Women Beaten & Battered- Recent Empirical Research Findings

Abstract

Battered woman syndrome, which is also sometimes called battered wife syndrome, is measured a subcategory of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). With battered woman syndrome, a woman may progress a cultured helplessness that causes her to trust she deserves the abuse and that she can't get away from it. Battered woman syndrome (BWS) is a mental complaint that grows in victims of internal violence as a outcome of serious, enduring abuse. BWS is dangerous primarily because it can lead to what some scholars say is "learned helplessness" – or psychological paralysis – where the victim becomes so depressed, defeated, and passive that she believes she is incapable of leaving the abusive situation. Though it may seem like an irrational fear, it feels absolutely real to the victim. Feeling fearful and weak, and sometimes even still holding onto the hope that her abuser will stop hurting her, the victim remains with her abuser, continuing the cycle of domestic violence and strengthening her existing BWS.