Abstract
In the present study, we draw on interviews conducted with 60 homeless women (N = 60) in Detroit and Chicago about their experiences of violent criminal victimization and their attitudes toward accessing various postvictimization assistance—in particular, mental health counseling. Contrary to the research literature, which tends to overemphasize pathological responses to victimization within this population, what our data reveals is the extent to which victimized homeless women exhibit signs of resiliency through both attitudes and coping behaviors. Further, their expressed attitudes demonstrate the existence of a complex set of relationships between trauma, resiliency, and the desire to access mental health services. These findings we suggest have implications for the delivery of mental health services to this group.
In a recent article on the state of victimology, Sandra Walklate (2011) noted the tendency of researchers to focus near exclusively on maladaptive responses to criminal victimization. With some notable exceptions, issues such as resiliency and the capacity for crime victims to experience posttraumatic growth have received little scholarly notice (Ronel & Elisha, 2011). The lack of scholarly attention to these issues has been particularly striking in relation to research on homeless adult women, one of the most vulnerable and highly victimized groups in society. In a search of the relevant research literature, we noted several hundred journal articles examining the negative effects of violent victimization on homeless females. By way of contrast, we could locate only three articles that dealt with homeless women’s capacity for resiliency (Boes & van Wormer, 1997; Humphreys, 2003; Stump & Smith, 2008). Whether intentional or not, such gaps in the literature promote a view of homeless women as not only an inherently vulnerable group, but as one whose members are incapable of overcoming the adversity of victimization and exercising agency in positive ways. As Boes and van Wormer (1997, p. 408) note of the literature on female homelessness more generally, there is a “is a profound tilt toward the pathological.” We would argue that this tilt is especially disconcerting when issues of victimization are raised.
Drawing on research conducted in Chicago and Detroit of homeless women’s experiences of violent victimization, we present an alternative view rooted in their thoughts, beliefs and experiences. Through analysis of semistructured interviews with 60 women, we found that a majority of participants exhibited signs of resiliency through positive attitudes and coping behaviors. Intriguingly, we also found that although many interviewees saw mental health programs as a desirable means of facilitating the process of overcoming trauma, such views were not universally held. Instead, it would appear that willingness to enter therapeutic programs to deal with issues related to violent victimization is a complex decision, rooted in how a woman understands and weighs what she perceives to be the personal costs and benefits of counseling. The presence of resilient attitudes and beliefs appears to be only one factor among many in deciding to seek counseling services. As we argue in the conclusion of this article, these findings have significant implications for the delivery of mental health services for victimized homeless women.
Resiliency: The Often Overlooked Factor
Resiliency is generally understood as an individual’s capacity to overcome significant adversity and hardship through positive modes of adaptation. Within the social scientific literature it has been defined as a “combination of innate personality traits and environmental influences that serve to protect individuals from the harmful psychological effects of trauma or severe stress, enabling them to lead satisfying and productive lives” (Bogar & Hulse-Killacky, 2006, p. 319). Some researchers have further suggested that we can delineate between three different forms of resiliency: As a positive outcome in the face of adversity; as continued positive functioning in ongoing adverse circumstances; or as recovery after significant trauma (Schoon, 2006). Others note that not only is it possible to overcome trauma, but to also experience posttraumatic growth (PTG), ranging from small but meaningful attitudinal or behavioral shifts to profound life changes (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996).
Although we are beginning to develop a better understanding of how some individuals can successfully overcome—indeed, grow from—experiences of violent victimization, to date none of this work has focused extensively on one of the most heavily victimized groups in society: Adult homeless women (Evans & Forsyth, 2004). We know from Boes and van Wormer (1997)’s descriptive study of the lives of two homeless women encountered in an Emergency Room setting that such individuals have inner strengths that allow them to persevere in adverse settings. We also know from Stump and Smith’s (2008) study of the capacity of homeless women to experience posttraumatic growth following multiple traumas that women without a wide network of social supports can and do survive by calling on internal resources. Indeed, they found that the women in their study were more resilient than individuals in groups we would expect to have greater access to various forms of social support (Stump & Smith, 2008, p. 478). Similarly, Humphrey’s (2003) study of women residing in a San Francisco area shelter for victims of domestic violence found that although research participants had suffered significant psychological distress, they also demonstrated higher levels of resilience than other groups, including individuals in public housing and Alzheimer’s caregivers (Stump & Smith, 2008). As intriguing as these results are, it is important to note that two of these studies did not look specifically at violent victimization and, in particular, the capacity of homeless women to be resilient in the face of one or more experiences of violence in their lifetime.
