Spaces of dissociation: the impact of childhood sexual abuse on the personal geographies of adult survivors

Abstract

The experiences of survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) have received almost no attention in geography. However, activists and therapists working with survivors have long recognised that CSA has spatial impacts and that finding some sense of control over one's environment is an important step in recovering from this trauma. By bringing the stories of three adult women who are survivors of CSA into conversation with debates in human geography about the habitation of space and place, this psychosocial paper goes some small way towards addressing this oversight. Set in the context of the high prevalence of CSA in all communities, we argue that efforts to understand everyday, domestic and marginalised geographies need to consider the potential impact of abuse. By understanding psychosocial pathways by which abuse impacts on individuals we highlight how violence and trauma can impact on personal geographies in a myriad of ways.

Geographies of dissociation: Value creation, ‘dark’ places, and ‘missing’ links

“…Geographers have rarely used the term dissociation . An exception is Willis et al’s (2016) study of the impact of childhood sexual abuse on the personal geographies of adults, titled ‘Spaces of Dissociation’. In their study, dissociation addresses responses by victims to traumatic experiences in their past.…”

“…In their study, dissociation addresses responses by victims to traumatic experiences in their past. Willis et al (2016: 206) use dissociation synonymously with terms like ‘silencing’, ‘denial’, and ‘looking the other way’, and they acknowledge that ‘not just individuals but entire societies can…dissociate…in relation to childhood sexual abuse’. Willis et al (2016) therefore conclude that dissociations influence the way people perceive and use space.…”

Geotrauma: Violence, place and repossession

“…As we have seen, 'trauma is characterized by a loss of grounding' (Burstow 2003(Burstow , 1303, both psychologically and materially. Willis et al (2016) outline some of the spatial strategies used by adult survivors of child sexual abuse in order to regain control over the environment and cope with trauma. This is not to say that people with trauma are prisoners of space, rather that there are diverse spatialities to survivorhood.…”

Facing the void: Recollections of embodying fear in the space of childhood homes

“…As such, children use imagination to transform their everyday spaces, and make the "adult world" comprehensible (for example threat of adult violent behaviour). Not explored explicitly by Dovey (1990) or Willis et al (2016), but highlighted in the memories analysed here, was the paramount importance of objects in the transformation of space and achievement of a boundary to the adult world, for instance the bed light and curtain in Lina's memory, Christensen, James and Jenks (2000: 148) suggest, based on their ethnographic research with children, that movement is characteristic of children's everyday lives in the home, for example in terms of "being allowed out of home" and "'having' to come in for tea". In the current study, descriptions of movement were also common in women's memories of embodying fear as children in the home.…”