Margareta Hydén

Children’s Actions when Experiencing Domestic Violence

The aim of this article is, by analysing children’s discourses, to investigate their actions or absence of actions during a domestic violence episode. The empirical data are recorded group therapy sessions and individual interviews with children who have grown up experiencing their fathers’ violence against their mothers. The analysis shows that the children’s stories contain two aspects of actions: one related to the actions during the ongoing episode, and one the child perceives as possible/ desirable for the future. The findings are discussed in the light of Lazarus and Folkman’s theory of coping.

‘I Must Have Been an Idiot to Let it Go On’: Agency and Positioning in Battered Women’s Narratives of Leaving

To be assaulted is to be subjected to an illegal action and confronted with one’s own helplessness and powerlessness. It also requires confronting one’s own actions, aimed at protection and resistance. This article examines the relationships between male violence and female resistance by focusing on agency, i.e. the relationships between power, responsibility and activity as reflected in the various ways battered women positioned themselves in their narratives of leaving. Three basic positions were identified casting the victimized woman as: Wounded, Self-blaming, or Bridge-building. These positions are associated with relational themes such as vulnerability, isolation and connectedness. The overall message of the article is to urge feminists to return to the roots of feminist theorizing of men’s violence towards women, and to include women’s strategies of resisting the violence in that theorizing.

The World of the Fearful : Battered Women's Narratives of Leaving Abusive Husbands

It is often suggested that battered women do not leave their abusive husbands because of fear. In this article, it is argued that fear of the husband is not only something that hampers women, but that it also could be regarded as a form of resistance on the part of women. Fear does not necessarily include action, but contains an unarticulated knowledge of what is wanted and what is unwanted. Based on interviews with 10 battered women at the time of leaving their abusers, and two years on, the article analyzes the fear that constituted a major part of the break-up process. Drawing on Foucault’s conceptualization of power, the accounts of fear were read as narratives of resistance to violence. Knowledge about the different ways that a battered woman can express her resistance to violence increases the prospects for researchers and professional and lay helpers to more adequately address the complexity of the abuse of women.

Verbal aggression as prehistory of woman battering

This article is concerned with the association between verbal aggression and woman battering in marriage. This relationship was examined using narrative accounts from twenty couples, in which the woman was the victim and the man the perpetrator of assault or aggravated assault. In 18 of the cases the informants described the pre-history of violence as ‘a verbal fight’, the basic communicative message of which can be described in terms of an endeavor “to communicate worthlessness” to ones opponent. The mens descriptions revealed that they (1) used violence for putting a stop to the ‘verbal fight’, or (2) used violence as a part of the ‘verbal fight’ for the same goal of “communicating worthlessness” as the use of words. In two cases, this clear and chronologically close relationship between verbal aggression and physical violence was lacking. In these two cases, the men used violence to revenge themselves for the injustices they had earlier suffered at the hands of the women in the marriage.

Woman Battering and Father-Daughter Incest Disclosure: Discourses of Denial and Acknowledgement:

This article explores the all too common processes of denial of abuse by those who perpetrate it and often by those who experience it. It is proposed by the authors that the denial of abuse does not reflect characterological pathology but is a behaviour which re-presents the ambiguity towards violence and sexual abuse in western legal and social discourses. A professional interviewer who is not sensitive to this representation is in danger of perpetrating further violence. The article introduces some methods for the avoidance of this threat.

The teller-focused interview: Interviewing as a relational practice

This article traces its origin to 25 years of qualitative study of men’s violence towards women in close relationships. Major methodological concerns have involved finding ways to facilitate and support the research participants – women, men and children – in formulating themselves in as genuine and multifaceted a narrative as possible. Over the years, the approach ‘the teller-focused interview’ has emerged, with its theoretical and methodological base in feminist research, narrative theory and methodology, and a dialectical way of thinking about the relationship between interviewer and interviewee. It views them as partners with different tasks and responsibilities in the research process. This dialectic is referred to as a ‘relational practice’. It is argued that the methodological concerns brought up are not limited to the area of violence towards women but are also applicable in studies of various types of human experience that are complex, sensitive, and difficult to bring up. Indications for the use of the approach will be addressed, and basic aspects of the relational practice of tellerfocused interviewing will be presented. Some remarks on the relationship between qualitative research and psychotherapy will also be included.

Without the Internet, I never would have sold sex: Young women selling sex online

Among Swedish youth with experience of selling sex, the Internet is the most common means of contact between buyer and seller. There are few descriptions of how these contacts are established, but studies have indicated that young people under the age of 18 seldom engage in open prostitution online. This study aimed to examine what role the Internet and the use of smartphones play in young women selling sex online, focusing on the method of contact and the characteristics of the communication online between buyer and seller. The study included 15 young women between the ages of 15 and 25 (M=18.9) who had sold sex online before the age of 18. Thematic analysis was used to identify similarities and differences in the narratives. Two main themes were identified: (I) Internet use—Part of daily life, for good and bad, and Depending on mood. The young women described using the Internet on a daily basis. During periods of poorer psychological health they were more active on sites focusing on self-destructiveness and sex. During these periods, they also sold sex more frequently. (II) Patterns of contacts—Innocent/curious, Dating, and Advertising. The narratives about communication prior to a sexual encounter detailed differences ranging from being lured to direct negotiations. The results indicate that there is a group of young women who sell sex online that is not in the open prostitution. Police and other authorities working with young women selling sex need to better understand the coded sexual communication behind some of these sexual encounters and how different communication strategies might affect the young women.

Young women selling sex online – narratives on regulating feelings

The current study concerns young women’s life stories of their experiences selling sex online before the age of 18. The aim was to gain an understanding of young women’s perceptions of the reasons they started, continued, and stopped selling sex. The study included interviews with 15 young women between the ages of 15 and 25 (M=18.9). Thematic analysis was used to identify similarities and differences in the narratives. Three themes and eight sub-themes were identified in relation to different stages in their lives in the sex trade. The themes were organized into three parts, each with its own storyline: “Entering – adverse life experiences”; traumatic events: feeling different and being excluded. “Immersion – using the body as a tool for regulating feelings”; being seen: being touched: being in control: affect regulation and self-harming. “Exiting – change or die”; living close to death: the process of quitting. The informants all had stable social lives in the sense that they had roofs over their heads, food to eat, and no substance-abuse issues. None had a third party who arranged the sexual contacts and none were currently trafficked. They described how their experiences of traumatic events and of feeling different and excluded had led them into the sex trade. Selling sex functioned as a way to be seen, to handle traumatic events, and to regulate feelings. Professionals working with young people who sell sex online need to understand the complex web of mixed feelings and emotional needs that can play a role in selling sex. Young people selling sex might need guidance in relationship building as well as help processing traumatic experiences and ending self-harming behavior. Further studies are needed on the functions of online sex selling and on the exit process for young people, in order to prevent entrance and facilitate exiting.

Introduction to Response Based Approaches to the Study of Interpersonal Violence

This volume concerns the ‘day-to-day individual suffering of interpersonal violence’, as Mandela so vividly expresses it, in the quote that opened the chapter. Throughout the volume, interpersonal violence will be defined as ‘the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation’ (WHO, 1996, p. 5).

II. ‘You Want to Have Done Your Living if You Know What I Mean’: Young Incarcerated Swedish Women Speak about Motherhood

“You want to have done your living if you know what I mean” : Young Incarcerated Swedish women speak about motherhood