Painful love: a Lacanian discourse analysis of women with experiences of intimate partner violence

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a public health issue throughout the world, and it can have many severe and lifelong sequelae for its victims. Women from ethnic minority groups experience and report more IPV than ethnic Danish women. In shelters, the former group have a higher occurrence of post-traumatic stress than Danish women. The study analyses the reasons women choose to stay or leave abusive relationships using Lacan's discourse analysis using five Arab and three Danish women who tell and reflect upon their gender roles, their attitudes and beliefs, their concrete experiences, their backgrounds, their religion, the family relations, and social forces. A deeper understanding of what is at stake for these women will hopefully help professionals to listen to the women and to explore the many profound dilemmas that many of these minority women suffer.