The cycle of violence in intimate partner relationships.

We discuss the phases of domestic violence and the processes of victimization.

Why does the assaulted woman not leave her aggressor? Why does she not report the attacks? Why do they often withdraw the complaint after reporting? What do the assaulted victims feel in the different stages of the aggression? How do they become victims?

We have all heard these kinds of questions among the public. We can answer them if we take a closer look at the victimization process. victimization processwhich, as the name suggests, is not a one-off, isolated situation, but something that develops over time. A relationship in which there is abuse does not usually begin to occur overnight.

It is a process that often begins in a subtle way and causes the victim to be unaware of the seriousness of the situation he or she is living.

The cycle of violence and the victimization process

In 1979, the renowned American psychologist Leonore Walker shed light on how victimization processes work through her research designed to try to understand and answer the questions posed above.

From the testimonies of battered women she realized that they are not assaulted all the time or in the same way, but rather that There are phases to the violence, which have varied duration and different manifestations.. This is what has been called the cycle of violence, one of the most widespread theories on the internal dynamics of violent relationships in the world.

This theory contemplates the existence of four phases in all dynamics of relational violence. The phases into which the cycle of violence is divided follow one after the other, which makes it difficult to break the cycle. In the same relationship the cycle can be repeated infinite times and the duration of its phases can be variable..

The 4 phases of abuse

I will now describe the different phases through which an abused person passes.

1. Calm phase

In the first phase the situation is calm. No disagreements are detected and everything is idyllic. But, when the cycle has been repeated several times, the victim may begin to have the feeling that the calm is maintained because everything is correct according to the aggressor's point of view, who is ultimately the driving force of the cycle.

2. Tension Build-up Phase

Small disagreements begin, as the aggressor feels increasingly questioned by his victim. It may be that the victim, in his attempt to keep things as the aggressor wants, makes a mistake because the increased tension affects his ability to concentrate. In this phase, in fact, psychological abuse based on the idea of control begins to be exercised. and is a warning sign of what is to come.

Many aggressors excuse themselves by saying that they were warning their victim but that she ignored them and continued to provoke them. The woman tries to calm, please, or at least not to do what might upset her partner, in the unrealistic belief that she can control the aggression.

Tensions are built up and manifest themselves in specific ways as certain behaviors of verbal or physical aggression of a mild and isolated nature, starting with small incidents: subtle put-downs, innuendoes, restrained anger, sarcasm, long silences, irrational demandsetc. The victim adopts a series of measures to manage this environment, and progressively acquires psychological self-defense mechanisms to anticipate or avoid aggression.

The aggressor's actions are aimed at one objective: destabilizing the victim. In this phase the victim tends to minimize or deny the problem ("we have our pluses and minuses, like everyone else"), justifying the aggressor's violent behavior ("as he is very passionate, he gets carried away by anger..."), and making allusions to positive aspects of his partner ("he is my only support in life").

3. Explosion Phase

The aggressor takes action. It is characterized by a strong discharge of the tensions provoked in the previous phase by the aggressor.. The most important physical, psychological and/or sexual aggressions take place.

Compared to the other phases, this is the shortest but also the most intense. The most important consequences for the victim are produced at this time, both physically and psychologically, where a series of psychological alterations continue to develop as a result of the situation experienced. a series of psychological alterations continue to develop as a result of the situation experienced..

In this phase the victim may maintain high expectations of change in her partner ("with time he will change, we must give him time..."), and feelings of guilt appear ("I deserve it", "it is my fault for having chosen him").

4. Honeymoon phase

At the beginning, it is usually the phase responsible for the victim staying in the cycle, because during this phase the aggressor initiates a series of compensatory behaviors to show the victim that he/she is sorry and that it will not happen again.. This causes the victim to also see the positive side of the aggressor and gets caught up in reflections on how to get this side to appear more frequently.

This phase is characterized by extreme kindness and "affectionate" behaviors on the part of the aggressor (attentions, gifts, promises...). The aggressor tries to influence family members and friends to convince the victim to forgive him/her.. It is often common to try to make the victim see that the aggressor needs professional help and support from her, and that she cannot leave him in such a situation, which is why some victims return to the aggressor (if they have stopped living with him) and/or withdraw the complaint they had previously filed.

However, over time, this phase usually disappears and the cycle is reduced to three phases: calm, accumulation of tension and explosion. This disappearance of the honeymoon phase is consistent with a verbalization that many victims make when they comment that "as long as he doesn't yell at me and doesn't abuse me, that's enough for me", thus ignoring the fact that a relationship is sustained by things that go beyond the absence of abuse.

As the honeymoon phase is shortening the aggressions are becoming stronger and more frequent, which diminishes the psychological resources of the partner.This diminishes the psychological resources of women to get out of the spiral of violence.

Connecting with the Theory of Learned Helplessness

Leonore Walker postulated that Seligman's Learned Helplessness Theory was one of the theories that could explain the psychological and behavioral reactions of abused women.

Following this theory, continued abuse would provoke the cognitive perception that one is unable to handle or resolve the situation one is going through, which would generalize to other situations.which would generalize to future situations. This feeling of helplessness would lead to increased depression, anxiety, and produce a debilitating effect on problem-solving skills.

Battered women would reach a point where they would recognize that their responses have no impact on their battering situation because they have implemented different alternatives to change their own or the batterer's behavior and despite them have continued to be abused.

Final reflections

Some authors have criticized the theory of learned helplessness as applied to battered women, since it can be misinterpreted and used to it can be misinterpreted and used to support stereotypical concepts of passive women or helpless victims.. Walker states that the term "helplessness" should be used with great care, as it gives an image of battered women as not being capable and responsible. For this reason, it should be emphasized that one of the pillars of working with victims is to foster their autonomy/self-care, self-esteem and self-responsibility.

Battered women are not to blame for what has happened to them, but they are responsible, after therapeutic work and after being aware of the nature of the cycle of violence, for prevent a new situation of violence from occurring in a future relationship. relationship. At that point they will be able to identify signs that indicate that a relationship is not "healthy".