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Warning Signs of Domestic Violence

Most relationships have difficult times, and almost every couple argues now and then. But violence is different from common marital or relationship problems. Domestic violence is a pattern of abuse that a partner-former or current partner, spouse, or boyfriend or girlfriend-uses to control the behavior of another.
Domestic violence often starts with threats, name-calling, and slamming doors or breaking dishes, and it builds up to pushing, slapping, and other violent acts. See more types of abuse. If you are concerned about your relationship, ask yourself the following questions.
Does your partner:

  • Embarrass you with put-downs?
  • Look at you or act in ways that scare you?
  • Control what you do, who you see or talk to, or where you go?
  • Stop you from seeing your friends or family members?
  • Take your money or paycheck, make you ask for money, or refuse to give you money?
  • Make all of the decisions?
  • Tell you that you're a bad parent or threaten to take away or hurt your children?
  • Threaten to commit suicide?
  • Prevent you from working or going to school?
  • Act like the abuse is no big deal or is your fault, or even deny doing it?
  • Destroy your property or threaten to kill your pets?
  • Intimidate you with guns, knives, or other weapons?
  • Shove you, slap you, choke you, or hit you?
  • Threaten to kill you?

If any of these things are happening, you need to seek help. It's important to know that you are not alone. The way your partner acts is not your fault. Help is available.
Signs that someone you know is being abused
Do you have a friend, coworker, relative, or neighbor who you think may be in an abusive relationship?
Signs to watch for:

  • Bruises or injuries that look like they came from choking, punching, or being thrown down. Black eyes, red or purple marks at the neck, and sprained wrists are common injuries in violent relationships. An injury such as bruised arms might suggest that a victim tried to defend herself or himself.
  • Attempting to hide bruises with makeup or clothing
  • Making excuses like tripping or being accident-prone or clumsy. Often the seriousness of the injury does not match up with the explanation.
  • Having few close friends and being isolated from relatives and coworkers and kept from making friends
  • Having to ask permission to meet, talk with, or do things with other people
  • Having little money available; may not have credit cards or even a car

Other warning signs:

  • Having low self-esteem; being extremely apologetic and meek
  • Referring to the partner's temper but not disclosing the extent of the abuse
  • Having a drug or alcohol abuse problem
  • Having symptoms of depression, such as sadness or hopelessness, or loss of interest in daily activities
Talking about suicide or attempting suicide. For more information, see warning signs of suicide. Encourage this person to talk with a health professional.

Choice and Empowerment for Battered Women Who Stay: Toward a Constructivist Model. By: Peled, Einat; Eisikovits, Zvi; Enosh, Guy; Winstok, Zeev. Social Work, Jan2000, Vol. 45 Issue 1, p9-25, 17p, 1 chart, 1 diagram; (AN 2667901)

