'Every bone of my body:' domestic violence and the diagnostic body

Abstract

Diagnostic categories for domestic violence have shifted over time, transforming from a disorder of psychological passivity and acute injury into a chronic and somatically invasive condition. This paper links these changing diagnoses to constructions of the abused body and to victim-blaming narratives. Based on an analysis of medical journal articles, this research identifies two logics that undergird domestic violence diagnoses, the body, and victim-blaming: 1) the logic of injury (1970s-1980s); and 2) the logic of health (late 1980s-present). The logic of injury is associated with overt victim-blaming, a temporally bounded and injured body, and psychological passivity. Once the feminist anti-violence movement gained mainstream credibility, however, the logic of injury fell out of favor as an explanation for domestic violence. What surfaced next was the logic of health, which is associated with chronic diagnoses and what the author calls a temporally extended body. The temporally extended body is flexible and layered, linking up past, present, and future states of disordered embodiment. The author suggests that, rather than ushering in hope and possibility via the logic of health's somatic flexibility, this abused body creates spaces into which new forms of blame and self-responsibility can take shape.

Keywords: Biomedicalization; Body; Chronic; Diagnosis; Domestic violence; Temporality.