BATTERED WOMEN - KEEPING THE SECRET

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 considiers the nature of privacy and secrecy in couple relationships, the myth of the happy family, and the power of labels of deviance.