Family Stress and Crisis: Violence among Intimates

11 Family Stress and Crisis: Violence among Intimates

The Nature of Stress and Crisis • Crisis: A critical change of events that disrupts the functioning of a person’s life • Family Stress: Tensions that test a family’s emotional resources • Acute Stress: Short-term stress • Chronic Stress: Long-term stress

Table 11.1 The Ten Most Common Family Stressors

The Nature of Stress and Crisis Responses to Stress • General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS): The predictable pattern one’s body follows when coping with stress, which includes the alarm reaction, resistance, and exhaustion The Social Readjustment Rating Scale: A scale of major life events over the past year, each of which is assigned a point value.

The Nature of Stress and Crisis Patterns of Family Crises • 3 distinct phases: • The eventthat causes the crisis • The period of disorganization that follows • The reorganization that takes place afterwards

Figure 11.1 Five Patterns of the Effects of Stress/Crises on Family Functioning

The Nature of Stress and Crisis Coping or Not: The ABC-X Models • ABC-X Model: A model designed to help us understand the variation in the ways that families cope with stress and crisis • Double ABC-X Model: A model designed to help us understand the effects of the accumulation of stresses and crises and how families adapt to them

Figure 11.2 ABC-X Model of Family Stress and Crisis

Figure 11.3 Double ABC-X Model of Family Crisis: Pile-Up

Violence among Intimates Violence is a social problem because: • It affects large numbers of people • Violence is not completely random

Intimate Partner Violence Defined as violence between those who are physically and sexually intimate, such as spouses or partners • Can encompass physical, economic, sexual, or psychological abuse

Intimate Partner Violence How We Define and Measure Intimate Partner Violence • Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS): A scale based on how people deal with disagreements in relationships • Are Men or Women More Likely to Be Victims? Bias and the CTS Frequency of Intimate Partner Violence • Femicide: The killing of women

Table 11.2 Percentage of Person Raped and Physically Assaulted by an Intimate Partner in Lifetime, by Type of Assault and Sex of Victim

Figure 11.4 Women Raped or Physically Assaulted in Lifetime by Race/Ethnicity

Intimate Partner Violence Types of Intimate Partner Violence • Common Couple Violence • Intimate Terrorism • Violent Resistance • Mutual Violent Control Stalking and Cyberstalking Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence

Intimate Partner Violence Coping with Violence: Leaving and Staying • Learned Helplessness: The psychological condition of having low self-esteem, feeling helpless, and having no control that is caused by repeated abuse • Battered Women’s Syndrome: A recognized psychological condition, often a subcategory of post-traumatic stress syndrome, used to describe someone who has been the victim of consistent and/or severe domestic violence

Intimate Partner Violence Violence in Gay and Lesbian Relationships Dating Violence Rape and Sexual Assault • Rape on College Campuses • “Date Rape” Drugs: Drugs that are used to immobilize a person to facilitate an assault

Table 11.3 The Most Common Types of Child Abuse (percent)

Table 11.4 Rate of Child Abuse by Race/Ethnicity per 1,000 Children

Child Abuse and Neglect • Child Abuse: An attack on a child that results in an injury and violates our social norms Types of Child Abuse Corporal Punishment Who Would Abuse Children?

Figure 11.5 Perpetrator’s Relationship to the Victim

Child Abuse and Neglect Consequences of Child Abuse Trafficking • The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons, by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction , of fraud or deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability, or of the giving or receiving of payments to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation

Child Abuse and Neglect Trafficking (continued) • Sex Trafficking: An industry in which children are coerced, kidnapped, sold, or deceived into sexual encounters

Elder Abuse • Defined as the abuse of an elderly person that can include physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse, financial or material exploitation, and neglect

Explanations for Violence among Intimates Micro-Level Explanations • The Intergenerational Transmission of Violence: A cycle of violence that is passed down to dependents • Stress Explanation

Explanations for Violence among Intimates Macro-Level Explanations • Patriarchy • Cultural Norms Support Violence • Norms of Family Privacy A Synthesis: Power and Control

Figure 11.6 Power and Control Wheel

Figure 11.7 Power and Control Wheel in Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, and Bisexual (LGBT) Relationships

The Public’s Response Violence and the Law Domestic Violence Shelters • Defined as a temporary safe house for a woman (with or without children) who is escaping an abusive relationship Treatment Programs for Abusers

Family Stress and Crisis: Violence among Intimates