Citation

Wozniak DF. Glob. Public Health 2009; 4(5): 453-463.

Affiliation

Department of Social Work, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/17441690902815488

PMID

19513913

Abstract

Concepts of health or healing remain conspicuously absent in intimate partner violence intervention literature and practice within the USA. Instead, interventions generally end with 'equilibrium' or 'maintenance' in which women are no longer in crisis and are no longer in a violent relationship. But this ignores an important and necessary trajectory for intervention - healing. Following the logic of Van Gennep (1960) and Turner (1969), I suggest that most interventions leave women in a state of liminality, struggling to develop an alternative social and interpersonal identity to that of 'victim of abuse', or a 'survivor of violence'. This paper examines final stage healing as a rite of passage effected in an experimental women-centered intervention.

Language: en