In this thesis, I share my personal story of finding healing—post-traumatic growth—after experiencing intimate partner violence seven years ago. Written in Scholarly Personal Narrative format, I dig into my own past, draw upon research and scholarship to better understand and make meaning of and from my experiences, and finally, make connections with other survivors, advocates, and educators through my narrative. I discuss how survivors of intimate partner violence can move closer to healing; provide practical tips on how individuals and educators can support survivors and better understand the complexities of abusive relationships; and explain how educators can use writing, specifically the Scholarly Personal Narrative format, as an avenue for healing and growth for their students in a classroom setting. My thesis is an example of how, when given the opportunity, educators can encourage students to experience post-traumatic growth within the American University.

Puerto Rican women experience increased risk of bio-psychosocial challenges due to their ethnicity. This phenomenological study examined Puerto Rican HIV-positive women's perceptions of intimate partner violence (IPV), which consists of physical, sexual, verbal, and psychological abuse. Although HIV-positive status and IPV have been a focus of previous research, specific research examining the phenomenological experiences of HIV-positive Puerto Rican women who experienced IPV has not been studied. The basis of the study was feminist intersectionality theory, which supported the process used to explore and understand the essence of the participants' experiences. Feminist intersectionality theory examines intersecting social systems including gender, ethnicity, and cultural influences in assessing the lived experiences of the participants. Purposive sampling was used to recruit six participants. Data collection consisted of in-depth, audio-recorded interviews, and data were analyzed by transcribing interviews to explore common themes. Some of the themes that evolved from the research findings are traumatic experiences, feelings about the abuse, reaction to the abuse, trust issues, cultural influences, and positive life changes. The results of this research study provided valuable information of the participants' lived experiences. This research may provide domestic violence specialists, health care providers, law enforcement providers, public advocates, and government agencies with explanation and understanding of the unique challenges Puerto Rican women face. This research has the potential to impact social change in improving IPV screening, offering bi-lingual and bi-cultural service providers, and educating individuals in the helping profession of the impact of IPV.

Domestic violence, also known as intimate partner violence (IPV), continues to be an issue in the United States, despite various intervention approaches and efforts to improve them over the past 40 years. Even if IPV offenders attend treatment and pursue rehabilitation, current efforts appear marginally effective in reducing its reoccurrence. The purpose of this ex-post facto, comparative, quantitative study was to determine whether there was a significant difference in outcomes between male offenders (N = 126) who attended treatment programs that participated in a tripartite collaboration with probation and victim services versus offenders (N = 126) who did not. Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory provided the framework within which to examine the impact of such collaboration (independent variable). Outcomes were measured by recidivism (probation violations, re-arrests, violent re-offenses, and orders of protection), successful completion of probation, and successful completion of treatment (dependent variables). The information was coded and then analyzed in SPSS using chi-square analyses. The study showed statistical significance between the groups for successful completion of probation and treatment, re-arrest within two years of terminating from probation, and violent re-offenses. It did not show statistical significance regarding other dependent variables. This study is important for probation officers, treatment providers, victims, offenders, and their communities because it shows how the current system can improve.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is considered a pressing public health concern. Adolescent victims of IPV are at risk of a number of severe consequences which can lead to poorer academic performance, relationship problems, and being revictimized by or perpetrating IPV later in life. The purpose of this study was to conduct a qualitative case study on the Love Doesn’t Hurt (LDH) program run in 100 schools in Kansas to understand the professional viewpoints of the counselors/teachers who led the program, determine whether they saw improvements among the male adolescent population, obtain knowledge of ways the program worked or did not work, and determine suggestions for future practices. The central question was: What experiences and reactions do Kansas middle school students have while participating in the LDH program? Open-ended unstructured interviews were held with 9 family and consumer science teachers/counselors from 3 sites in Kansas (1 each from a rural, suburban, and urban setting) selected through purposive sampling and analyzed through NVivo 12 software. The theoretical foundation for this study was social learning and feminist theory. Students participating in the LDH program seemed to communicate more openly with and have greater awareness related to IPV. Girls felt more comfortable and participated more than boys. Boys seemed more mature when separated from girls but perceived the curriculum as “male-bashing.” This study is critical for policymakers; they may want to integrate the program more permanently into their academic curriculum, especially since longer sessions of IPV prevention programs seem to produce more long-term effects.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) affects millions of women, men, and families throughout the world each year, with more than a million incidents of domestic partner abuse reported to law enforcement officials each year in the United States. Being able to accurately assess and help a woman who is experiencing this type of violence can be difficult for even a seasoned mental health or medical professional. The purpose of this study was to determine whether clinicians can gain insight into the personality structure of women who have experienced IPV by clinical interview and administration of the Rorschach alone. This study analyzed the Rorschach responses of 52 participants: 26 participants who had experienced violence and 26 who had not. The relationship between the Rorschach responses and variables was then analyzed using a series of ANOVAs. Results of this study indicated that there were significant differences in morbid content scores (MOR) and aggressive content scores (AG) in the women who had experienced intimate partner violence compared to women who had not. This may be significant in that women who have experienced partner violence may see more morbidity and aggressiveness in their everyday lives or from a neutral stimulus. This study may impact social change by bringing attention to an understudied population in order to increase awareness of this issue. In being able to link a woman's response patterns on the Rorschach to her personality traits and ultimately her behavior in abusive relationships, it is anticipated that it will be possible for clinicians to personalize treatment plans to a specific woman's needs and personality to increase the probability that she will leave an abusive situation.

