The American Judges Association

Forms of Emotional Battering


Social and Sexual Prejudice: Added to all of the other forms of emotional battering that a victim suffers from, he or she also lives in a society that perceives the victim as helpless, second class, emotionally immature and often irrational. This means that as a victim struggles to break free from an abusive situation or relationship, he or she has to battle social, financial and cultural pressures that may prevent the victim from breaking free from the batterer. Although we often pay more attention to the physical and sexual abuse, more often these prejudices provide the context in which repeated abuse occurs.

Insults: Constant or extreme criticisms that injure the personal, emotional, sexual and professional image. Insults can greatly undermine a person's self-confidence and eventually render the victim emotionally incapacitated.

Rejection: Direct or indirect statements that create feelings of unworthiness. Constant rejection teaches a victim that he or she is unworthy of receiving loving behavior. Rejection can be used as punishment for not cooperating with an abusive partner. Abusers may also employ rejection in an attempt to justify their anger towards the victim.

Emotional Threats and Accusations: Direct or indirect statements made in an attempt to cause emotional or physical harm to the victim. This includes lying about the victim's behavior, attitude or emotional state.

Emotional Blackmail: A statement or behavior that uses fear, guilt, insecurity or confusion to trap a victim into giving the abuser power over him or her.

"Crazy-Making": This behavior distorts reality and destroys the possibility of honest communication. Demonstrated in the classic movie, A Clockwork Orange, this is a very effective device to increase confusion and insecurity in the victim.

Possessive and Punitive Behavior: Perceiving another person as physical property or an emotional extension of himself or herself. Behavior includes jealousy, limiting freedom, creating isolation, denying a person's capabilities or opportunities to develop. Many times it includes using shame and guilt to prevent a victim from getting the deserved support and protection.

Basing Relationships on Unrealistic Expectations: This includes an assumption by the abuser that he or she knows what is best for the victim. Denying someone the opportunity to discover and define himself or herself prevents the possibility of a mutually beneficial and realistic relationship.

Threats to Harm or Take Away Children: One of the most common reasons given for resuming an abusive relationship is the fear that the abuser will act on the threats of taking the children from the victim. Studies show that batterers have been able to convince authorities that the victim is unfit or undeserving of sole custody in approximately 70% of challenged cases.

Financial Blackmail: A batterer often controls the victim's finances, denying access to money. Financial battering may range from not allowing the victim to earn money to preventing education or access to work. If the victim is currently working, the abuser will make threats to destroy the means of earning a living.

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The American Judges Association

Battered Women Syndrome

Battered Woman Syndrome (BWS) is a collection of psychological symptoms, often considered a subcategory of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and can be measured by a trained mental health professional.

Battered Woman Syndrome can cause a woman to act in ways that confuse those who wish to help her, thus making it extremely difficult for her to cooperate with the legal system, even though she wants the abuse to stop.

Symptoms: BWS is a psychological reaction that can be expected to occur in normal people who are exposed to repeated trauma, such as family violence. It includes at least three groups of symptoms that assist the mind and body in preparing to defend against threats. Psychologists call it the "fight or flight" response.

The "Fight" Response Mode: In the "fight" mode, the body and mind prepare to deal with danger by becoming hypervigilant to cues of potential violence, resulting in an exaggerated startle response. The automatic nervous system becomes operational and the individual becomes more focused on the single task of self defense. This impairs concentration and causes physiological responses usually associated with high anxiety. In serious cases, fearfulness and panic disorders are present and phobic disorders may also result. Irritability and crying are typical symptoms of this stage.

The "Flight" Response Mode: The "flight" response mode often alternates with the fight pattern. Most individuals would run away from danger if they could do so safely. When physical escape is actually or perceived as impossible, then mental escape occurs. This is the avoidance or emotional numbing stage where denial, minimization, rationalization and disassociation are subconsciously used as ways to psychologically escape from the threat or presence of violence.

Cognitive Ability and Memory Loss: The third major impact of BWS is to the cognitive and memory areas. Here, the victim begins to have intrusive memories of the abuse or may actually develop psychogenic amnesia and not always remember important details or events. The victim may have trouble following his or her thoughts in a logical way, being distracted by intrusive memories that may be flashbacks to previous battering incidents. The victim may disassociate himself or herself when faced with painful events, memories, reoccurring nightmares or other associations not readily apparent to the observer.


