Young women's management of victim and survivor identities

Abstract

Images of child sexual abuse survivors have been strongly mediated by professional and self-help ideologies that espouse 'healthy' and 'unhealthy' responses to trauma. Drawing on interviews taken with five self-identified survivors of child sexual abuse, this paper maps the impact of psychological and popular discourses on victim/survivor identities and, in particular, the centrality of themes such as disclosure and 'healing' in accounts from survivors. Investment in these particular versions of recovery has operated to shift the focus of the survivor movement away from its political beginnings, such that private healing has replaced public discontent. As the excerpts from survivors in this paper suggest, the language commonly captured in both therapeutic and popular accounts of trauma may guide and delimit the subject positions available to survivors. Utilising the concept of 'wounded attachment', this paper identifies some of the outcomes associated with internalised notions of healing for survivors, as well as the dilemmas that might be impeding disclosure.

Reconsidering Forced Labels: Outcomes of Sexual Assault Survivors Versus Victims (and Those Who Choose Neither)

“…Hunter (2010) referred to these individuals as having a transcendent narrative. Those who choose neither often indicate that they believe both labels have come to be associated with presumed psychopathology (e.g., depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder) resulting from their assault (Ovenden, 2012). Regarding life choices, hobbies, and deviant behavior such as drug use, interviewees in Ovenden’s study expressed discomfort about the assumptions others seemed to make with either label.…”

“…There is also the assumption that those who have experienced sexual assault all have the same experiential response to their assault with potentially traumatic levels of long-lasting stress that needs to be addressed therapeutically. Although those with a transcendental narrative seemed to view the event as horrific and injurious at the time it happened, they often report that their experience (after time had passed) was no longer so intrusive and that they did not care to label it or even think of it (Hunter, 2010; Ovenden, 2012).…”

“…Individuals who experience sexual assault are faced with an increased risk (compared with the general population) of posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and psychosomatic illnesses that can drastically decrease quality of life and impair functioning (Black et al, 2011). As feelings of fear, shame, helplessness, and hopelessness are often cited as negative outcomes following assault, medical and mental health professionals agree that empowerment and regaining a sense of control is tantamount to recovery from such traumatic events (e.g., Ovenden, 2012).…”

Medical Neoliberalism in Rape Crisis Center Counseling: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Clinicians’ Understandings of Survivor Distress

“…Participants spoke about the victim/survivor dialectic and mirrored the common practice in RCC counseling to use the word “survivor” over “victim” as it is considered the more respectful and empowering label. Although much has been written on these terms from an empowerment perspective (Hockett & Saucier, ; Ovenden, ; Young & Maguire, ), there has been less focus on how this dichotomy upholds a neoliberal ideology. Participants often spoke about how to help survivors “feel” more in control or have a “sense” of agency; using the language of “survivor” was one example.…”

Commercial conspiracy theories: a pilot study

“…Other early work suggested that beliefs in conspiracy theories serve self-esteem maintenance purposes (Young, 1990; Robins and Post, 1997), while providing believers an outlet for reasserting their individualism (Melley, 2000) or for the expression of negative feelings (Hofstadter, 1965; Ungerleider and Wellisch, 1979). Recently Swami and Furnham (2012) found conspiracy beliefs in one famous story- the disappearance of Amelia Earheart- were associated with lower self-esteem and lower self-estimated intelligence.…”