In this article, the authors present the main findings from a qualitative study of processes undergone by women who have left abusive male partners. Three overlapping leaving processes are described: Breaking Up, Becoming Free, and Understanding. Breaking Up covers action (i.e., the physical breakup), and the turning point by which it is preceded or with which it coincides is analyzed. Becoming...

As Evan Stark observes, getting domestic violence against women recognized as coercive control will require a major effort of storytelling. Women's accounts of subjugation have to be narrated in a way that is both true to their experiences and capable of eliciting public understanding, sympathy, and action. This essay draws on an interdisciplinary literature on narrative to show why doing that ...

Physical violence against women is pervasive; and such abuse may begin during pregnancy. This article chronicles the clinical research on battering during pregnancy and focuses on a prospective study of 691 pregnant women; the study documented that one in six women are abused during pregnancy. Ethnic differences in the patterns of abuse are discussed, as are related findings of entry into prena...

The problems of battered women have recently been highlighted. They consult doctors, who can be an important source of help. We examined their initial presenting complaint to general practitioners. Questionnaires were sent to 27 London refuges for battered women and to 100 randomly selected general practitioners. Seventy-two women and 49 doctors replied. The results indicated that these women a...

The concept of a battered woman syndrome was tested by assessing 50 battered women and 25 emotionally abused women who had recently left their relationships. For both groups, essential features of the syndrome were present and were significantly interrelated. Dynamic features of the prior abusive relationship correlated significantly with these sequelae. The concept of intermittency is proposed...