The Cycle of Abuse, Violence and Psychological Manipulation

In history social cycle theory was one of the earliest social theories in sociology which state that events and stages of human behavior generally repeat themselves in cycles. As in the case of psychological abuse the complexity of each situation requires clinicians and researchers to define various categories of these social disorders. There are 20 distinct acts of what is called psychological aggression that can be distinguished in three different categories. Such as in verbal aggression, dominant behaviors and jealous behaviors.

It is important to note that emotional abuse or mental abuse, is characterized by a person subjecting or exposing another to behavior that is psychologically harmful simply due to the fact that the abuse is often associated with situations of power imbalance, such as abusive relationships, and bullying in the workplace.

Further study indicates that the U.S. Department of Justice defines emotionally abusive traits as causing fear by intimidation, threatening physical harm to self, partner, children, family, friends, as well as destruction of pets and property or forcing isolation from family, friends, school or workplace.

So to better explain the patterns of behavior in a abusive relationship the social cycle theory was developed by Lenore Walker. She believes abusive relationships are characterized by a predictable repetitious pattern of emotional, psychological or physical abuse.

It has been argued that the theory does not completely describe all abusive relationships, and may favor ideological presumptions over empirical data since research was based on anecdotal data. Such as in the case of whether psychological abuse always precedes or accompanies physical abuse. Walker suggests that sustained periods of living in such a cycle may lead to learned helplessness or even battered person syndrome. Her methodology is regarded as revolutionary as well as important in the study of abuse and interpersonal violence.

In the cycle it goes through 4 phases and will repeat until the conflict is stopped, by the victim who eventually abandons the relationship. Until that happens the cycle can occur hundreds of times in an abusive relationship, the total cycle can take a few hours to complete or up to a year to complete. It has been discovered that the length of the cycle diminishes over time causing the making-up phase and calm phase to disappear with the repetition of the cycle continuing on the tension building and acting out phases.

Phases of the Cycle.

Tension building phase - occurs prior to the abusive act, and can be lead by poor communication, passive aggression, rising interpersonal tension, or fear of causing outbursts.

Acting-Out Phase - is when there are violent outbursts and abusive incidents.

Reconciliation - also known as the honeymoon phase is when there is affection, apology, or, ignoring the incident. During this phase it appears to be the end of the abuse, assurances of change, remorsefulness and affection. Since the victim is worn down and confused they usually want the relationship to improve so even after longstanding abuse they choose to stay in the relationship.

Calm Phase - during this phase the relationship is relatively calm and peaceable nevertheless, interpersonal difficulties will inevitably arise, leading to the tension building phase which starts the cycle all over again.

The cycle of abuse concept is widely used in domestic violence programs and outlines the phases of the cycle with violence measured by the Conflict Tactics Scale which is a method used to identifying maltreatment in relationships.