The psychosocial climate within which wife battering occurs often involves subtle manipulation, a form of mind control or brainwashing perpetrated by the battering husband or partner. Psychological concomitants of battering are likely to be more difficult for medical personnel to detect than are causes of multiple injuries. One of the most serious legal considerations in wife battering is that responses from criminal justice systems vary widely across different States. A significant social issue is that sex role socialization generally tends to support the notion that the success or failure of intimate relationships is the woman's responsibility. This role may lead some women to make great efforts to stay in relationships, even after episodes of abuse, to show their commitment to weathering difficult times together. Characteristics of battering males include personality disorders, easily-threatened masculinity, low self-esteem, lack of assertiveness, need for power, pathological jealousy, substance abuse, and violence in the family of origin. Characteristics of battered women involve traumatic bonding to the battering male, fear and terror, learned helplessness, guilt and self-blame, and low self-esteem. Although the precise methodology for identifying psychological maltreatment in intimate relationships, especially battering relationships, requires further empirical study, any relationship that involves covert strategies of psychological coercion or regulation over individual freedoms is maladaptive. 127 references and 5 tables