11.0 Introduction
11.0 Introduction
In recent years,academics have acknowledged that domestic violence is not only a social issue but also a health issue (Dobash &Dobash,1992;Pahl,1995;Pryke&Thomas,1998;Yang,2003;Williamson,2000).This is because,as discussed in Chapter 1,domestic violence,including psychological violence,may cause a series of problems to victims,from mental problems to suicide (Bo et al.,1998;Han et al.,2006;Lan &Jin,2002;Wang,2006).In particular,psychological violence may impact seriously on victims' emotions,health,normal life,work,personality,selfesteem,and marriage and family (Zhou,2002;Li,2003).
In agreement with these studies,my research data also suggests that psychological violence may have a serious impact on victims.This was indicated in Chapters 9 and 10,although it was not discussed in any depth there because these two chapters mainly examined the types of communication used by the respondents in conflict and in the home,and how these types of communication,as forms of psychological violence,are linked to verbal and non-verbal behaviour.
As shown in the interview data,the interviewees who experienced psychological violence strongly expressed their emotions in relation to anger,sadness,shame and insult,and its impact on their health at a physical and mental level.For example,they talked about non-communication leading to stomach ache and said that derogatory comments may cause a mental problem to victims,such as going around in a daze.Issues relating to emotions and health were also reflected in my questionnaire data.How did the respondents experience these emotional and health problems caused by psychological violence? Was there a difference between experiences of wives and husbands? And what were the impacts on them? The interview data shows a difference between husbands and wives in the impact of psychological domestic violence.However,this is not as clear in the survey data,where both husbands and wives appear to be affected by psychological violence.This chapter will examine and discuss these issues.