During the past two decades, campaigns aimed at enhancing public awareness about the social problem of violence against women have brought mixed results. Although there is no doubt that public and professional awareness of the problem has increased, violence against women is far from being eradicated. In the process of giving social recognition and visibility to the phenomenon as a social problem, dramatization, simplification, and homogenization are inevitable (Loseke, 1992). Thus, the tactics that proved useful in promoting the problem of woman battering also have created new myths and injustices. One such myth is the stigmatization of battered women who stay in relationships with their abusers as a deviant group: "battered women who stay" (Loseke & Cahill, 1984).
Some battered women are reported to marry their abuser, despite knowing that they are violent before the marriage (Roscoe & Benaske, 1985). Other women stay in a relationship with their abusers for many years (Holtzworth-Munroe, Smutzler, & Sandin, 1997; Okun, 1986; Schwartz, 1988). Still others are found to leave and then return to their abuser. For example, several studies have found that 50 percent to 60 percent of battered women were living with their abusers after discharge from a shelter (Giles-Sims, 1983; Okun, 1988; Snyder & Scheer, 1981; Strube, 1988). These women often are characterized as incompetent, weak, and lacking coping skills, which further engulf them in the victim role and contribute to their powerlessness. Social workers, one of the main service providers to battered women (Edleson, 1991; Hamilton & Coates, 1993), share with other advocates and counselors the responsibility for the stigmatization of battered women who stay and for ways to empower this client population.
Empowerment is a key concept in modern social work (Elliott, 1997). However it remains too often prescriptive and ideological rather than descriptive and practical (Payne, 1991), partially because of problems in operationalizing "empowering practice." Underlying this article is an operational definition of empowerment as a process of enabling people to master their environments and achieve self-determination (Simmons & Parsons, 1983). Such practice facilitates the acquisition of skills, knowledge, and emotional as well as material resources by which personally meaningful social roles are fulfilled (Solomon, 1976). The definition implies the existence of an empowering agent and an empowered actor involved in a growth process within a social power structure. Empowerment as we understand it consists of "needs" and "rights" dimensions. A person is empowered to the extent to which her or his needs are translated into rights. Implementation of this translation is a function of the extent of responsibility taken by both empowering agents and potentially empowered people. Thus, facilitating the empowerment of battered women who choose to stay with an abusive partner presents social workers with formidable, practical, ethical, and philosophical challenges (Payne, 1991).
Both needs and rights are psychologically and socially constructed. Schwandt (1994,1997), in defining constructivism, emphasized that people's construction of reality is both individual and collective. Individual construction is done by cognitive structures that actively shape reality; collective ones relate to joint, intersubjective social meaning creation through the use of socially agreed on language and communication patterns. The phrase "battered women who stay" has individual and social meanings. These meanings can be empowering or disempowering. Thus, it can be said that the act of staying with a violent partner can be constructed individually and collectively as an act of coercion and entrapment. Conversely, it can be constructed as an act of choice reflecting varying degrees of freedom.
A constructivist view is not a mind game used to play with reality, but rather a paradigm shift implying structural and content variation in the way reality is perceived and subsequent action. For instance, a batterer may construct his partner's act of staying as stemming from entrapment (for example, she has no place to go) or as a choice (for example, she has decided to confront the violence from within while reserving her option to leave). The first construction is disempowering, as the woman's need (to stay) is perceived as denying her rights (to live in a violence-free context). The second is empowering as her need to stay is balanced against her rights. Thus, an understanding of battered women's empowerment processes requires an examination of the various levels of individual and social construction processes (for example, reality perception, meaning creation, and operational implications) of staying with violent partners, in a variety of ecological and situational contexts (for example, social, institutional, interpersonal, and individual).
This article examines the individual and social construction of empowerment for battered women who choose to stay with their abusers through a critical examination of the images of battered women who stay, as constructed in the professional literature on various ecological levels, and a proposal of a constructivist model for empowering battered women who choose to stay.

Battered Women's Staying as Entrapment


Theory, research, and practice-based knowledge on battered women's prolonged relationships with their abusers provide us with various intrapsychic, interpersonal, and social-structural explanations for the so-called problem of battered women who stay. Common to most of these explanations is the assumption that battered women are trapped in the relationship against their best judgment or against their will. Three main explanatory themes can be identified in the literature.
First, some battered women are trapped in a relationship with a perpetrator who threatens to escalate the violence if the woman attempts to leave. Research shows that separation from the abuser does not terminate the violence. Often, leaving may be more dangerous than staying for both the woman and her children, and it may expose them to severe injury and even murder (Berk, Newton, & Berk, 1986; Harlow, 1991; Pagelow, 1984; Saunders & Browne, 1990; Stark et al., 1981).
Second, much of the literature in this domain suggests that women's psychological makeup, relationship skills, and personal and situational factors all contribute to their entrapment in a destructive and dysfunctional relationship. Depression, low self-esteem, fear, loneliness, guilt, and shame, combined with violence, isolation, exhaustion, unpredictability, and some positive attributes of the batterer, set the stage for the creation and maintenance of syndromes such as "traumatic attachment" (Barnett & LaViolette, 1993; Folingstead, Neckerman, & Vormbrock, 1988; Graham, Rawlings, & Rimini, 1988; Kirkwood, 1993; Painter & Dutton, 1985; Symonds, 1979; Walker, 1993). A woman who is traumatically attached to her abuser may feel that she loves him, depends on him for her survival, and even identifies with him, in which case it is likely that she will maintain the relationship.
A third group of explanations accounts for the entrapment of battered women in terms of social values, policies, opportunity structures, and service provision. These explanations emphasize patriarchal notions regarding gender roles on the one hand (Bograd, 1984; Dobash & Dobash, 1979; Yllo, 1993) and nonsupportive formal and informal social networks, economic dependency on the male partner, and lack of alternative housing on the other (Kalmuss & Straus, 1982; Okun, 1988; Strube, 1988; Sullivan, 1991; Wilson, Baglioni, & Downing, 1989). Those factors are seen as significant, and sometimes insurmountable, "environmental" obstacles facing women who try to end a violent relationship.
Although there are no doubt battered women stay with their abusers because of internal (often pathological) or external (situational and sociocultural) constraints, these explanations have so far received only limited empirical support (Herbert, Silver, & Ellard, 1991; Okun, 1986; Schwartz, 1988). A different set of explanations conceptualizes battered women's staying as a choice.

