A sense of coherence – reason and faith in combating violence in an intimate relationship

Abstract

Purpose: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is most often presented as a spiral of losses experienced by victims. This hampers victims from becoming emotionally independent and physically separate from their abusers. The aim of this research was to compare the sense of coherence (SOC, understood as a positive resource on the borderline of reason and faith), among women with and without experience of IPV (physical, psychological, sexual). Method: The study involved 100 women (50 with and 50 without the experience of IPV) between 20 and 63 years of age (M=29 non-abused; M=38 abused). Two questionnaires were used in face-to-face interviews: a sociodemographic background survey and the Sense of Coherence Questionnaire (SOC-29) devised by A. Antonovsky. Results: The results show that women who have experienced a violent act in their lives declare to have a lower level of SOC and its three components (manageability, comprehensibility and meaningfulness) than women without such experiences. Violence occurred with alcohol abuse in the families of the victims' origin.

Key words: domestic violence, intimate partner violence, SOC