the act or process of subjecting to strong repeated blows.

the act of subjecting to strong attack

Battering can be defined as ‘a systematic, continuing pattern of assaults, threatened assaults, intimidation and abuse which produces a dynamic of fear.â€(tm) (Jacobson, N.S. (1994). Response: Contextualism is dead: Long live contextualism. Family Process, 33, 97-100: as cited in Robertson, Neville R. (2000). Reforming institutional responses to violence against women. Unpublished PhD Thesis: University of Waikato.) The term reminds us that the meaning of individual acts of violence (e.g. pushes, slaps) can only be fully understood within their context. Some acts of violence are used to defend oneself (e.g. pushing away an attacker) or to express frustration (e.g. a child throwing a tantrum who slaps his or her parent) in ways which have few, if any, implications for the “victim”, while other seemingly innocuous acts (e.g. glaring at someone) can be extremely intimidating if they occur in the context of fear. Battering is not a NZFVC Topic Area.