The Battered Woman Syndrome

by Lenore E.A. Walker

Book Overview

A major contribution to this subject. She is thorough, practical, compassionate, and authoritative. It is a reading must.--Phyllis Chesler This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0826143229
• ISBN13: 9780826143228
• Release Date: December 1999
• Publisher: Springer Publishing Company
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Battered Woman

I have bought at least 12 copies of this book. I feel it is extremely important work and should be read by all young women. I give mine away so much that I keep replacing my own copy. Bravo! Ms. Walker!

SHOWED ME THE WAY

I read this book in 1983. It was the ONLY book that addressed this subject available in the San Francisco Public Library at that time. I remember thinking "Someone actually wrote a book about what is happening to me?" As I read it, it rang so true in many ways, that it gave me the strength to make my Plan and eventually escape.

Reading it is a cathartic experience

I agree with both previous reviewers in that the book does lack extensive references. The point, though, is that this was a seminal work when it was published in 1979. The cycle theory of violence had not been clearly articulated prior to this book. Walker also worked on developing the idea of learned helplessnes in victims of domestic violence. Both theories are important and although psychologists and DV advocates have since expanded on both and developed new ideas, Walker's ideas still have a place in the history of the development of an understanding of battered women's lives and experiences. I would recommend it as a good starting point in a reader's search for an understanding of domestic violence. Since then, more authoritative texts based on more extensive and better-documented research have been published, but The Battered Woman serves it's instructive purpose well. It provides the shock value and pain that a reader must experience in order to begin to understand the full impact of DV upon its victims.