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American Judges Association (AJA)
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The American Judges Association

Other Forms of Violence

Sexual Abuse - Sexual abuse is often present along with physical and emotional abuse. It is very difficult for the victim to describe sexual abuse that may be coerced by threats of further harm or actually accompanied by physical force. Most often a victim is bullied into complying with the abuser's demands to engage in sexual acts, or at a time when she is not physically fit for sexual activity, such as immediately after childbirth, surgery or during illness. The shame a victim feels afterwards further ties her to the batterer.

Child Abuse - Studies suggest that in approximately one-half of those abusive families where children are present, some form of physical and/or sexual abuse of children exists. The abusive partner usually is the one who may abuse the children. In most cases, where children witness domestic violence, they can be expected to have emotional effects and are at a higher risk for violence themselves. Additionally, studies show that violence affects children before birth. Assaults during pregnancy may lead to miscarriage, fetal injury and pre-term labor. The presence of child abuse makes a dangerous situation more lethal, especially when there is intervention by social services without an understanding of the dynamics of violent relationships. Removing the abusive partner or a child from the home may escalate the violence rather than stop it. Often, adding a helping professional is useful. Further protection and intervention is critical at this point.

Elder Abuse - Research suggests that an elderly victim is abused more often by an aging partner and caretaking children than those who are harmed by non-family caretakers. Family violence does not usually stop on its own. Family violence is a public health problem and every community agency must help recognize and deal with it.

Mutual Violence - It is often difficult to tell the difference between an act of self defense and a victim who is aggressive because of mutual violence. A victim who has been arrested may tend to plead guilty to get out of jail quickly in order to return to his or her children. A victim who fights back in self defense or in defense of another person should also be treated as a battered victim.

Dating Violence - Dating violence refers to verbal, physical, psychological or sexual abuse that occurs in relationships before partners marry or begin cohabiting. The term does not imply anything about the length or stability of the relationship. An act is classified as dating violence whether it occurred within the context of a single date or over a long period of time. Although popular attention has focused on sexual violence within dating relationships(date rape), researchers have noted that the full gamut of aggressive behavior, including murder, occurs within violent dating relationships.


Source:
American Judges Association (AJA)
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The American Judges Foundation

With over thirty years of tradition and achievement, The American Judges Foundation is comprised of people interested in and dedicated to promoting education, fostering public awareness of the law and the legal system and furthering community involvement with the judiciary in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

This non-profit organization provides judges with resources vital for continuing their role as knowledge gatherers, information seekers and decision makers. Through conferences, forums, discussions and publications, judges are exposed to current trends within the legal system and kept current with societal issues that affect their jurisdiction.

Our society is growing more complex day by day. One of the side effects of this complexity is a court system burdened with an ever-expanding inventory of cases. It is crucial that the judges who steer these proceedings be in touch with issues, alternatives, and innovations pertaining to each situation and their long-term effects on victims, defendants, witnesses, lawyers and society as a whole. The American Judges Foundation's mission is to keep the judiciary at the forefront and provide the necessary educational tools needed to meet society's ever-changing needs.


The American Judges Association

The American Judges Association was originally founded as the National Association of Municipal Judges (NAMJ) in 1959 at Colorado Springs, Colorado, by 30 municipal court judges. As the association's membership grew to include judges from other types of courts and from a wider geographical area, its name was changed to the American Judges Association in 1973. Currently, AJA has a membership exceeding 3,000 members, which includes both present and former judges of courts of all jurisdictions in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa and The Virgin Islands. Its Board of Governors is composed of representatives from fourteen districts.

The objective and purpose of the Association is: to promote and improve the effective administration of justice; to maintain the status and independence of the judiciary; to provide a forum for the continuing education of its members and the general public; and for the exchange of new ideas among all judges.

The AJA's impact on judicial education has been effective in a number of ways. In 1970, the Association cooperated with the American Judicature Society in organizing the American Academy of Judicial Education, the first such institute to sponsor formal, in-residence training programs for judges of courts of first jurisdiction. AJA has sponsored more than 30 annual conferences, bringing together leading jurists, legal scholars and law enforcement officers to discuss matters of importance affecting the judiciary.

With over thirty-five years of service and commitment to the judiciary, AJA continues to exemplify excellence in judicial education.


Source:
American Judges Association (AJA)
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