This qualitative study explored the lived experiences of male victims of intimate partner violence (IPV). Few studies exist about the experiences of men who are victims of female-perpetrated IPV and there are not many studies about these men's experiences in seeking and receiving psychological help. Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Peck's gender role strain paradigm guided this study to understand victimology and perceptions of gender roles. Research questions attempted to understand the lived experiences of male IPV victims of female-perpetrated IPV, accessing supportive and psychological services, and their experiences of these services. Seven male individuals were recruited through flyers in community centers, law enforcement agencies, and social media sites; 5 participants were interviewed via Skype and 2 responded via e-mail. Data from interviews were analyzed and coded following an interpretative phenomenological method. Five themes were identified from 2 research questions including: male victimization is seen as less severe than female victimization, family is not easy to talk to about experience, therapy and hospitalization were used, law enforcement officers are biased, and mental health workers are routine. Findings were evaluated with existing literature and suggestions are made for help-seeking option accessibility for male victims. This study promotes social change by discussing how supporting survivors may decrease negative gender roles and social norms while promoting the betterment of professionals who work with male victims. Victim-centered services, patient-centered approaches, and treatment and support for survivors of IPV will help to improve awareness about male victims in society while offering insight to decrease negative stigma.

Ce travail, qui propose une lecture de l’ensemble de l’œuvre autobiographique de Beauvoir, ne vise pas l’exhaustivité. Il cherche plutôt à restituer une image plus exacte de la trajectoire, de l’évolution et des infléchissements de ce projet monumental. De nombreux écrits jusque-là ignorés ont été publiés, dans des temps récents, de façon posthume. Ces textes nouveaux contribuent à ébranler une image simplificatrice ou réductrice de Beauvoir – celle qui le plus souvent se profile, de manière exclusive, soit à travers Le Deuxième sexe, soit à travers le couple Sartre-Beauvoir, soit à travers la conversion politique. Lire de manière méthodique les écrits autobiographiques de Beauvoir, c’est tenter de comprendre comment une intellectuelle et une écrivaine se construit et se distingue. Elle prend certes le contre-pied de ses origines familiales et culturelles. Mais elle va aussi parfois à l’encontre de ses propres tropismes. Une lecture précise, chronologique, mettant en rapport les différentes strates du texte, révèle de telles contradictions. Dans ce dispositif, les Cahiers de jeunesse, récemment publiés en 2008, jouent un rôle particulier. Ils montrent comment la vie intellectuelle de Beauvoir est d’abord une vie intérieure, spirituelle, qui prend même parfois des allures mystiques. Ils montrent surtout, au départ de la vocation littéraire et philosophique, une veine introspective qui fut contrariée un temps par deux tendances antinomiques : d’une part la fascination pour le roman (genre nettement valorisé aux yeux du couple Sartre-Beauvoir) et d’autre part, l’obsession grandissante à l’égard de l’Histoire majuscule. A ces deux facteurs, il faut en rajouter un troisième : le refoulement lié à la défiance à l’égard de l’intime, nettement alimentée par le compagnonnage intellectuel avec Sartre. Dans cette perspective, il m’a paru essentiel de confronter les journaux de Beauvoir, en particulier son Journal de guerre, au texte des Mémoires, qui d’ailleurs y fait constamment référence – sans compter qu’ils intègrent parfois des fragments de journal. Il apparaît, d’une façon générale, que la relecture des journaux, œuvre de toute une vie, a été constante, qu’elle a nourri l’écriture des Mémoires, que celle-ci, conséquemment, a oscillé, selon un mouvement pendulaire, entre l’introspection et la rétrospection. Les Mémoires sont à l’évidence une reconstruction du passé comme tout récit mémorial. Ils le sont plus encore lorsqu’on songe au texte princeps qui les a précédés, et lorsqu’on