If the available research on resiliency among violently victimized homeless women is so limited, how can we understand how resiliency is observed within this population and the relevant factors that might influence positive adaptive processes?
Within the literature on resiliency and trauma, a number of scholars have operationalized resiliency as a concept largely “synonymous with human strengths” (Miller, 2003, p. 240; see also Walsh, 2003). This is no less the case with the few studies available that explore resiliency within homeless populations more generally. Most notably we find “personal strength” as one of the five subscales that make up Tedeschi and Calhoun’s (1996) Post-Traumatic Growth Inventory, a model, which has been used by researchers Stump and Smith (2008) in studying homeless women. Qualitative researchers have also employed “personal strength” as a factor explaining resilience among homeless individuals. Notably, Kidd sought “resilience narratives” from homeless youth by asking them “for their life stories, what keeps them going, and what they pull from to get by” to “get at strength, coming from aspects of the self, from others, and from things people do” (Kidd & Davidson, 2007, p. 219). Among the characteristics that homeless young people identified as helping them to cope were feelings of personal strength, a strong sense of self-identity, self-reliance, and the ability to adapt and survive (Kidd & Davidson, 2007). Some also cited spiritual beliefs and the practise of those beliefs as central to their ability to cope with past trauma and present adversities (Kidd & Davidson, 2007). Although these authors do not specifically employ the concept of resilience, Rew and Horner’s (2003) study of “personal strengths” as protective factors for homeless youth living in high-risk environments demonstrates that survival on the streets often entails the ability to recognize, access, and develop both internal and external resources. Such internal resources include optimism, self-reliance, self-confidence, and the ability to make and retain positive relations with friends and peers (Rew & Horner, 2003). In a study of homeless female runaways, Williams, Lindsey, Kurtz, and Jarvis (2001) identified four themes associated with the development of resiliency following trauma: “determination,” “meaning and purpose in life,” “caring for self,” and “receiving help from others.” Determination is defined by these authors as “ behaviours and qualities that resulted in a developing sense of self-confidence and self-sufficiency: tenacity and persistence in attaining goals, inner strength, and pride in making it through adversity” (Williams et al., 2001, p. 242). In a later article from this same study, Williams and Lindsey (2005, p. 35) note “the role of faith also seemed to play a key role for the more resilient young people.” In essence then, to understand resiliency within this population, we ought to be looking for similar signs of personal strength and its manifestation in adaptive strategies such as positive social relations, self-care, and spiritual practise among others.
One of the more intriguing questions that has yet to be tackled by researchers is whether victimized homeless women who self-identify as resilient and/or who exhibit positive adaptive traits and behaviors are more or less likely to hold positive attitudes toward the use of mental health services postvictimization. Given the frequent assumption that mental health counseling is a crucial component of overcoming trauma (Fine, 1992), this is an important question.
Research examining factors linked to individual decisions to seek psychological counseling within the general population show that attitudes inform decision making and that those who have had previous positive results from counseling, who are not worried about social stigma and/or who have positive social supports, will be more inclined to seek assistance (Vogel, Wester, Wei, & Boysen, 2005). A further factor identified in the literature is perceived utility: Individuals who anticipate deriving positive personal benefits from counseling will be more likely to seek assistance (Vogel & Wester, 2003). Studies suggest, however, that perceived utility can be offset by anticipated risks associated with disclosure (Vogel et al., 2005). What we abstract from our reading of these studies is a portrait of the individual as a rational actor who weighs the costs and benefits of seeking psychological help in relation to their unique personal and social situation.
Of the available literature on homeless women and decision making with respect to service usage, it would appear that—despite their representation as pathological figures—they are also actors who seek to maximize benefits and minimize costs associated with a course of action (Fine, 1992; Grella, 1994). For example, Finfgeld-Connett (2010, p. 464) notes that “homeless women tend to assess the pros and cons of the services that are available. They make judgments about the status of their personal well-being, whether the services appear to meet their needs, and if the benefits seem to outweigh the disadvantages of entering and remaining in the service environment.” These assessments may be similar to, or differ radically from, how a differently situated individual would evaluate needs, benefits and costs associated with a particular action, because each person’s situation is unique and the homeless woman must often confront barriers to counseling, as well as other inhibitory factors resulting from race, class, gender, and personal history (Fine, 1992). Whether resiliency plays a direct role in shaping perceptions of costs and benefits associated with postvictimization counseling remains an open empirical question, one that is the focus of the present article.
