What is Domestic Violence?

Domestic violence is a deleberate pattern of assaultive and controlling behaviors, including physical, sexual, and psychological attacks, that one intimate partner does to another. Psychological abuse is almost always a day to day reality within domestic violence. The purpose of domestic violence is to establish a pattern of control and domination exerted by one person over the other in the relationship.

Acts of domestic violence generally fall into one or more of the following categories:

• Physical Battering - The abuser's physical attacks or aggressive behavior can range from bruising to murder. It often begins with what is excused as trivial contacts which escalate into more frequent and serious attacks.
  
  
• Sexual Abuse - Physical attack by the abuser is often accompanied by, or culminates in, sexual violence wherein the victim is forced to have sexual intercourse with her abuser or take part in an unwanted sexual activity.
  
  
• Psychological Abuse - The abuser's psychological or mental violence can include constant verbal abuse, harassment, excessive possessiveness, isolating the victim from friends and family, deprivation of physical and economic resourses, and destruction of personal property.