Chapter 11 Family Stress and Crisis Violence Among Intimates The Nature of Stress and Crisis Crisis critical change or event that disrupts the functioning of the lives of one or more family members Family Stress tensions that occur either within the family or outside the family There can be many different types of stresses Stress can be normative which is stress we expect Nonnormative which is stress we don t expect It can be acute or short term or chronic which is long term unhealthy stress General Adaptation Syndrome Predictable pattern our bodies have for coping with stress 1st stage Alarm Reaction Our fight flight reaction to a situation 2nd stage Resistance Our body tries to maintain heightened state of alert 3rd stage Exhaustion Our body returning to normal unstressed state The Social Readjustment Rating Scale major life events that can be traumatizing are assigned to a point system based on how much they affect health and well being There are certain patterns to a family crisis 1 The event that causes the crisis 2 the period of disorganization that follows and 3 the reorganization that takes place afterwards Families can either cope or not using the ABC X model ABC X Model used to understand the differences in family coping with stress A factors are the initial event causing the crisis B factors are the resources the family has to meet the demands of crisis C factors are the way the family perceives blames how and why crisis happened X factors is the outcome and depends on how a family does ABC Figure 11 2 is a good example Double ABC X Model designed to understand the effects of the accumulation of stresses and crises and how families adapt to them Violence Between Intimates Intimate Partner Violence violence between those who are physically and sexually intimate This is a social problem for three reasons 1 It affects a large number of people 2 Violence is not completely random 3 The causes and consequences of violence must address its macro level dimensions Violence can be physical economic sexual and psychological The Conflict Tactics Scale CTS asks people how they deal with disagreements in relationships and classifies in three groups non aggressive responses psychological aggressive responses and physically aggressive responses 1 in 4 women will experience domestic violence 1 3 million women are victims of physical abuse per year There are many different types of intimate partner violence Common Couple Violence One partner lashes out during a fight Not freq Intimate Terrorism physical psychological or sexual violence to control the other partner Violent Resistance abuse in the form of self defense Typically women Mutual Violent Control both partners are controlling and violent Coping with violence can lead to partners either leaving or staying Learned Helplessness because of repeated abuse the abused has developed a lower self esteem and feel they cannot control the abuse around them Leaving a relationship is a process rather than an action The abuser can use a variety of different techniques to control relationship Page 313 Battered Women s Syndrome psychological condition to describe someone who has been the victim of consistent domestic violence Rape is a form of sexual assault and is typically an unreported crime Alcohol is the most popular rape drug If not able to give full consent rape Rape is a recidivist crime Most offenders don t get caught the first few times Child Abuse and Neglect Child Abuse an attack on a child that results in an injury Recently 800 000 children were victims in each year This violates social norms Children from the ages from birth through 12 months old have the highest rates of victimization Most common form of abuse is neglect Four main types of abuse Neglect failure to provide for the child s basic needs Physical hitting shaking burning etc that inflicts pain and physical injury Sexual inappropriate sexual behavior with a child for sexual gratification Psychological verbal mental or emotional abuse that destroys self esteem 1700 children die a year due to child abuse Who abuses the children Young and single parents are most likely to abuse their children Parents are more likely to abuse children than just random people Mothers are more likely to harm or kill their children than men Trafficking recruitment and abduction of children so that they will be sex slaves physical slaves or some kind of abuse The UN estimates that there are at least 12 million adults and children forced into labor or sexual servitude at any given time Elders can be abused also sexually physically psychologically for financial or material exploitation or by neglect About 2 1 million elderly are affected Chapter 12 The Process of Divorce Notes from the in class film Divorce Wars The main arguments in a divorce are over money and children Marriage is becoming less romanticized and more of a business contract Post nuptial and pre nuptial agreements can supersede state law to protect spouse s money and assets Pre nupts are becoming an unfortunate necessity in marriage world In 1970 California was the first state to allow a no fault divorce where unlike in the past you didn t need a legitimate reason such as infidelity to get a divorce Now all 50 states have no fault divorce On average divorce reduces a spouse s wealth by 75 New companies and insurance are being created as business opportunities to capitalize on divorce because divorce is now so common There are over 1 million divorces in America per year 1 in 3 marriages end in divorce Divorce in the United States Extremely common in the U S one in three couples get divorced Divorce rate is five times higher than Mexico three times higher than China Crude Divorce Rate the rate of divorce per 1000 people In US we have a crude rate of 3 4 Refined Divorce Rate the number of divorces that occur per 1000 married women 15 years and older US has a rate of 16 9 Provides a snapshot of how many married women divorce Divorce has always been an available option in the US just easier to do today Women used to have few rights and their right to initiate divorce was low Unless they had legitimate reason like husband s inability to provide After the Depression and WWII the divorce rate jumped greatly Now since the 1980s the divorce rate has been steadily deceasing Why do people Divorce Micro Level Factors Parental Divorce Affects your marital status Intergenerational Transmission of Divorce pattern that shows if you have parents
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