Battered Women's Staying As a Choice


The image of women who stay with their battering partners because they are socially and psychologically victimized to the point of helplessness is by no means universal in the literature. Some writers portray staying as the result of a rational decision-making process based on weighing the perceived costs and benefits in the context of a multidimensional relationship (Pfouts, 1979; Schechter, 1982). Such intimate relationships are understood as "set within contradictory interactional contexts, that is, abused women hold opposite beliefs in their partners as their sole sources of love and affection and, simultaneously, as the most dangerous persons in their lives" (Lampert, 1996, p. 270). These explanations acknowledge not only the constraints preventing battered women from leaving but also the positive feelings and perceptions that they may hold regarding their partners and the relationship. Positive aspects of the conjugal relationship mentioned by women include love for the man, hope that he will change, and the desire to maintain children's relationship with their father (Dobash & Dobash, 1979; Giles-Sims, 1983; Saunders & Size, 1986; Stacey & Shupe, 1983; Strube & Barbour, 1983).
Also common to much of this literature is the controversial assumption that some battered women have a certain degree of freedom of choice within the constraints of their life situation. Such an assumption may stem from insensitivity and ignorance regarding battered women's experiences of brutalization, trauma, and danger. However, it also may be an integral part of an empowerment-based feminist perspective advocating support of women's strengths, autonomy, and control over their lives in the context of multiple constraints and despite them (Burstow, 1992; Lampert, 1996; Schechter, 1982). Although most of the authors promoting this perspective do not elaborate on the meaning of choice under such circumstances, Burstow (1992) suggested that "it would be foolish to pretend that women subjected to severe partner abuse have either free or ideal options" (p. 159). Hence, while respecting battered women's choices, Burstow also assumed that the women would need professional help in assessing and reassessing their situations.

