Abuse is not ordinary relationship conflict, psychologist warns

Clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist and Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies lec­tur­er Dr Kati­ja Khan is urg­ing so­ci­ety to stop nor­mal­is­ing in­ti­mate part­ner vi­o­lence and vic­tim-blam­ing, say­ing abu­sive be­hav­iour should nev­er be dis­missed as or­di­nary re­la­tion­ship con­flict.

Khan, who al­so serves on the board of the Coali­tion Against Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence, was speak­ing about a video cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia show­ing a woman be­ing ver­bal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly abused and threat­ened by a man.

She cau­tioned mem­bers of the pub­lic against shar­ing such footage, say­ing it could dis­tress or re-trau­ma­tise vic­tims, chil­dren, fam­i­lies and view­ers.