Battered Woman Syndrome Analysis
Psychologists are brought in as expert witnesses in court on many occasions including battered woman syndrome and automatism syndrome. In both syndrome's people have a strong opinion one-way or the other with little ability to believe in a middle ground when deciding if they believe in the syndrome or if they do not. Battered Woman Syndrome (BWS) - "The syndrome denotes a set of distinct psychological and behavioral symptoms that result from prolonged exposure to situation of intimate partner violence" (Kitaeff, 2011, p.274-275). These symptoms don't just happen overnight rather there is a series of events/stages that happen that leave a woman feeling lost, alone, and unable to change her circumstances leaving her no recourse but to cause physical
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• Contrite and loving behavior - this behavior always follows the acute battering stage as they realize the gravity of what they have done. This is also another way of controlling the person with false hopes and promises of better behavior.
The standards that the court uses when determining the validity of their testimony would be determining that the person was indeed a battered woman and making sure that having the expert witness testifies would indeed make a difference in the jury understanding the case and would make a difference to the outcome. The automatism syndrome is a case where a person is capable of committing a crime without actually knowing. According to Kitaeff (2011), when a person is either sleep walking, or in a dream like state and physically harm someone, steal, and or commit other acts of crime they are not always aware and therefore this allows an expert witness to testify on their behalf. The inability to not been able to foresee this situation due medical issues that could cause this behavior
• Contrite and loving behavior - this behavior always follows the acute battering stage as they realize the gravity of what they have done. This is also another way of controlling the person with false hopes and promises of better behavior.
The standards that the court uses when determining the validity of their testimony would be determining that the person was indeed a battered woman and making sure that having the expert witness testifies would indeed make a difference in the jury understanding the case and would make a difference to the outcome. The automatism syndrome is a case where a person is capable of committing a crime without actually knowing. According to Kitaeff (2011), when a person is either sleep walking, or in a dream like state and physically harm someone, steal, and or commit other acts of crime they are not always aware and therefore this allows an expert witness to testify on their behalf. The inability to not been able to foresee this situation due medical issues that could cause this behavior