• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• no.37
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• pp.145-170
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• 2008

This qualitative study explores social workers' phenomenological experiences with battered women, including their struggles and needs for building and maintaining an empathic identification with their battered women clients. Twelve interviews were conducted with social workers who have provided services in the domestic violence field over the last two years. They identified their clients prejudices and unfamiliarity with counseling and social work profession in Korea as related to battered women clients' initial resistance to social workers' empathic engagement. The nature of victimization between intimate partners (i.e., emotional bounds, continuing risks of victimization) requires workers' enormous energy to maintain their need for an empathic identification with their clients. Social workers emphasized the importance of clinical supervision and supportive networks that enable them to maintain their professional energy and commitment as an empathic helper.