Recent trends in explaining abuse within intimate relationships

Abstract

This article reflects upon abuse within intimate relationships with specific emphasis on research pertaining to the phenomena of coercive control, Stockholm syndrome and the compliant victim of the sexual sadist, advanced in order to explain the non-physical aspects of abuse within intimate relationships. The battered woman syndrome is accordingly revisited with specific emphasis on the non-visible aspects of abuse within intimate relationships which are often underestimated and overlooked. The latter is illustrated against the backdrop of the controversial South African case of S v Visser which was the first South African criminal case where these theories were addressed.