A BRIEF REVIEW OF THE RESEARCH ON HUSBAND VIOLENCE .2. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF HUSBAND VIOLENCE ON BATTERED WOMEN AND THEIR CHILDREN

This is the second article, in a series of three, reviewing currently available empirical data on the problem of husband violence. As discus sed in the introduction to this sei ies of articles (see Holtzworth-Mu nroe et al., 1995), marital violence is a serious problem in this coun try affecting millions of couples and their children each year. While advocates for battered women have been actively helping women for over twenty years, marital violence has only received widespread attention from researchers and clinicians in the past 10 to 15 years. Thus, man y psychologists did not receive formal training regarding marital viol ence and are not well informed about this problem, For example, Browne (1993) is concerned that therapists often misdiagnose and, thus, mist reat battered women (e.g., medicating depressive symptoms) because the y do not consider that a female client's sq, symptoms may be a consequ ence of abuse rather than a traditional psychiatric syndrome, Similarl y many clinicians do not adequately assess the possibility that the ch ild problems they are treating may result from experiencing interparen tal violence. This paper was written to provide others, particularly c linicians, with an overview of the research data on bartered wives and their children. By reviewing the available findings, we hope to provi de information regarding the psychological effects of marital violence . (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.