prête attention à leur archéologie.L’entreprise des Mémoires se présente comme une solution de compromis à l’égard de ces pulsions contradictoires. Elle propose une combinaison originale entre l’écriture de l’intime et l’écriture de l’Histoire, l’écriture de soi et l’écriture des autres. Mais c’est l’ensemble du projet, l’ensemble des écrits autobiographiques qui met en évidence la complexité des intentions et des registres, c’est cet ensemble qui donne pleinement la mesure du projet singulier de Beauvoir.Tous les gestes d’écriture qui composent l’entreprise mémoriale sont indissolublement liés, et en même temps, ils ne se ressemblent pas tout à fait. Une telle diversité des écrits intimes et mémoriels, à la fois totalisatrice et foisonnante, pourrait contribuer à revisiter une théorie parfois un peu figée de l’autobiographie qui tend à classer des sous-genres cloisonnés en les rapportant à des critères distincts, ou en les considérant sous la catégorie générale de l’écriture de soi. / This study, which offers a reading of all the autobiographical writings of de Beauvoir, is not intended to be exhaustive. Its aim is rather to provide a more exact picture of the trajectory, the evolution and the shifting movement of her massive project. Many previously unknown writings have been published posthumously in recent times. These new texts contribute to the undermining of a simplistic and reductive image of de Beauvoir, an image drawn exclusively either from The Second Sex, from the Sartre - de Beauvoir couple, or from her political conversion.In a methodical reading of de Beauvoir’s autobiographical writings, one can attempt to grasp how a woman intellectual and writer constructs herself and marks herself off from others. She undoubtedly turns against her familial and cultural origins, but she is also capable of going against her own tropisms. A precise chronological reading that relates the different strata of the text reveals such contradictions. In such an approach, the Cahiers de jeunesse, published in 2008, play an important role. They show how de Beauvoir’s intellectual life is at first an interior, spiritual life that sometimes even has something mystical about it. Above all, at the outset of a literary and philosophic vocation, the Cahiers show an introspective vein that was for a time thwarted by two opposite tendencies: on the one hand a fascination with the novel (a genre that was highly valued in the Sartre-de Beauvoir couple), on the other hand a growing obsession with History. To these two factors a third must be added: a repression linked to a distrust of the intimate that was clearly fed by the intellectual companionship with Sartre. In this perspective, I thought it essential to confront de Beauvoir’s journals, in particular her Journal de guerre, to the text of the Mémoires, which in any case constantly refer to it and even integrate fragments from it. It would appear in a more general way that her re-reading of the journals, the work of her entire life, was constant, that it fed into the writing of the Mémoires, which as a consequence oscillate in a pendulum movement between introspection and retrospection. The Mémoires are clearly a reconstruction of the past, like all memoir narratives, but that becomes even more true when one thinks of the original text that preceded them and when their archaeology is taken into account.The Mémoires as a project are to be seen as a compromise between these contradictory urges. The enterprise provides an original combination of writing the intimate, writing History, writing the self and writing the other. However it is the project in its totality, the entire autobiographical corpus, that demonstrates the complexity of intention and register, it is this totality that makes it possible to take the measure of de Beauvoir’s singular project.All the gestures of writing that make up the memorial enterprise are indissolubly linked and at the same time different from one another. Such a diversity of intimate and memorial writing, at once systematic and multiple, may contribute to a revisiting of a somewhat rigid theory of autobiography that tends either to isolate sub-genres, classifying them by reference to distinct criteria, or else to bring everything back to the general category of writing the self.

