TY  - BOOK
AU  - Dixon, Glenda
TI  - Narrative, journaling, therapy and abuse: co-searching some women's lives
PY  - 1999///
KW  - FVC
KW  - DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
KW  - INTERVENTION
KW  - NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES
KW  - TREATMENT
KW  - WOMEN
KW  - THESES
KW  - INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE
KW  - PREVENTION
N1  - Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Otago.  Available for loan from Otago University Library; nz
N2  - This thesis argues that lives are storied through language and within relationships, and that women who have experienced abuse view themselves through an abuse dominated lens which causes them to have very thin descriptions of self. These thin descriptions lead to lives which are existences rather than lives that are lived. Research was undertaken with 9 women to explore how women who had experienced abuse could come together in community to co-author and co-construct the hitherto thin descriptions. This thesis suggests that women who have experienced abuse are multi-disadvantaged when it comes to stories of self. Not only do they have to story their lives alongside disabling gender discourses, but they also have to grapple with internalised messages that speak to them of thin descriptions. To interrogate these ideas, a narrative, reflexive, feminist methodology was employed which had at its heart the notion of decentred practice, a community of inquiry, and an ethic of care. From researching with two groups of women, the idea was supported that it takes multiple perspectives and multiple conversations in order to co-construct and co-author new rich stories of identity. This thesis suggests that if these conversations take place in a community of inquiry and care, then these stories can be retold and in each telling the women experience alternative views of self and become encouraged to join with others to search out stories of identity that had hitherto been brushed over or disregarded by the abuse dominated lens through which they had viewed themselves. These tellings and retellings are likened to definitional ceremony where women can speak and write themselves into being
ER  -