMillan examining the effectiveness of screening in health care settings to reduce violence and improve the quality of women's lives.</p> <p> The study included a randomized, controlled trial with a quantitative sub-analysis and a grounded theory approach. The trial goal was to evaluate whether routine screening for IPV in health care settings, as compared to usual care, does more good than harm. The quantitative sub-analysis included 1,182 participants from three trial emergency departments. In the sample, 1.9% were exposed to intimate partner violence disclosed to the health care provider. Of those who disclosed, 62.9% were positive on both the screening tool and criterion standard. The grounded theory phase involved 19 participants and sought to examine the problems that trial participants associated with intimate partner violence disclosure and the processes they used to resolve them.</p> <p> "Being found out" was the basic social psychological problem that influenced women's decisions against disclosure. This led to a three-phase process where participants attempted to "minimize their risks." The basic social psychological process included: (a) deciding to seek health care, (b) evaluating trust in the clinician, and (c) establishing internal readiness for disclosure. Participants stated that the emergency department was not an ideal place to disclose violence due to overcrowding, chaos, long wait times, and a lack of privacy. Results indicated that abused women wanted clinicians to offer empathy and support, and to minimize the intrusion caused by assessment. Clinician education is required to improve communication, client engagement and comfort discussing intimate partner violence. Future research could explore the barriers and facilitators to care quality and patient satisfaction among abused women seeking emergency care.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This paper aims to explore male abusers of intimate violence in Taiwanese- Vietnamese Marriages, and discuss opinions of their marriage and violated behaviors under the social structure. Hence, the research tries to figure out: 1.in what ways do these male-partners deal with the intimate violence and respond to potential changes of their marriages? 2.what are their strategies to maintain their power and masculinity in their marriage? 3.what would be the obstruction in their intimate relationship? With in-depth interview of six Taiwanese husbands, the results show that the imagination of perfect marriage in these male-partners¡¦ mind is full of the traditional gender vision. That¡¦s why these male-partners tend to reinforce the intimate violence when they find their partners couldn¡¦t fit in with the ideal model. In fact, these male abusers could deny all counts about their violated behaviors later. Besides, male-partners even use ¡¨gender¡¨ and ¡§nationality¡¨ to rationalize their behaviors, such as accusing their female-partners with horrible family concepts, unfaithful, engaging in prostitution, cheating, and over- aggressive.

This study was undertaken in an attempt to investigate the impact of family, threatened egotism, and reciprocity on a person’s use of intimate violence. Threatened egotism proposes that aggression is the result of high but unstable self-esteem, which is conceptualized as high self-esteem coupled with high narcissism. Self-report questionnaires were administered to randomly selected cluster samples of 423 college students, 147 males and 276 females. The mean age is approximately 22 with 93% indicating they are White and 7% non-White. While no support was found for threatened egotism, violence witnessed in the family of origin and reciprocity were found to significantly impact intimate violence. Analyses conducted separately for males and females indicate that these factors operate differently based on gender.

A multi-method study investigating incarcerated women’s experiences of rage towards their intimate partners was conducted. The sample was drawn from a Philadelphia prison's recovery unit for women. Phenomenological and feminist critical theory perspectives guided the study; these combined approaches captured the essence of rage, while also offering a critical analysis for understanding complexities involved in the cultivation of rage. Three primary forms of data collection methods were used: (a) the Aggression Questionnaire, which was completed by 60 inmates; (b) a Demographic Worksheet, which was completed by 46 inmates and used to screen for subsequent interviews; and (c) in-depth interviews, which was completed by 37 women. Focus groups were used to debrief participants at the completion of the study. Results indicated rage as a distinct experience from anger. Past sources of emotional pain, embedded within shame and trauma, were revealed as fueling current actions of rage. Links between women's social location, their experiences of rage, and their involvement within the criminal justice system were revealed. / Ph. D.

This study examined the use of physical aggression in intimate relationships and the effects of self-esteem, adult attachment, and witnessing violence in the family of origin on such. Participants were 189 males and 379 females enrolled in classes during the fall semester 2006 at East Tennessee State University. Participants were recruited via 2 methods and participated either via an online survey through the Psychology department or paper-based surveys administered to random cluster samples of students. The 2 versions differed only in administration format. The surveys consisted of a demographic questionnaire, CTS2 for their relationships, CTS for their parents' relationship, Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale, and ECR-R. A 2 x 2 x 3 x 2 MANOVA was undertaken to assess main effects and interactions of gender, interparental violence, self-esteem, and adult attachment. Significant main effects emerged for all independent variables with a significant interaction between gender and interparental violence for 4 dependent variables.