Empowerment-Based Approaches to Intervention with Battered Women


Whether women are seen as trapped in a violent relationship against their will or as choosing to stay in it, it is commonly assumed that freedom from violence entails leaving the abuser. This assumption is reflected both in research designs aiming to better understand why women return to the abuser after a stay in a shelter (Compton, Michael, Krasavage-Hopkins, Schneiderman, & Bickman, 1989; Okun, 1988; Schutte, Malouff, & Doyle, 1987; Snyder & Scheer, 1981; Sullivan, 1991; Worth & Tiggemann, 1996) and in reports describing service providers' goals and standards for success and failure in intervention with battered women (for example, Davis, 1984, 1988; Gondolf, 1988; Hart, 1991; McKeel & Sporakowski, 1993; Schillinger, 1988; Schwartz, 1988; Whiple, 1987).
In line with the above assumption, an increasing number of social services and intervention strategies have been developed during the past two decades to support battered women and their children before, during, and after separation from the perpetrator. Some of these interventions, such as shelters, legal measures, and advocacy programs, provide battered women and their children with immediate and long-term protection and material support (for example, Gamache, Edleson, & Schock, 1988; Hart, 1991; Pence, 1983; Soler, 1987; Sullivan, 1991). Other counseling programs focus on healing victims and survivors from the damaging effects of abuse (Dutton, 1992; Goodman & Fallon, 1995; Kirkwood, 1993).
Recent literature on social work intervention in general and with intimate violence in particular often uses the rhetoric and ideology of empowerment as an important guiding principle. However, in the context of battered women who stay, the concept seldom is carried beyond the ideological and prescriptive levels. Attempts to operationalize the means by which those women can become empowered are scarce. The rhetoric alone may lead to disempowering results by enhancing the gap between expectations (for example, needs) and means (for example, rights) to fulfill them. Two approaches to empowerment appear in the social work literature: (1) the clinical-individual and (2) the political-social. The first approach focuses on needs and problems of individual clients who "are unable to cope effectively with stressful situations and to avail themselves of essential environmental resources because of sense of powerlessness or helplessness" (Hepworth & Larsen, 1993, p. 495). The second centers on the oppression of groups and communities and emphasizes social change in addition to individual intervention (Payne, 1991; Solomon, 1976; Van Den Bergh & Cooper, 1986). In both approaches the concept of empowerment is often presented in "either/or" terms (Goldner, 1992)--that is, the person is either empowered or not empowered. In examining empowerment by its absence rather than by its presence, the person understands it through the experience of being powerless, helpless, alienated, and without a sense of control and choice (Hepworth & Larsen, 1993; Ryan-Finn & Albee, 1994; Van Den Bergh & Cooper, 1986; Walker, 1991). In accordance, the main goal of an empowering social work practice in general, and with battered women in particular, is to allow clients control over their own lives and the ability to make decisions for themselves--that is, to provide them the conditions to balance rights and needs and thus make choices (Dutton, 1992; Schechter, 1982; Stark & Flitcraft, 1988; Van Den Bergh & Cooper, 1986).
The emphasis of empowering practice on clients' choice making poses a challenging dilemma when counseling battered women who request help but express their wish to remain with the abusive partner. This dilemma may be easier to solve, at least from an ethical standpoint, when severe abuse is involved and the woman's safety takes precedence over all other considerations. However, issues of accountability toward battered women, in addition to attempts to predict and prevent danger to them, need to be re-examined in light of data suggesting that many battered women are living with violence that is not life threatening but nonetheless produces intense suffering and points to the acute need for intervention (Johnson, 1995). It is likely that empowerment of women experiencing "regular violence" requires a frame of reference and a set of competencies different from those needed by women at risk of severe violence and abuse. In such cases, staying can be viewed as a choice made by women who are consciously negotiating their reality and actively creating meaning within the constraints of their situational freedom (Eisikovits & Buchbinder, 1996; Sartre, 1948).
Thus, a picture of apparent tension emerges between battered women who choose to stay and service providers who, as demonstrated earlier, often practice intervention aimed at facilitating the termination of the abusive relationship. This troubling gap between battered women's choices and the solutions commonly offered to them by social workers and other practitioners has been addressed only sporadically in the literature (Baker, 1997; Mills, 1996; Schechter, 1982; Schillinger, 1988). Baker examined strategies used by battered women to resist the "cultural script" directing them to get away and stay away from their abusers. Based on in-depth interviews and participant observation data, Baker reported that the battered women studied tried initially to follow the dominant cultural script but found it overly narrow. She suggested that because of the lack of coordinated institutional support for their decisions, these women have developed a "culture of resistance," asserting control and making choices relevant to their needs and interests, including that of staying with the abuser. In addition to raising questions as to the meaning of empowerment and choice, Baker's study suggested that the apparent conflict between women's and social workers' beliefs about desired goals of intervention may lead to clients resisting and eventually dropping out of treatment.
Some battered women wish to maintain the relationships' positive attributes while finding a way to stop or lessen the abuse. Facilitating women's freedom of choice as a mechanism for empowerment implies accepting and respecting their choice to stay with their abuser as a viable alternative. Ending violence from within the relationship is a perfectly reasonable wish, but is it a realistic one? And do we know how to help battered women accomplish this goal? How and under what circumstances can we empower battered women who wish to stay with their abusers while providing them with measures of safety to which they and their children are entitled?
Thus far, little professional energy has been devoted to the study of relationships that have remained intact through violence and have successfully brought about its cessation, nor has attention been given to the ways in which women have managed to free themselves of the abuse without terminating the relationship (but see Bowker, 1983; Woffordt, Mihalic, & Menard, 1994). Furthermore, only a few existing intervention models have been designed to support women who wish to end the violence while staying with their abusive partner (but see Burstow, 1992). There is also little discussion of the philosophical, psychological, and ethical meaning of "choice" in the context of abuse that battered women experience. Helping battered women experience empowerment while staying in an intimate relationship with the abuser requires a different conceptual framework that will take all these meanings into account.
Such a framework is based on the assumption that battered women cannot be empowered according to our perception of what is right for them (see Stark & Flitcraft, 1988). Rather, social workers should attempt to understand women's subjective perceptions and choices without regard for the values and stereotypes of others; these values may be benign, but are of little practical use and often in contradiction to women's sense of autonomy and self-determination. As Mills (1996) has suggested:
Interventions for battered women, both legal and otherwise, should... respect the possibility or likelihood of this relational structure [and] provide the time and fluidity for self-guided resolution. Such a system should recognize that a true empowerment for battered women is achieved not through obedience to the expectations of legal or social work advocates or models but through acknowledgment of the woman's need to reconsider and reevaluate the meaning of the trauma in a flexible time frame and a supportive environment. (pp. 265-266)

