Re-authoring selves? : post-therapy recovery narratives of heterosexual women who have survived intimate partner violence

Since domestic abuse was problematised by feminist activists in the 1970s, and the ‘political’ dimensions of this seemingly ‘personal’ issue were highlighted, there has been a reluctance to provide individual psychological therapy to intimate partner violence (IPV) survivors due to fears it could be individualising or pathologising. This thesis explores how heterosexual women who have survived intimate partner violence (IPV) narrate their ‘recovery’ and conceptualise their ‘selves’ after having had individual therapy. It also explores how they locate their perceptions of their experiences of therapy in relation to the different ways that IPV is constructed in the wider cultural and social context. One-to-one interviews were conducted with twelve participants who had experienced IPV and had a course of therapy as part of their ‘recovery’ process. Narrative methodology, specifically Mauthner and Doucet’s (2008) reformulation of Gilligan’s Listening Guide (1992) was used to analyse the interviews. This methodology allowed exploration of the complex and multi-faceted subjective perceptions of participants and was underpinned by an understanding that subjectivity is inevitably tangled in the wider narratives that circulate in wider ‘society’ or ‘culture’. Narrative structures were linear and progressive, with survivors storying breaking away from abusive relationships, however, ‘recovery’ was constructed as a ‘process’ and not an ‘outcome’, with some believing that they would be forever altered by their experiences. Having individual therapy was perceived as playing an important role in ‘recovery’ and was not constructed as individualising or pathologising, in contrast to feminist and social materialist critiques. Participants narrated that their ‘self’ was shamed and silenced by the perpetrator, but that through the relationship with the therapist they were able to rediscover/recreate their ‘sense of self’. Participants drew on multiple macro narratives in their accounts, for example, the domestic abuse women’s movement and therapeutic. They perceived that the emphasis on perpetrator behaviour in domestic abuse services raised their awareness of IPV, but they needed a therapeutic space where they could focus on the interiority of their experiences and a safe space to explore their vulnerability. Some participants preferred a focus on the IPV experience, whereas others welcomed a broader approach, which incorporated exploration of earlier life experiences. Participants constructed therapy as facilitating the ability to make choices. ‘Choice’ did not appear to be framed in individualistic terms, as some feminist accounts might suggest, but rather, within a relational frame where the ‘self’ was inextricably intertwined with ‘the other’. The findings of the thesis suggest that policy makers may need to consider that there could be an unmet need for psychological therapy amongst IPV survivors.