Crisis Intervention with Battered Women



Crisis Intervention with Battered Women

Introduction

In the United States, every 9 seconds, a is battered by her intimate partner or former partner. Current estimates point out that approximately 8.7 million women are batterred per year (Robertsa & Roberts, 2005). Mostly the batterred women are assaulted by punching or smacking once or twice, where, others are frequently battered with repeated casualties and intensity for many months or years. As such women are chronically abused, most of them suffer from bipolar disorder, post traumatic stress dissorder (PTSD), anxiety, panic dissorder, and/or sucide ideation. According to clinical research studies of abused women who are living in shelters as well as attending support groups, the range of PTSD rates are from 45 percent to 84 percent. Further, clinical as well as descriptive studies have constantly inducated a high rate of somatic issues nad depressive symptomatology among abused women (Roberts, 1998).

Hence, it is well apparent that if we will not focus on what constitutes better crisis intervention, efficient trained personnel staff of 24-hour domestic violence hotline, and development of a much more extensive delivery system of social service, then several of batter women will end up as a record in homicide statistics or hospitals, or at very least living out lives damaged by pain, sufferings, emotional, and permanent injuries. Thus, it is very much essential to highlight the issue of battered women and focus on its crisis management. Therefore, I have selected the topic of crisis intervention with the battered women, in order to highlight this issue and provide appropriate crisis intervention.

Since past 20 yaers, the crisis intervention units as well as the emergency shelters for battered women have made great strides. For example, in 1975, there were only few such interventions, however, by 1995 there became more than 1,250 shelters for abused women as well as their children in the United Sttaes of America. The national survey research of 622 shelters conducted in 1996 suggested that the key function of shelters is to support the social change as well as empowering battered women. On average, the shelter was around nine yaers old, and associate an yearly operating budget ranging from $135,000 to $160,000, while employing around 6 fulltime and 4 part time paid staff nad 25 volunteers (Roberts, 1998). Thus, it is very much apparent that great deal of work has been done in this area, but unfortunately it is also indicated by research that scarcity of documentation of different types of counselling as well as treatment modalities and intervention strategies used for the battered women is also evident.

Besides the scarcity of intervention documentation, there is also shortcomings of the studies deal with short-term and long-term adjustments of battered women receiving crisis intervention and cognitive therapy. Research indiactes that only four descriptive studies at local shelters have analyzed and reported the types and elements of shelter based interventions (Roberts, 1998). Thus, because of the dearth of research studies on the nature and types of crisis interventions used for ...