Lesbian intimate partner violence (IPV) is an understudied social and psychological problem in the United States. The purpose of this qualitative, comparative study was to understand any barriers of help-seeking behaviors for victims of lesbian IPV. The literature on lesbian IPV has not included the perspectives of both service provider and support person on why these barriers persist. Normative resource theory and the barriers model informed the study. Interviews were conducted with a sample of 8 providers and 5 support persons. Interviews were then transcribed and coded. The 7 themes that emerged among these 13 participants were an unawareness on how to get help, inability on the part of the victim to recognize abuse, lack of acknowledgement of abuse in the community, inadequate specialized training and policies to work with the lesbian community, no assurance of safety at the shelter, fear of disclosure of sexual orientation, and no confidence with system or service agency. All of these themes were identified as contributing factors that deterred lesbian IPV victims from seeking help. Although the findings are representative of a small sample, these findings can initiate positive social change by informing interventions which can bridge the gap between the lesbian IPV victim and the support services she needs.

以家庭暴力或親密關係暴力為主題的相關文獻相當豐富，但關於互為相對人案件的探究仍屬少數，因此，本研究以互為相對人案件的處遇模式為題，希望能更加瞭解互為相對人案件的情況，以及整理出社會工作者在提供服務的過程中會運用到哪些資源，以及透過哪些服務方式滿足互為相對人個案的需求。本研究採半結構式訪談，訪談了八位分別在被害人服務單位以及相對人方案任職的社會工作者。研究結果如下： 社會工作者在提供互為相對人案件服務時所面臨的價值議題包含： 1.互為相對人案件的樣貌差異：社會工作者必須面對互為相對人案件中的兩造，在權力彼此抗衡下所呈現出的樣貌，包含「被害人不再弱勢；相對人不再強權」以及許多「工具性的通報進案」。 2.相對人社工角色的衝突：受訪的相對人方案社工在以被害人為服務主體的家暴體制之下，在提供互為相對人案件服務時必須面對的便是與被害人體制的衝撞，以及「要以誰為案主」的價值選擇議題。 在提供互為相對人案件服務時所運用的處遇觀點則包含 1.選擇能夠接受的處遇觀點：受訪社工在提供互為相對人案件服務的過程中，最常以女性主義觀點、優勢觀點以及系統觀點等三個處遇觀點作為提供服務的依歸。 2.服務方向：整理出社會工作者在提供互為相對人案件的服務過程中包含了六個面向，包含釐清哪方為相對人、保持中立超然立場、評估的面向依對象而異、促進兩造達成共識、轉介相對人服務以及夫妻協談，每一個面向都是受訪者在提供互為相對人案件服務時所會運用到的。 最後，研究者結合上述研究結果以及受訪社會工作者的建議，在最後提出本研究的限制與建議，提供實務工作者、政策制定者以及未來研究者參考。 / Since past till today, there has a great number of family violence or intimate violence literature and analyses, but mutual violence. Consequently, this research is studying with the intervention model for couples with mutual violence, in order to much more understood the situation of mutual violence cases, and sort out how social workers use resources or service model to meet service user’s need. This research interviewed 8 social workers via semi-structured interview, who were worked in victim service organizations or batterer programs. The results are as follows: The issue about personal value will be met when social workers provide mutual violence cases services include: 1.The different pattern between mutual violence cases: social workers need to face the both side of mutual cases, and have to figure out the pattern of power contention. These conditions includes ” victim no more weakness and batterer no more powerful” and a lot of “ instrumental purpose report”. 2.The conflict of batterer social worker’s role: under the family violence system, the batterer program social workers need to fight with the victim system, and deal with the issue of “who should be the service user?” The intervention perspective including: 1.Choose an intervention perspective can be accepted: Feminist perspective, Strength perspective and System perspective are the most often used in mutual violence service process. 2.The service orientations: clarify who should be the batterer, maintain neutrality, different service user with different evaluation, promote the consensus between both side of service users, referral to batterer program services and couple counceling. These six orientations were applied in social workers provide mutual violence cases services process. At last, this research lists out the limitations of the study, and provide some suggestions which are according to all of the results and social workers’ advises to social workers, policy maker and researcher in the future.

This master's tesis reconstructs a process of the violent intimate relationship. It focuses on the autobiography and the active narrative interviews. On the basis of the reconstruction of the violent relationship it describes types of the acts of the aggressor regarding its impact on the relationship status. By generalization, it proposses a new categories of the violent acts and it compares it with the theoretical framework. By identification of each type of the violent acts it determines a phases of the violent relationship. It uses the framework of multiple phases to describe the identity shift of the victims. By this framework it relativizes some particularities of the theoretical knowledge of the domestic violence. It further describes the identity shifts of the victim using Herbert Mead', Erving Goffman' and Anthony Giddens' theories. It uses a parallel between the Goffman's concept of the total institution and the violent intimate relationships. It describes it's similarities based on the similar methods of the changing of the identity. It shows the dual character of the methods of the identity change: The active opression by the aggressor and the passive consequences of the state of being in the violent relationship characterized by the values transformation and the surrender before the...