Given the differing definitions of psychological violence, how does one decide which definition is appropriate for their intervention program?
One may integrate these definitions by conceptualizing psychological violence on a number of continuums. One continuum could reflect the severity (or likeliness of causing psychological harm to the victim) of the specific acts. For example, on this continuum one would place the most terrorizing types of psychological violence on one end (such as threats to kill and stalking), the more common and less terrorizing acts in the middle (such as extreme controlling behaviors or verbal abuse) and the least intrusive or damaging and most common acts at the other end (such as using male privilege).Another continuum of psychological violence would describe the acts solely on a frequency basis, the idea being that the more frequent the abuse the more likely it will cause psychological trauma. This method would depend heavily on a way of quantifying specific acts of psychological violence. The author has developed a comprehensive Domestic Violence Inventory (Sonkin, 1995b) HyperCard stack for the
