Women’s Experiences of Their Violent Behavior in an Intimate Partner Relationship

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to describe women's perceptions of their violent behavior in a heterosexual partnership. The study followed the traditions of Husserlian descriptive phenomenology and the philosophy of existential phenomenology. Twenty-four volunteer Finnish women, aged 19 to 58 years, with a history of different manifestations of intimate partner violence (IPV) participated in open-ended interviews. The data were analyzed by the method developed by Colaizzi. The findings revealed that some of the women who opposed all violence on ethical grounds did not label their behavior as violent; some others minimized or justified their violent behavior. The findings offer professional insight into women's violent behavior and call for a readjustment in approaches to work in the area. Prevention and early identification of IPV require knowledge of the various manifestations and individual meanings of violence. Helping methods should provide women with the opportunity to talk about their abusive behavior and to confront and address their feelings of guilt, disappointment, and shame.

Health professionals’ beliefs about domestic abuse and the issue of disclosure: a critical incident technique study

“…In the United Kingdom, two women are killed every week by a current or former partner (Hester ). We acknowledge that domestic abuse can take place against men by women (Flinck & Paavilainen ), or within same‐sex relationships, but 90% of domestic abuse is committed by men against women (Department of Health ). For this reason, our research was concentrated on women survivors.…”

Perception of intimate partner violence among women seeking care in the primary healthcare network in São Paulo state, Brazil

“…The invisibility of violence to women is the result of several factors, including the trivialization and relativity of these actions, which may be viewed as natural [24]. Many women minimize the importance of their IPV experience [6,20].…”

Defense against Attack

“…The need to protect one's self or one's children is commonly cited in the literature as a motivation for female-perpetrated IPV (e.g., Flinck and Paavilainen 2010;Hamberger et al 1997;Langhinrichsen-Rohling et al 2012;Swan et al 2008). For example, in a study of male and female court-referred perpetrators, Hamberger et al (1997) found that women were more likely than men to report violence perpetration to protect themselves or to escape a situation in which their male partner was being violent.…”