[Domestic violence and its developmental dimension: a different perspective]

Domestic violence is a problem which severely threatens physical and mental health in Turkey as well as the rest of the world. In spite of this, there is almost no discussion of the problem in psychoanalytic journals. Although aggression is discussed thoroughly in the psychoanalytic literature, the number of articles on violence is very limited. The number of articles on domestic violence is even more limited. In this article, domestic violence is examined from a psychoanalytic point of view, focusing especially on developmental aspects. The mutual impacts of developmental processes and domestic violence on each other are discussed. Developmental issues which make women more vulnerable to trauma, transmission of domestic violence from generation to generation, transgenerational cycle of aggression, gender differences in expressing aggression, other developmental issues which play a possible role in domestic violence, children who "witness" domestic violence, and adult victims of domestic violence are among the topics discussed. The author has tried to elaborate her viewpoint by adapting some psychoanalytic ideas to the problem of domestic violence, explaining and discussing the existing limited number of ideas directly on domestic violence in the psychoanalytic literature, and adding her own perspective on the developmental dimension of the issue.