UN Women put the figure at 48% of Nigerian women being exposed to domestic violence directly or indirectly. Traumatic bonding is a strong emotional attachment between an abused person and his or her abuser. We found that traumatic bonding was more common in women in our study who had a lot of empathy. As evidence for the presence of traumatic bonding, all the women in our study were still in their abusive relationships. Disturbingly, we also found that women who developed signs of traumatic bonding had elevated levels of empathy.

Source: The Star December 07, 2022 23:17 UTC