For our own good: The meaning of batterer intervention programs for women who have been abused. A Heideggerian hermeneutic inquiry

Abstract

This hermeneutic phenomenological study is an inquiry into the meaning that women make of their partner's participation in a batterer intervention program. Six women, between the ages of thirty-two to fifty-nine participated in multiple, in-depth interviews that were transcribed and interpreted, with the study partners themselves serving as research partners, and the MARTIN software program as an aid in the interpretive process. A paradigm case and twenty themes in four major categories emerged from the interpretation of the data. The women in this study reflected on their experiences of abuse and described these in the form of compelling narratives that also disclosed their shared experience, practices and the meaning they made of their partners' participation in a batterer intervention program. The principal finding is that women creatively use these programs for their own good. They use them as a way to test their partners' commitment to change, to get information about domestic violence for themselves, and to build networks of resources, including connecting with other women in similar circumstances for support. The findings of this study suggest ways to improve batterer intervention programs with regard to safety and justice for battered women, and the many ways that the stories the participants told reflected the particular double binds of oppression they face as battered women.