Help ease the secret suffering of lesbians in abusive relationships!Why is woman-on-woman violence so often ignored or discounted? Intimate Betrayal: Domestic Violence in Lesbian Relationships uncovers the hidden problem of lesbians who hurt the women they love. This long-needed book brings together theory, practice, and research to suggest new and fruitful ways to understand, prevent, and treat this common problem. Intimate Betrayal provides new empirical research into the psychological and sociocultural causes of abuse. As several of the chapter authors demonstrate, neither traditional feminist theories about power nor heterosexist paradigms explain the causes, dynamics, or treatment of this problem. However, the new research presented here suggests helpful diagnostic criteria and effective treatments. Intimate Betrayal analyzes the factors that contribute to lesbian domestic violence, including:
- heterosexism and homophobia
- minority stress
- emotional isolation and lack of community ties
- revictimization of women who have previously suffered abuse
