DOMESTIC VIOLENCE is the intentional intimidation, physical violence, sexual abuse and emotional abuse used systematically by one person in a relationship to control the other. Domestic violence can occur in dating relationships, within married households and between family, and can be found in all types of relationships and across all socioeconomic, racial and ethnic barriers.  It is a term commonly used to descrie the pattern of behaviors used by a batterer to control and dominate which include verbal abuse, financial abuse, isolation from friends and family, physical abuse and sexual abuse and coertion, among others. Domestic violence has terrible consequences for victims ranging from physical injury, psychological trauma, and even death.

 

KEY POINTS:

• Domestic violence is not limited to heterosexual couples.

• Physical violence is only one componenet of domestic violence relationships.

• Abusive partners may use more coercive and less physical forms of intimidation to dominate and control their partners.

• No form of abuse is more devestating to victims than another, it is all abuse and has the same affect on the victims.

• Domestic violence is cyclical and can present itself generation after generation in families.

• Domestic Violence events are followed by a "honeymoon phase" where the abuser becomes loving, devoted, and makes promises to change. This phase is temporary and followed by increasing tension in the relationship until it explodes into another violent episode.

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