The women were classified according to their scores on the Severity of Violence Against Women Scales. High scores of all the women on the Symptom Checklist-90 Revised (SCL90-R) suggested that subtle as well as overt psychological abuse may cause most of the distress observed in battered women. However, the groups did differ in terms of attempted suicides, somatization, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, paranoia, and PTSD symptoms, indicating that the severity of abuse may moderate specific manifestations of distress. The results also showed that cognitive failure and private self-consciousness predicted general patterns of emotional distress, but were less evident when specific types of emotional distress were considered. 1 table and 53 references