Constructivist Model for Empowering Battered Women Who Stay


The model suggested here conceptualizes empowerment of battered women who stay. It consists of an ecological dimension, which includes the sociocultural domain, institutions and organizations, and significant others surrounding battered women (that is, the interpersonal level), and the women themselves (that is, the individual level) (Bronfenbrenner, 1977, 1986; Edleson & Tolman, 1992; Eisikovits & Edleson, 1989; Garbarino, 1992). Specific suggestions are made to promote and operationalize empowerment on each level. The second dimension deals with plans of reality construction and provides three interrelated components through which reality is shaped within each ecological level. The first component, reality perception, consists of acknowledging the existence of a phenomenon ontologically and attempting to locate it within one's existing mental categories. It leads to questions such as "Does it happen?" and "What is happening?" The second component relates to the meaning ascribed to an act; that is, how one evaluates, explains, and controls an occurrence and, in so doing, makes it meaningful on the personal, organizational, or cultural levels. The assignment of meaning is based on earlier experiential knowledge, as well as on pre-existing values and attitudinal structures. The third component includes the behaviors and actions undertaken as a consequence of the reconstruction process. These three processes should be viewed as coexistent and interactive, rather than as separate steps in the construction process (Table 1).
The presented model is heuristic rather than exhaustive and is provided with the hope of facilitating further study and dialogue concerning the ways in which social workers, in their capacities as practitioners, advocates, and researchers, can contribute to the empowerment of battered women.

The Sociocultural System


The sociocultural system is located within the ideological and institutional patterns of a culture. It serves as a set of broad cultural "blueprints" guiding perceptions, interpretations, and actions concerning social phenomena. As noted, an unanticipated result of the social campaign against woman battering has been the creation of the dominant cultural image of a helpless, victimized battered woman whose only hope of terminating violence is to leave the abuser. Over the years major gaps between empirical evidence and public perception concerning the issue of staying and leaving became evident, but the cultural script remained intact: "Battered women should leave, but most do not."
We suggest that an empowerment-based perspective should present staying as a legitimate choice, which does not preclude fighting intimate violence from within the relationship. This modified social-cultural meaning ascribed to staying should be instrumental in redefining these women as "legitimate" and focusing on the particular circumstances and cultural scripts in which their choices are made. Instead of turning to ready-made "shelved solutions" stemming from the currently common perceptions and meaning systems, flexible and culturally sensitive attitudes are needed to accommodate and legitimate a variety of choices made by battered women. For instance, there are cultures and religions in which divorce, or even temporary separation, is not recognized as a plausible option for women who wish to overcome intimate violence (Haj-Yahia, 1996). The choices made by women in these cultures should be examined within their situational constraints rather than within a prescriptive scenario held by members of the dominant culture.
An important question on the level of meaning creation relates to the source of the sociocultural expectation that battered women should leave the relationship. Such expectations often stem from a legitimate concern about protecting women and their children and skepticism about the feasibility of ending the violence without separation from the abuser, but may also be seen as the result of an attempt to dramatize various aspects of the problem. The dramatization of woman battering through the emphasis on incidents of women experiencing severe abuse has overshadowed the lives of women less severely abused (Loseke, 1992). This image has been supported further by the tendency to recruit participants for domestic violence research from shelters and through the criminal justice system, where severely abused women are overrepresented. Also, well-meaning public opinion shapers, such as women's advocates and researchers have made continuous efforts to persuade the general public, and especially professionals, that battered women are victims of tragic social, relational, and situational circumstances. However, because the notion of victimization resonates with traditional gender stereotypes, it may have further fostered the image of the passive battered women, along with the belief that overcoming such passivity necessarily involves leaving the abuser. Implied in such attitudes is the assumption that the woman has no choice other than to leave; staying, then, becomes the supporting evidence of the woman's inability to decide for herself and calls for the intervention of social agents on her behalf. These assumptions seem to have interfered with the development of public knowledge about battered women's power, competence, and choice making (Mahoney, 1994).
The operational implication of changing the dominant sociocultural perceptions and meaning systems would be to alter social expectations concerning women's choices when faced with intimate violence and to provide societal support for their choices: to leave or to stay and resist the violence. Such support needs to be limited by the real dangers grounded in women's specific existential situations, rather than assumed on the basis of cultural beliefs and attitudes. To make such an adjustment, social work needs to enhance its ability to make more accurate clinical predictions of lethality on the one hand and better understand the contextual and situational nature of women's heterogeneous and idiosyncratic choices on the other hand.

