Empowerment for those supporting the bereaved lies in understanding the processes by which meaning is constructed out of a loss. My concern is that models currently underpinning understanding and practice in grief recovery provide limited assistance to loss and grief practioners. These theories, based around set stages and tasks with pre-determined objectives, offer stereotypic "after the event" perspectives on the recovery process. This has value as background information, but in the extreme promotes a clinical, de-personalised approach to uderstanding and support. My experiences over more than a decade of working alongside the suicide-bereaved in particular, suggest that a more enlightened pathway lies with people and their stories. Working in an empathic dialogic relationship, with an emphasis on understanding rather than closure, is more appropriate in assisting those treading the very sensitive, very personal, bereavement path. Furthermore, the narrative grounded approach is more in tune with the processes involved; and more likely to lead to productive outcomes in both the short and long term.The presented model argues that bereavement recovery is a re-educative reconstruction process: trialogic, semiotic sign or symbol related; recognising significant personal autonomous control; genetically or organically activated and driven; dynamic and ongoing; and constructed out of the individual's socio-cultural knowledge base. The model further argues that recovery is best constructed in a climate of empathic understanding and genuine non-judgemental acceptance of the bereaved individual's current perceptual world. In expounding and supporting this model, the tradition of pragmatic educational philosophy has been found useful - in particular, relevant apects of the theories of Carl Rogers, John Dewey, Alfred Shutz and Charles Stanford Peirce.I contend that the proposed model may be applied to all forms of profound loss, however the main context for this research is a Bereaved-by-Suicide Support Group.

This thesis focuses on disclosure of sexual abuse by men who were sexually abused either as children or adolescents. The research questions that it set out to answer were 'why and how do males in Australia disclose to another person that they have been sexually abused?' Aims were to understand disclosure from the perspective of male survivors in Australia, identify the factors that inhibit, trigger and facilitate disclosure, and develop a theory of disclosure reflecting the processes involved.

This analysis of apocalyptic rhetoric brings nine generations of the written text of the Johannine Apocalypse into a contemporary (1989-1994) framework which includes phenomena such as self-determination, mutual interdependence and psychoterror. The discussion is mediated by disciplines and backgrounds of Religion and Literature. The critical method is religio-literary. Literary themes from the Johannine Apocalypse, especially themes of annihilation, torment, blessedness and rapture, structure the discussion. These themes are related to ideas of self-determination such as were proclaimed at the United Nations World Conference on Human Rights (UNWCHR), Vienna, 1993. The discussion questions the axioms of self determination, especially the matter of indivisibility which came to issue during UNWCHR, Vienna, 1993. Some policies and practices of the Australian government's human rights activities are discussed. Attention is then redirected to the Johannine Apocalypse as a polyvalent source of apocalyptic ideation and a source of social empowerment.

This thesis considers how ‘restorative justice’ has emerged as a legitimate response to crime. It presents the beginnings of a genealogical analysis of ‘restorative justice’ as it applies to criminal justice contexts. It comprises a ‘backwards-looking’ component, in which accepted historical accounts of ‘restorative justice’ are problematised, and a ‘forwards-looking’ component, in which a partial history of discourse of ‘restorative justice’ is presented. I conclude that these silenced discourses might be read as an incomplete and partial history of discourse of ‘restorative justice’. That is, ‘restorative justice’ ‘makes sense’ as an approach to criminal justice partly because of the credence of these discourses, upon which it relies, to some extent, for discursive legitimacy. These diverse and divergent discourses cast the ‘restorative justice’ project not as the unified and stable ‘movement’ as which it is usually portrayed, but as a fragmented and shifting phenomenon, comprised of a loose and heterogeneous assemblage of practices with variegated historical antecedents. Additionally, I conclude that some concerns raised by various scholars in the field – particularly in relation to the potential of ‘restorative practices’ to impact negatively on already marginalised and disadvantaged populations – are validated by this genealogy. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Attentional bias effects for threat and emotional words were investigated, using both the emotional Stroop and emotional lexical decision paradigms. Twenty-eight controls and twenty-eight survivors of sexual assault participated in this study, which comprised three key comparisons. First, key predictions of the threat and emotionality hypotheses were compared, in particular specific and general threat effects, and positive and negative emotionality effects. Second, two separate group comparisons were conducted, specifically controls versus survivors of sexual assault overall, and a matched subset of controls versus PTSD positive survivors of sexual assault versus PTSD negative survivors of sexual assault. Third, performance on the emotional Stroop task and emotional lexical decision task paradigms were compared directly. Slowed colour naming responses (i.e. interference) were observed for both threat effects and emotionality effects in the emotional Stroop task. For the emotional lexical decision task, slowed lexical decisions (i.e. interference) were observed for threat effects, whereas speeded lexical decisions (i.e. facilitation) were observed for emotionality effects. The findings of the current study indicate that threat and emotionality effects may co-exist in both control and survivor populations. The relationship between the presence or absence of PTSD symptoms and threat and emotionality effects requires further investigation with larger sample sizes. There may be a relationship between the presence of PTSD symptoms and specific threat effects, however the findings of the current study for general threat information were inconclusive. No relationship was evident between the presence of absence of PTSD symptoms and positive or negative emotionality effects. The current findings suggest that the emotional Stroop task may be better suited to quantifying threat effects but not emotionality effects, whereas the emotional lexical decision task appears to be able to quantify both threat and emotionality effects.

