This report of a qualitative study of eight battered women in a rural
Appalachian shelter disclosed that the women's social isolation was a
product of their batterers' actions, the women's sense of shame, and
the stigma associated with their abuse. It proposes a social dynamics
model for planning intervention that considers the nature of privacy
and secrecy in couple relationships, the myth of the happy family, and
the power of labels of deviance.
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