The Institutional-Organizational System


The institutional-organizational system includes policies, procedures, programs, agencies, and professional groups designed or designated to study, control, and intervene with woman battering. They do not necessarily involve the personal participation of battered women but, directly or indirectly, affect their lives in a variety of ways. The institutions and organizations on this ecological level have the social mandate to operationalize and influence the cultural attitudes discussed earlier. Social work organizations increasingly are involved in influencing the reality of battered women. They may reflect existing societal perceptions or shape them through a variety of enabling, advocating, and direct intervention functions that help identify battered women's needs and actualize their rights. For instance, research suggests that social agencies may have a significant effect on battered women's decisions to leave or stay (Aguirre, 1985; Hamilton & Coates, 1993; Vinton, 1992). Most of these organizations perceive the cessation of violence as a critical measure of their effectiveness and view separation between perpetrator and victim as a significant means to achieving this goal. The modus operandi of social agencies dealing with woman battering is guided more often by meaning systems stemming from professional and political values and ideologies than by those of their clients. Meaning systems held by clients that are inconsistent with organizational needs often are ignored, misinterpreted, or acknowledged only minimally, and this response may severely interfere with empowerment processes (Payne, 1991).
Our model suggests that social services organizations need to reassess whether and how their rules, ideologies, and operations, as well as their hidden agendas, foster or inhibit battered women's own desired intervention outcomes and criteria for success. For instance, staying may at times be more risky than leaving. However, workers tend to overpredict the danger in staying (that is, false positive) on the basis of a lack of understanding about the specific life circumstances of battered women, misconceptions concerning the likelihood of violence, or a need to protect themselves from legal liability. Thus, they often assume that staying is more risky than leaving. When the latter is assumed, a client's choice to stay in the relationship often is interpreted as proof of disorganization and powerlessness, rather than as a sign of her competence and coping.
Another example of practitioner's meaning making, which may be disempowering, is related to the fact that many battered women leave and return to their abusers several times throughout the relationship. This is commonly interpreted as a positive sign indicating women's movement toward a permanent separation. However, multiple attempts to leave also can be perceived as women's attempts to reshape the relationship and decrease violence while conveying to the abuser that separation is an option (Dobash & Dobash, 1979; Giles-Sims, 1983; Okun, 1988). Some social advocacy agencies are known to encourage at least temporary separation between the victim and the perpetrator as part of their intervention routine. Although the evidence supporting the notion that separation can be equated with freedom from violence is, at best, ambiguous (Pagelow, 1992; Saltzman & Mercy, 1993), many battered women who choose to stay often need to struggle not only with their partners, but also with the social agencies attempting to help them. It is conceivable that some women leave as a result of institutional expectations and pressure and return because they choose to stay and deal with the violence from within.
The meanings given by professionals to women's assessments and perceptions of their situation, as well as their desires and behaviors, are likely to change once the option of staying and trying to stop the violence from within the relationship is legitimized. The operationalization of such change in meaning implies that social workers have to routinize organizationally the parameter of women's choice as one dimension in the assessment process. Accordingly, the skills of social workers intervening to empower battered women who live with their abuser will include teaching women to assess and act on the degree of lethality in their situation, thus enhancing women's ability to protect themselves and their children.
The homogenization of intimate violence, which may have been functional in transforming it into a social problem, is of little help in clinical intervention. For instance, it has been suggested (Eisikovits, Goldblatt, & Winstok, in press) that the severity of potential violence can be assessed along several dimensions: intentions before the event (for example, intention to be violent to no intention to be violent), control of the event itself (for example, loss of control to total control over self in violent situations), and potential consequences (for example, severity of physical or emotional outcomes of violence). Social workers may wish to assess the degree of danger to which victim-survivors are exposed and relate it to women's choices based on their position along these continua.
Although the knowledge on interventions directed at overcoming violence in intact couples is limited, one approach, which needs to be re-examined in this context, is couple therapy. The use of this approach with battered women has its potential pitfalls in terms of division of responsibility for the violence and its etiology. However, if carefully implemented, it can become a viable option for several reasons. First, research showing that partners tend to hold similar and complementary beliefs concerning the causes and responsibility for the violence (Douglas, 1991; Goldblatt, 1989; Sela-Amit, 1992) suggested that attempts to stop the violence may be more effective if both partners are included. Second, the use of couple therapy does not preclude the need to emphasize personal responsibility for the violence and its cessation on the part of the perpetrator. At the same time the woman can be held responsible for protecting herself and enhancing her competence toward this end. The couple therapy situation can be used for helping women focus on their own rather than their partner's needs and experiment with empowerment-based self-evaluation and relationship skills (Register, 1993). Third, there are many couples who believe that violence is neither the only nor the most salient feature of their relationship, and they tend to either over- or undercontextualize violence. Couple therapy can play a role in dealing with this issue (Harway & Hansen, 1993; Shamai, 1996). A corollary reason for using couple therapy is that it may be an effective tool for reaching out to clients who seek help for other family problems and otherwise might not be reached.

