• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.58 no.4
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• pp.237-263
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• 2006

The recent domestic violence research has emphasized an integrated approach to wife battering and child abuse to overcome separated understanding and problem-solving alternatives of the two phenomena in the past. This phenomenological study is designed to understand struggles and dilemmas of battered women and their children related to their surviving and coping with domestic violence in a mother-child relationship. In-depth interviews were conducted with ten battered women who have children and reside in shelters in Seoul and Anyang, and were analyzed by Atlas.ti(a qualitative software program) to maximize the efficiency of data analysis. Domestic violence can be transformed into and integrated with child abuse anytime, so battered women and their children share their crises and challenges related to motherliness and filial love. However, the mutual, existential meaning embedded in the mother-child relationship can be the most important sources to mobilize their life energy and resilience in their copping efforts. The social work interventions for battered women and their children should be integrated with a premise of deep understanding of the complex realities of domestic violence victims.