Battered Love

Weems's pioneering study explores the puzzling ways in which the Hebrew prophets' portrayals of divine love, compassion, and conventional commitment often became associated with battery, infidelity, and the rape and mutilation of women. She wrestles with the prophets' rhetoric and sexual metaphors to uncover Israelite social structures, asking, "What is implied about women, men, and God by the language that the prophets use to describe the covenant between Yahweh and Israel?" This provocative work by a leading African American biblical scholar delves deeply into issues of intimacy and power, violence and control, seduction and betrayal, and is a searing indictment of the axial points of Israelite religion-its covenantal and prophetic traditions-and their authority today.

Walker's chilling follow-up to her now-classic groundbreaker, The BAttered Woman, is a dramatic study of women who murder their abusive partners in self-defense--and what happens to them afterward. "Provocative . . . the book makes its point".--New York Times Book Review.

Examines the attraction between abuser and victim which results in disorders and dangerous attractions on both sides, considering the typical personalities involved in patterns of neglect.

In this gripping, compulsively readable story of romantic love and its dreadful underside (Susan Cheever), "Crazy Love" recounts Steiner's experiences as an abused wife--and how she found the courage to leave.

Nason-Clark's sociological research reveals how churches and secular organizations have responded - sometimes with assistance, sometimes not - to victims of violence in their midst and how their response could be more effective. By exploring the relationship between violence and Christians' response to it from various perspectives - those of victim, clergy, congregation - this book ultimately encourages a pastoral assistance that reduces violence in the world and helps victims find the inner strength to leave their gardens.

With its focus on the connection between health and mental health symptoms, this seminal, groundbreaking work continues to forge new directions in the field of domestic violence. Describing a condition that is the basis for the battered woman defense--cited in cases of physically and psychologically abused women who have killed their abusers--it continues to be used as a defense to explain premeditated assault or murder. Completely updated, the fourth edition reflects the significant changes in the field since the book was last published, incorporating Affordable Care Act (ACA) guidelines on health care and domestic violence and data from the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study. It examines new research regarding battered women and cross-cultural and cross-national issues, and includes several new chapters addressing issues ranging from murder--suicide in domestic violence cases to proposed legislation and congressional resolutions. The fourth edition provides new findings worldwide that reinforce the cycle theory of violence. It reflects new research on traumatic responses, and addresses trauma-informed and trauma-specific psychotherapy, interventions with youth in juvenile detention centers, information from government task forces regarding children exposed to violence and juvenile justice, and new findings regarding the application of psychology to the legal system. Entirely new to the fourth edition is a section about reforming family court and divorce presumptions. This is crucial reading for nearly all health and mental health workers who may be called upon to ask clients about experiences of domestic violence and must respond knowledgeably and effectively. New to the Fourth Edition: Fully revised and updated Incorporates ACA guidelines on health care and domestic violence Includes data from the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study Addresses findings regarding battered women and cross-cultural and cross-national issuesNew chapter on murder--suicide in domestic violence cases New chapter on trauma treatment for victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) New chapter on human trafficking and sexual exploitation of children New chapter on false confessions of battered women

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The Battered Woman's Survival Guide is the most practical, informative resource guide available for victims of domestic violence and for all those who want to help.

Winner of the 2005 Outstanding Book Award presented by the Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender (OSCLG) This study of battered women living in a shelter offers a rhetorical analysis of survivors' personal theologies. Author Carol L. Winkelmann holds that while it is virtually ignored in the domestic violence literature, the Christian heritage of many battered women plays a significant, if complicated, role in their language, thoughts, and lives. The women's religious faith serves not only to sustain them through periods of profound suffering, but also to develop solidarity with other culturally-different women in the shelter. Designed to assist women to greater independence, the shelter actually functions as a culture of surveillance where women turn to one another and to their faith to cope with the trauma of violence. To heal, the women engage in dialogue that is dense in religious imagery, talking about the relationship of God and the church to suffering and evil. At the same time, these women also acknowledge that organized religion is very much involved in the maintenance of patriarchal marriage and its attendant abuses in their own lives. Together, battered women are sometimes able to construct creative theological responses to the problem of suffering and evil. A mix of religious and secular languages compels them to devise new ways of thinking about their role in family, church, and society.

First published in 1990, this book is based on a field study of domestic abuse victims and their social network members. In a life history perspective, using values and network analysis, it uncovers the social context of a ‘secret’ crime against women and reveals the relationship between personal crisis and traditional attitudes toward women, marriage, the family, and violence. This book breaks new ground by redirecting attention beyond victim-blaming and the medicalization of violence to understanding domestic abuse victims as survivors who manage multiple crises despite public inattention to their plight. From analysis of the women’s struggles with violence and its aftermath, this book proposes a new crisis paradigm, which underscores the sociocultural aspects of crisis originating from violence. This book will be of interest to those studying social sciences, women’s studies, social work, health and mental health professions.