‘The Carousel of Violence’: Experiences of Abused Women

Abstract

Domestic violence is a phenomenon under expansion and affects women all over the world, irrespective of culture, race, status and education. The aim of this paper is to bring an in-depth understanding of the experiences of women who had been within the cycle of domestic violence for some years, in order to help professionals working in the field develop an increased empathy and knowingness about their situation. The study is of qualitative nature using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) on a sample of 10 abused women who were interviewed. This paper reports on one theme, `The carousel of violence` which is described by its sub-themes: “I before, I now”, “…waiting for that change he was talking about”, “living with fear” and “dependency”. Recommendations for specialists working in the field of prevention and intervention of gender based violence are drawn.