The Interpersonal System


The interpersonal ecological system relates to contexts and interactions in which women participate directly. Both researchers and practitioners have addressed this system, mostly within the context of the nuclear and extended family. It includes perpetrators, children exposed to violence, and various significant others from within or without the family. Although many studies have examined the characteristics of discordant and violent relationships (for recent reviews, see Holtzworth-Munroe, Bates, Smutzler, & Sandin, 1997; Holtzworth-Munroe, Smutzler, & Sandin, 1997; Holtzworth-Munroe, Smutzler, & Bates, 1997), little is known about the ways in which partners and children perceive women's decisions to remain with their abuser.
The available knowledge about batterers suggests that they tend to blame the victim for the violence and expect her to initiate reconciliation and take primary responsibility for the family's integrity (for example, Eisikovits & Buchbinder, 1997). In addition to the use of violence and threats of violence, batterers tend to persuade their abused partners to remain in or return to the relationship by using a variety of tactics such as gifts, promises to change, apologies for the violence, reminders about motherly and spousal duties, and even willingness to seek counseling (Gondolf, 1988; Schutte, Malouff, & Doyle, 1987). Overall, it seems that battering men perceive the violence as a family problem rather than an individual one, if they are willing to recognize that there is a problem at all. They also believe that the woman should remain with them despite the violence and are willing to go a long way to achieve this end. However, once this end is achieved, men tend to perceive their partners as locked in the relationship, not necessarily as powerless victims but as acting on a commitment that goes beyond the violence itself.
In an alternative empowerment model, battering men come to perceive women's staying as a choice, reflecting their wish to stop violence from within the relationship. Such a perception is critical insofar as subsequent meanings of the violence are likely to change accordingly. For instance, a man's perception of his abused partner as trapped in the relationship is likely to be accompanied by an understanding that the violence does not threaten the existence of the relationship. However, the introduction of the element of choice into the man's perception of the woman's behavior may bring him to understand that if violence continues she may decide to leave him, just as she decided to stay. The operational implication of such a change in understanding would be a shift in his perception of the partner from a weak and easy prey to a strong and competent survivor whose decisions are to be respected.
An additional important element in the microsystem are the children exposed to woman battering. Whereas the effect of battered women's concerns for their children on their decision to stay or to leave has been documented (Giles-Sims, 1983; Henderson, 1990; Hilton, 1992; Humphreys, 1995), little information exists on children's perceptions of their mothers' decision to remain with or leave the abuser. The few available studies on the experiences of children of battered women suggest that, on the one hand, they commonly express fears and worries about potential and actual danger to their mothers and, on the other hand, often are trapped in conflicts of attachments and loyalties between their parents (Blanchard, Molloy, & Brown, 1992; Eisikovits, Winstok, & Enosh, 1998; Ericksen & Henderson, 1992; Graham-Bermann, 1996; Humphreys, 1991; Peled, 1998). This complex emotional experience is likely to create in children feelings of confusion, ambivalence, anxiety, and anger regarding either of their mothers' options to leave or to stay with the abuser (Peled, 1998). If she chooses to stay, the children may regard her as a weak victim and blame her for the continuation of her abuse and their distress; if she chooses to leave, they may blame her for "breaking the family," separating them from their father, and disrupting their normal routine.
Although children cannot participate directly in empowering their mothers, they may be helped by their mothers to process the complexity of their feelings and perceptions about their family situation in general and their mothers' responses in particular. This interaction can serve to alleviate some of the children's distress and to provide support for their relationships with their mothers (for a review of intervention models with children of battered women, see Peled, 1997). Such interactions with children also can have an empowering effect on their mothers, who may subsequently come to perceive themselves as more competent and successful parents.
Additional significant others, such as relatives, friends, coworkers, and neighbors, perceive, interpret, and react to the battered woman's choice to stay with the abuser. This is another important microsystemic component in the life situation of women who stay, which may play a meaningful role in their empowerment. Some anecdotal information and clinical descriptions suggest that members of the extended family perceive family integrity as a higher priority than women's empowerment or safety. Related evidence from British studies points to the fact that battered women used informal support and friendship networks three times more than formal social control and intervention agencies (McGibbon, Cooper, & Kelly, 1989). Similarly, Mooney (1994) found that women share the existence of violence with relatives and friends far more often than with formal medical or law enforcement agencies.
Further research is needed to address questions such as whether women's choice to stay is regarded as "normal" or as "deviant" by significant others, or whether women's wish to stay and their hope to succeed in lessening the violence without leaving are supported by significant others. Once we learn what various significant others think about battered women's choices and decisions and what the inhibiting or facilitating influences are from the battered woman's perspective, we may be able to help women's significant others support their choices. Intervention addressing the empowering effects of informal support networks on battered women is rare in Western countries. However, some suggestions in this direction can be found in Kelly's (1996) work based on radical community intervention theory. Her work demonstrates the potential benefits of incorporating family, friends, and informal support systems in intervention designed to support and empower battered women who choose to stay in relationships.

