THE BATTERED WOMAN SYNDROME - EFFECTS OF SEVERITY AND INTERMITTENCY OF ABUSE

The concept of a battered woman syndrome was tested by assessing 50 ba ttered women and 25 emotionally abused women who had recently left the ir relationships. For both groups, essential features of the syndrome were present and were significantly interrelated. Dynamic features of the prior abusive relationship correlated significantly with these seq uelae. The concept of intermittency is proposed as an alternative to t he cycle of violence theory as main contributor to the syndrome. Predi ctability of abuse was found to be unrelated to the intermittency meas ure.