Marital Violence: The Mechanisms of Addiction

Danuta RODE

Abstract

The objective of the study is an analysis of the factors that stimulate the mechanism of addiction which forms in the relations between the perpetrator and the victim of marital violence. The mechanisms in question are characterized with a view to the psychological description of both the perpetrator and the victim. A discussion of various definitions and determinants of violence shows the complexity of this phenomenon which accounts for the difficulty in defining violence and identifying the factors that generate it. In order to describe the mechanisms of addiction to violence in domestic relations the conception of the psychological mechanisms of addiction, developed by Jerzy Mellibruda, was used. Thus three basic mechanisms of addiction were distinguished: (a) regulation of emotions (b) cognitive distortions, (c) distortions of the structure of the self. The constituent parts of the mechanisms of addiction on the part of perpetrators and victims have been separately discussed so as to reconstruct the entire mechanism of addiction to violence, originating processually between the victim and the perpetrator and forming a vicious circle. The particular manifestations of the mechanism of addiction to violence have been described in detail. The conclusions of the study may suggest certain ways of treating the perpetrators and providing psychological counseling for both victims and perpetrators of violence.

Translated by Dorota Chabrajska