The Individual System


This fourth and final system in our constructivist ecological model is focused on women's perceptions, meanings, and actions regarding their choices to remain with or leave their violent partner. Existing knowledge on the intrapersonal dynamics involved in women's decision to stay was presented in the first part of this article. Here the focus is on possible changes in each of the three dimensions of reality construction that may support individual empowerment for these women.
On the perceptive level, women's empowerment entails a shift from self-blame and self-perception as victim to self-acceptance. It also requires women's realistic assessment of responsibility for the violence, as well as a realistic evaluation of personal resources available for fighting. Women's ability to choose to stay (or to leave) would be further enhanced by being morally, emotionally, and practically supported in their decision, rather than being left alone and isolated. In addition, women who choose to stay will have to overcome a sense of social stigma by believing that their decision is a legitimate and socially sanctioned possibility.
The meanings associated with such changed perceptions emerge as part of a continuous decision-making process. Accordingly, a woman has to weigh the risks and benefits associated with her decision, including the extent of danger to which she and her children may be exposed and the availability of resources for handling the violence from within or outside the relationship. The woman needs to assess further the amount and type of control that she can exert over her situation and surroundings and the areas in which she may need outside intervention and support. Most important, women's changed meaning systems have to incorporate a notion of the reversibility of their decisions; that is, staying does not preclude leaving in the future, just as leaving does not preclude a possible return to the relationship. Having a sense of the availability of multiple options is empowering in and of itself and fosters the experience of choice.

Conclusion


We have argued in this article that when the decision to stay is delegitimized, battered women's freedom to choose is denied, and they become disempowered. The suggested alternative model for reality construction is intended to expand women's freedom of choice by turning staying into a legitimate option. We are aware that our arguments may be perceived as advocating for moving battered women from one deterministic situation--having to leave-to another--having to stay. This is not our intention. We regard both leaving and staying as extreme situations on a continuum of options in terms of physical and emotional interpersonal distances. These options reflect a "tendency toward" leaving or staying, rather than a static position. A time dimension further broadens the options by making any choice made by women time bound. For instance, a woman may choose to leave and increase the physical distance from her partner, even though she still loves him and feels emotionally attached to him; by so doing, she leaves her emotional distance from him untouched. Over time she may decide to return and bridge the gap created between the emotional and physical distances.
We can thus suggest four dimensions along which the tendency to leave or stay is constructed. One is the physical distance dimension, ranging from togetherness to separateness; the second is the emotional distance dimension, ranging from emotions of intimacy to estrangement; and the other two are time dimensions, related to emotional and physical distance that make any decision temporary. It should be emphasized that physical distance does not change simultaneously with emotional distance. This is not to say that they are unrelated but that the relationship is not linear. Four temporary situations can be identified from combining the dimensions in the suggested model: (1) physical togetherness and emotional intimacy; (2) physical separateness and emotional intimacy; (3) physical togetherness and emotional estrangement; and (4) physical separateness and emotional estrangement (Figure 1).
With multiple options from which to choose, the range of actions women take, as well as the societal reactions deemed appropriate, will be broadened. This, in turn, is likely to enhance women's sense of choice and empowerment. Too often practitioners, advocates, and researchers are campaigning against a paternalistic approach to battered women by using the very same means against which they rebel. On the one hand practitioners traditionally campaign against the oppression arising from the use of power and control in working with battered women; on the other hand they too often impose their own ways of constructing reality on the women.
The model suggested here attempted to present a road map for changes in reality construction within distinct ecological levels. However, the actual change can be understood only in terms of interactions between the ecological levels, rather than within any level in isolation. For instance, on the interpersonal level, a social worker and a client may agree that both leaving and staying are legitimate. At the same time, the organization employing the social worker may hold a policy that leaving is more legitimate than staying. Such a situation poses ethical and practical problems for the social worker who finds himself or herself in conflict and as a result, may enhance rather than diminish the pressures placed on the client.
Further research is needed to examine the interactive effects between the various ecological levels in the process of constructing the reality of battered women who stay. Many practical and ethical issues arising from such interactions need to be scrutinized. For instance should we start the alteration of reality construction from the social, the organizational, or the individual level? How can we give high priority to women's safety needs while respecting their right to choose? Who will protect social workers that are expected to protect women's safety from physical danger and legal liability directed at them? Such questions are illustrative rather than comprehensive. They demonstrate both the heuristic powers of the suggested model and the need to continuously elaborate it.

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