Why does the woman who has been assaulted not leave her aggressor? Why does she not report the attacks? Why, after reporting, does she often withdraw the report? What do the victims feel during the different stages of the assault? How do they become victims?

We have all heard this kind of question from the public. We can answer them if we look carefully at the process of victimization , which, as the name already indicates, is not a situation that occurs in a specific and isolated way, but something that develops over time. A relationship where there is abuse does not usually start overnight.

It is a process that often begins subtly and causes the victim to be unaware of the seriousness of the situation he or she is experiencing.

The cycle of violence and the process of victimization

In 1979 the renowned American psychologist Leonore Walker shed light on how the processes of victimization work from her research designed to try to understand and answer the questions raised above.

From the testimonies of abused women she realized that they are not attacked all the time or in the same way, but that there are phases for violence, which have varied duration and different manifestations . This is what has been called the cycle of violence, one of the most widespread theories about the internal dynamics of violent relationships in the world.

This theory contemplates the existence of four phases in any dynamic of relational violence.The phases into which the cycle of violence is divided follow one another, a fact that makes it difficult to break the cycle. In the same relationship, the cycle can be repeated infinitely times and the duration of its phases can be variable .

The 4 phases of abuse

I will now describe the different phases that an abused person goes through.

1. Calm Phase

In a first phase, the situation is calm . No disagreements are detected and everything is lived in an idyllic way. But when the cycle has been repeated several times, the victim may start to feel that the calm is maintained because everything is correct according to the point of view of the aggressor who is ultimately the motor of the cycle.

2. Voltage Accumulation Phase

The small disagreements begin, because the aggressor feels increasingly questioned by his victim . It may be that the victim, in her attempt to keep things the way the aggressor wants, makes some mistake because the increase in tension affects her ability to concentrate. In this phase, in fact, psychological abuse based on the idea of control begins to take place and this is a warning sign of what is to come.

Many abusers excuse themselves precisely by saying that they were warning their victim but that the victim did not listen to them and continued to provoke them. The woman tries to calm down, please or at least not do anything that might upset the couple, in the unrealistic belief that she can control the aggression.

The tensions are built and manifested in a specific way as certain behaviors of verbal or physical aggression of a mild and isolated nature, from small incidents: subtle slights, insinuations, contained anger, sarcasm, long silences, irrational demands , etc. The victim adopts a series of measures to manage this environment, and progressively acquires psychological self-defence mechanisms to anticipate or avoid the aggression.

The aggressor’s actions are aimed at an objective: to destabilize the victim . In this phase the victim tends to minimize or deny the problem (“we have our ups and downs, like everybody else”), justify the violent behaviour of the aggressor (“as he is very passionate, he lets himself be carried away by anger…”), and allude to positive aspects of his partner (“he is my only support in life”).

3. Explosion Phase

The assailant takes action. It is characterized by a strong discharge of the tensions caused in the previous phase by the aggressor . The most important physical, psychological and/or sexual aggressions are produced.

Compared to the other phases, this is the shortest but also the most intensely experienced. The most important consequences for the victim are produced at this moment, both on the physical and on the psychological plane, where a series of psychological alterations continue to be established due to the situation experienced .

In this phase the victim may maintain high expectations of change in his partner (“with time he will change, we must give him time…”), and feelings of guilt appear (“I deserved it”, “it’s my fault for having chosen him”).

4. Honeymoon Phase

At the beginning, it is usually the phase responsible for keeping the victim in the cycle because in it the aggressor starts a series of compensatory behaviours to show the victim that he is sorry and that it will not happen again . This makes the victim also see the positive side of the aggressor and gets caught up in reflections about how to get this side to appear more frequently.

This phase is characterized by extreme kindness and “affectionate” behavior on the part of the aggressor (attention, gifts, promises…). The aggressor tries to influence family and friends to convince the victim to forgive him/her . It is common to try to make the victim see that the aggressor needs professional help and support and that he cannot abandon him in such a situation, which is why some victims return to the aggressor (in the event that they have ceased to live with him) and/or withdraw the complaint they had previously filed.

But, as time goes by, this phase usually disappears and the cycle is reduced to only three phases: calm, accumulation of tension and explosion. This disappearance of the honeymoon phase is in line with a verbalization that many victims make when they comment that “as long as I don’t get yelled at and mistreated, that’s enough”, thus obviating the fact that a relationship is sustained by things that go beyond the absence of mistreatment.

As the honeymoon phase shortens , the aggressions become stronger and more frequent , which diminishes the psychological resources of the women to get out of the spiral of violence.

Connecting with the Theory of Learned Helplessness

Leonore Walker postulated that Seligman’s Theory of Learned Helplessness was one of the theories that could explain the psychological and behavioral reactions of abused women.

According to this theory, continuous mistreatment would provoke the cognitive perception that one is incapable of managing or resolving the situation one is going through , which would generalize to future situations. This feeling of helplessness would lead to an increase in depression, anxiety, and produce a debilitating effect on problem-solving skills.

Abused women would come to a point where they would recognize that their responses have no impact on their abusive situation because they have implemented different alternatives to change their own or their abuser’s behavior and yet continue to be abused.

Final reflections

Some authors have criticized the theory of learned helplessness applied to abused women, since it can be misinterpreted and used to support the stereotypical concepts of passive women or helpless victims . Walker states that the term “helplessness” should be used very carefully, since it gives an image of abused women as people with little ability and responsibility. Therefore, it must be emphasized that one of the pillars of working with victims is to foster their autonomy/self-care, self-esteem, and self-responsibility.

Battered women are not to blame for what has happened to them, but they are responsible, after therapeutic work and being aware of the nature of the cycle of violence, for preventing a new situation of violence from occurring in a future relationship of a partner. At that point they will be able to identify signs that indicate that a relationship is not “healthy”.

Bibliographic references:

  • Echeburúa, E. & Corral, P. (1998). Manual de violencia familiar. Madrid, Siglo Veintiuno.
  • Echeburúa, E., Amor, P. & Corral, P. (2002). Maltreated women in prolonged cohabitation with their aggressor. Relevant variables. Acción Psicológica, 2, 135-150.
  • Walker, L. E. (1984). The battered woman syndrome. New York, NY: Springer.