Indigenous women experience intimate partner violence (IPV) at a disproportionate and epidemic rate. A common thread among indigenous women's experiences is that of colonization, which has been linked to both IPV and other social ills. Many tools of domination and control used throughout colonization to subjugate and oppress indigenous peoples are consistent with the tactics of power and control used in IPV. Given the distinct history of colonization along with the absence of research on indigenous women from the Southeastern portion of the United States, the purpose of this critical ethnography was to understand the culture and context of IPV for women from a Southeastern tribe across the life course. Because they complimented and supplemented each other in their ability to increase understanding about indigenous women' experiences with IPV, critical theory, historical trauma, life course theory, and resilience theory guided this qualitative inquiry. Paulo Freire's vision of critical theory was used to conceptualize this dissertation within the specific historical context. Using Carspecken's critical ethnographic method, the relevant data collected for this study included 28 participant observation sessions with indigenous community members and 28 life histories with indigenous women. Data analysis followed Carpsecken's method of reconstructive analysis. The patterns of power and domination at the societal, community, and interpersonal levels were identified with the broader beliefs that might perpetuate IPV across generations. Results included key factors within the specific historical context of indigenous women that had salient linkage to IPV. The potential symptoms of historical loss and trauma, including alcohol abuse, IPV, and family breakdown, were highlighted. Women's emergent pattern of violence that occurred across the life course was delineated within the culturally specific family structure. Women's perceptions of experiences with the formal and informal support systems were explored. Likewise, the various coping strategies of women who experienced IPV were identified along with the culturally specific protective and risk factors across multiple levels. Women's suggestions for emancipation from oppression were highlighted along with the implications for social work practice and policy.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the signature wound of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, has caused veterans to face numerous and complex challenges within their intimate relationships post-deployment. Although other studies have explored the intimate relationships of veterans, the same level of research has not focused on OEF/OIF veterans from the standpoint of dyadic adaptation using the Dyadic Adaptation Scale (DAS). The purpose of this study was to explore the level of dyadic adaptation in intimate relationships of OEF/OIF veterans who self-reported PTSD and those who did not. More specifically, this study identified the factors that were related to the level of dyadic adaptation for this population. Participants were 126 OEF/OIF veterans who were enrolled in colleges and universities throughout the state of Iowa; provided basic background information in response to a demographics questionnaire; and completed the DAS to yield scores of the participants' dyadic adaptation within their intimate relationships, the Family Crisis Oriented Personal Evaluation Scales (F-COPES) that highlighted their levels of coping, and the Family Inventory of Life Events (FILE) that measured their life stressors within the last 12 months. The results of the correlation, MANOVA, ANOVA, and hierarchical regression analyses provided four major findings and implications. First, among participants with PTSD, DAS was correlated with tours of duty, FILE, F-COPES, and pharmacologic intervention, and among participants without PTSD, DAS was correlated with FILE. Second, the total dyadic adaptation scores for participating OEF/OIF veterans suggested an overall slight level of relationship dissatisfaction. Third, participants who self-reported PTSD had lower DAS total scores than participants who did not self-report PTSD. In addition, there was a significant difference on all four subscales (cohesion, satisfaction, consensus, and affectional expression) of the DAS between the two groups of participants. Fourth, in terms of participants who self-reported PTSD, tours of duty, types of relationships, and life stressors were the only variables that positively affected dyadic adaptation. In contrast, for participants who did not self-report PTSD, FILE was the only variable that affected the dyadic adaptation. These findings have important implications that highlight areas in which clinicians, educators, and individuals within the helping professions can join the Department of Veterans Affairs' initiatives to improve the reintegration of OEF/OIF veterans into their familiar roles post-deployment. Future research should explore the relationship norms pre-deployment and across relationship statutes, the identity of military intimate partners within treatment facilities, and the perceptions of treatment and dyadic adaptation after OEF/OIF veterans receive treatment in the community by civilian providers as compared to treatment in VA facilities.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) against women is a major public health issue worldwide. The purpose of this dissertation is to characterize violence perpetrated by an intimate partner against a "high-risk" group of pregnant women who sought elective abortion services at a family planning clinic. Analyses were based on the Iowa Women's Health Experience Survey (IWHES), a cross-sectional study of 519 abortion patients who completed an anonymous, self-administered questionnaire over a period of seven months. IWHES eligibility criteria were 'Seeking pregnancy termination'; 'Age ≥ 18 years'; 'Iowa resident' and 'Fluent in English or Spanish'. The survey instrument covered physical, sexual and psychological types of violence, health correlates of violence as well as demographic, socioeconomic and lifestyle characteristics of participating women and their current intimate partners. Aim I examined the prevalence of physical, sexual and/or psychological abuse by employment characteristics of elective abortion patients and their current intimate partners. Aim II examined associations of substance use, depression and social support with physical, sexual and/or psychological abuse perpetrated by current intimate partners against women seeking pregnancy termination. To achieve the analytic goals of Aims I and II, the study sample was restricted to women who had a current partner and valid IPV data. The overall prevalence of physical, sexual and/or psychological abuse perpetrated by a current partner was 12.3%, with some overlap between the different IPV sub-types. In general, the prevalence of IPV did not differ significantly by employment status or by broadly defined occupational groups of women and their partners. However, a trend was noted whereby a woman's employment and a partner's unemployment were associated with greater likelihood of IPV. Specifically, the prevalence of IPV was highest among couples where the woman was employed and the partner was unemployed. Consistently positive associations were noted between the partner's (but not the woman's) substance use indicators (alcohol intake, binge drinking, recreational drug use) and IPV. Higher levels of depressive symptoms and less perceived availability of social support were noted among women who had experienced IPV versus those who had not experienced IPV. The association between depressive symptoms and IPV was stronger for women who reported having children in their homes compared to those did not report having children in their homes. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.