The radiating impact of intimate partner violence

Many studies of violence against women focus on the impact of abuse on the victim's emotional and physical well-being. Here the authors expand the conceptualization of the impact of violence to include other aspects of the victim's life as well as the lives of those in her social world. Analyses of life narrative interviews with women 1 year after their stay in battered women's shelters indicates that violence affects not only women who are abused but also those who are not directly victimized yet who nonetheless suffer consequences of violence. The authors discuss the implications of this conceptualization of violence for both research and policy.