This paper describes evidence for the validity of the Psychological Maltreatment of Women Inventory (PMWI) (Tolman, 1989) and the development and validation of a short form of the measure for use in research. Women were recruited for the study from an agency for battered women and from the community through newspaper ads and public service announcements. In face to face interviews, 100 women completed the PMWI and a number of other instruments including the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS), the Index of Marital Satisfaction (IMS) and the Index of Spouse Abuse (ISA). Based on scores on the IMS and the CTS, the women were divided into three groups: physically abused and maritally distressed, maritially distressed but not physically abused, and maritally satisfied and not physically abused. Both PMWI subscales (isolation/domination and verbal/emotional) successfully discriminated between the three groups, with physically abused women scoring significantly higher than both the maritally distressed and non-distressed groups. These results support the criterion validity of the measure. The PMWI scores were also highly and significantly correlated with the non-physical abuse subscale of the ISA, providing further evidence for the validity of the PMWI subscales. A 15 item version of the PMWI, using items from each subscale was developed. The short versions of each subscale also successfully discriminated between battered and non-battered women, suggesting that the shorter version might be effectively used in subsequent research on psychological maltreatment..