Intervention in Cases of Woman Battering: An Application of Symbolic Interactionism and Critical Theory

The purposes of this paper are to acquaint readers with a number of existing approaches to the problem of woman battering and to examine clinical interventions against the background of several relevant sociological theories. Specifically, techniques for counseling female victims and male batterers are discussed from the perspectives of symbolic interactionism and critical theory. Symbolic interactionism provides an understanding of the self concepts and definitions of the situation which perpetuate abusive relationships, and suggests how they might be changed. Critical theory calls attention to the unequal power relations underlying systematically distorted communication, which can be addressed by interventions "enlightening" and "empowering" battered women. Domestic violence is one of the problems that medical, social service, and private practitioners are likely to encounter in working with individual clients and families. Following the identification in the 1970s of "wife beating" as a social problem, incidence research led to a conservative estimate that serious violence against the adult female partner occurs in at least one out of ten families (Flynn, 1977). Each year over 1.8 million women in the U.S. are severely beaten by a husband or boyfriend (Freeman, 1979). Repeated threats of violence and actual use of physical force in these relationships form a pattern known as "battering." We have come to realize that battering is not a rare and isolated occurrence, and increasing efforts are being made to provide services to victims. Though males are also subjected to physical abuse by female partners, Straus (1980) noted that more of the violence by wives is self-defensive; men are more