This thesis presents a feminist genealogy of ideas concerned with male violence against women from the late nineteenth to the late twentieth century. The thesis has two components: the first examines feminist, psychotherapeutic and socio-legal literature, examining how knowledge about female victims of male violence has been constituted; the second analyses memory work conducted with two groups of women exploring personal meanings about victims and violence. Each chapter describes pivotal moments in the history of women and violence showing how seemingly disparate ideas emerged to become precursors of contemporary knowledge which have given rise to a range of institutional responses to violence. Late nineteenth-century feminists created new ways of speaking about violence against women, however, their ideas were incongruent with prevailing discourses of the era. The advent of Freudian thought also brought about a new language with which to talk about violence placing the victim of violence firmly under the therapeutic gaze. During the 1930s and 1940s the founders of victimology utilised Freud's work as evidence for their proposition that female victims were often complicit in their own victimisation. In the1970s feminists challenged victim blaming ideology and redefined violence as a social and political issue. Twentieth century psychotherapeutic discourses tended to position victims of violence within discourses of psychopathology. However, more recently survivors have been defined in terms of traumatisation, constituting alternative possibilities for subjectivity following victimisation. The memory work used in this study enabled a consideration of the relationship between discourse and women's understandings of violence. Although remnants of all the discourses could be found in the women's narratives, some resonating with more authority than others, no one discourse operated deterministically to totalise subjectivity. Rather, it is evident that identities associated with survival are complex, dynamic and fluid. The legacy of the discourses described in this thesis continues to be apparent in community attitudes, institutional responses to violence and survivors' concepts of self. This thesis considers the potential implications of these discourses for women's subjectivity.

This thesis examines the relationship between justice and recovery for survivors of sexual violence in the aftermath of armed conflict. Using the case study of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the thesis evaluates whether international criminal justice can contribute positively to victim vindication and restoration. While the historical war crimes tribunals at Nuremberg and Tokyo have been widely criticised for exercising a “victor’s justice”, this thesis illustrates a discernible shift towards a form of “victim’s justice” that extends beyond the parameters of punishment and proportionality for serious violations of international humanitarian law (IHL). Restorative principles of justice have thus been increasingly incorporated within current international criminal jurisdictions, reflected in victim-friendly legislation at the ICTY and the recently established International Criminal Court (ICC). These developments recognise the significance of justice for victims in the aftermath of armed conflict. (For complete abstract open document)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Psychology, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

<p>The police interview is one of the most important investigative tools that law enforcement has close at hand, and police interview methods have changed during the twentieth century. A good police interview is conducted in the frame of the law, is governed by the interview goal, and is influenced by facilitating factors that may affect the elicited report. The present doctoral dissertation focuses on police interviews in cases of very serious crimes of violence and sexual offences. Results reveal crime victims’ and perpetrators’ experiences of being interviewed and police officers’ attitudes towards conducting interviews related to traumatizing crimes. Study 1 revealed that when police officers interviewed <i>murderers</i> and <i>sexual offenders</i>, the interviewees perceived attitudes characterized by either <i>dominance</i> or <i>humanity</i>. Police interviews marked by dominance and suspects’ responses of <i>anxiety</i> were mainly associated with a higher proportion of denials, whereas an approach marked by humanity, and responses of being <i>respected</i> were significantly associated with admissions. In line with Study 1, the victims of rape and aggravated assault in Study 2 also revealed the experience of two police interview styles, where an interviewing style marked by <i>dominance </i>and responses of <i>anxiety</i> was significantly associated with crime victims’ omissions of information. Moreover, a <i>humanitarian</i> interviewing style, and crime victims’ feelings of being <i>respected</i> and <i>co-operative,</i> was significantly related to crime victims providing all information from painful events. Special squad police officers’ attitudes towards<i> interviewing</i> <i>crime victims</i>, in Study 3, also showed a <i>humanitarian</i> approach and <i>two dominant approaches</i>, one affective and the other refusing. The attitude towards <i>interviewing suspects</i> of crimes in focus revealed <i>humanitarian</i> and <i>dominant</i> interviewing attitudes, and an approach marked by <i>kindness</i>. The present thesis shows that, during their entire career, an overwhelming majority of the special squad police officers have experienced stressful events during patrol as well as investigative duty. Results show that symptoms from stressful event exposures and coping mechanisms are associated with negative attitudes towards interviewing suspects and supportive attitudes towards crime victim interviews. Thus, experiences from stressful exposures may automatically activate ego-defensive functions that automatically generate dominant attitudes. Moreover, it is important to offer police officers who have been exposed to stressful events the opportunity to work through their experiences, for example, through debriefing procedures. After debriefings, police officers are better prepared to meet crime victims and suspects and, through conscious closed-loop processes, to conduct police interviews without awaking ego-defensive functions. </p>

<p>Bakgrunden till den här uppsatsen finns att hitta i min något idealistiska bild av nyhetspressens eviga sökande efter och uppdagande av sanningen. Den bilden, i kombination med den senaste tidens skriverier om bland annat Hagamannen och dennes offer, fick mig att fundera kring nyhetspressens eventuella konstruerande eller reproducerande av våldsbrottsofferdiskursen.</p><p>Jag använde mig av Faircloughs kritiska diskursanalys då jag analyserade 36 nyhetsartiklar och nyhetsnotiser från Aftonbladet, Expressen, Svenska dagbladet och Dagens Nyheter, vilka alla hade publicerats under 2005/2006. Fokuseringen i undersökningen låg på den lingvistiska nivån i texten, det vill säga på ord, styckekombinationer och meningsuppbyggnader men även på de diskursiva praktikerna som fanns att finna i texterna.</p><p>Det huvudsakliga som kom fram i undersökningen var att det inte finns en våldsbrottsofferdiskurs värd att tala om i svensk nyhetspress, den är alltid underordnad könsdiskursen och åldersdiskursen. Det finns inga våldsbrottsoffer i svensk nyhetspress, bara män och kvinnor i olika åldrar som blir utsatta för brott</p>