Men's and Women's Abuse Talk in Group Therapy: A Discourse Analysis
Date
2014-08-15
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
The creation of therapy groups for men who have been victims of intimate partner abuse, at times controversial, has led to a call for a contextualized understanding of men’s and women’s victimization. The nature, severity, and consequences of abuse are thought to be different for abused men compared to abused women. This project uses a discursive approach to examine how men and women participating in victim therapy groups construct and negotiate abuse accounts and their responses to abuse. My own and other previous research suggests that men in victim therapy groups must shore up their status as victim. This thesis attempts to answer how negotiations of abuse accounts compare between men’s and women’s therapy groups and how responses to abuse accounts compare between the men’s and women’s therapy groups. Two of the Calgary Counselling Centre’s 14-week therapy groups were analyzed using the theoretical and methodological discourse analytic approach: “A Turn for the Better” group for abused men, and “You Are Not Alone” group for abused women. Archived video recordings of these groups were transcribed and analyzed. The women’s and men’s constructions of abuse and the process of negotiating appropriate responses to abuse were qualitatively different. First, the men engaged in extensive rhetorical strategies to position themselves as abused, while the women oriented to safety and protection and their victim status was assumed. Second, the men negotiated the gendered dilemma of responding appropriately to a woman’s aggression without being aggressive in turn, while all women’s responses were constructed as appropriate given their function of protection. Third, for the women, the topic to which everyone oriented, both facilitators and group members, was safety. I also analyzed the therapeutic process in terms of facilitators negotiating men’s accountability for aggression, while women held themselves responsible for morally questionable acts which facilitators tended to endorse as resistance. I address how this study contributes to gender relevance in the therapeutic process of abused men and women, the existing exploratory literature on men’s abuse and therapy, and future clinical practice.
Description
Keywords
Psychology--Clinical
Citation
Zverina, M. (2014). Men's and Women's Abuse Talk in Group Therapy: A Discourse Analysis (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/26881