Method of Inquiry
This article is informed by data from an ongoing study of barriers criminally victimized homeless face in accessing policing, medical, and mental health services postvictimization. To explore these issues, we conducted in-depth semistructured qualitative interviews with 79 homeless women, of whom 60 reported experiences of violent victimization. It is these 60 interviews we draw on in the present study (for sample characteristics, see table 1).
Sample Characteristics
To locate potential research participants, we developed a nonprobability sample consisting of the maximum number of service agencies working with homeless women in Detroit and Chicago and asked these organizations if they would agree to participate in our research. Participation was defined as facilitating access to both organizational staff and clients. In total, 13 community organizations (six in Detroit and seven in Chicago) agreed to participate, including service providers that offer shelter, food, counseling, healthcare, and other services. Working through service organizations not only afforded access to their clients, but also provided us with spaces within which to conduct interviews, as well as access to counseling services should anyone experience discomfort during an interview.
The women who participated were self-selecting—that is, participants chose to be interviewed after hearing from service providers that we were conducting a study on criminal victimization and access to services postvictimization. None were offered compensation; their participation was strictly voluntary. Our eligibility requirements—aside from willingness to participate—were a minimum age of 18, currently homeless and appeared capable of understanding the nature of their consent. For each participant, we explained the nature of the study, went through the informed consent forms, and outlined the types of questions we would be asking. Once we were assured that they understood the nature of their participation and had signed the consent form, we began the interview. Interviews were typically of an hour’s duration and each was recorded with the knowledge and consent of the participant.
It has been said that the “strongest case for the use of grounded theory is in investigations of relatively uncharted water” (Stern, 1995, p. 30). As few studies have explored access to services for victimized homeless women, prior to entering the field it was decided to employ Glaser and Strauss’ (1967) grounded theory and to allow the data collected to inform our interpretive approach. Fortuitously, for logistical reasons, interviews for this project were conducted over the course of two separate visits to Detroit and Chicago. We describe the need for two research trips as fortuitous because during our first visit to each of these cities we were in “discovery mode” (Glaser, 1978), thus this first visit provided an opportunity to generate data that led us to formulate new ideas to be more deeply explored on our second trip.
Over the course of the first trip, we conducted 26 of the 60 interviews. These exploratory interviews centered on five key areas: (a) Basic demographic information; (b) experiences of victimization over the life course; (c) experiences of, or attitudes toward seeking assistance from (i) police, (ii) medical staff, and (iii) mental health services; (d) views as to facilitators and barriers to accessing services postvictimization, and; (e) recommendations for future programs, policies and/or services. After each interview, debriefing sessions were held during which team members compared notes, identified new themes that had arisen during an interview and developed further questions. Once these 26 interviews were completed, each was transcribed and coded. To code the interviews, we began by using open coding; we identified regularly occurring concepts in our transcripts and, following Glaser’s (1978) concept-indicator model, looked for various words and phrases that functioned as indicators for that concept. For example, during these early interviews, when women spoke about their attitudes and behaviors postvictimization they never employed the words “resilience” or “resiliency.” Instead, they used words such as “strong,” “strength” and phrases such as “getting over it” and/or “moving past it” to indicate resilient behaviors or attitudes. Thus, we coded for the concept of resiliency by looking for these and similar indicators in our transcribed interviews. As “personal strength” has been understood as a significant component of resiliency within the research literature, we felt this was appropriate to code for.
Once open coding was complete, we then went back and recoded our interviews, using a more focused approach to begin the process of drawing connections between concepts and subconcepts. In doing so, we were also beginning to develop a working theory that the relationship between resilience and women’s attitudes toward mental health counseling is not a straightforward one; but, instead, dependent on various individual and social factors.
As a result of this initial analysis, when we reentered the field to conduct the remaining 44 interviews, we were in “emergent fit mode” (Glaser, 1978), looking to assess the extent to which the new data collected fit with our initial results. To facilitate this process, we drew on the themes that had emerged during our first interviews to create an interview checklist. The checklist included subjects related to the five key areas explored through previous interviews, as well as subjects related specifically to trauma, resiliency, adaptive, and maladaptive coping strategies. This checklist served two important functions: It helped to focus our questions more specifically, and allowed us to engage in an initial focused coding of our data. Once the second set of interviews was transcribed, coded results from the checklists were verified against independently coded interview transcripts to reduce error.
Participant Characteristics
Of the 60 women represented here, the majorities were African American; however, our sample also included Caucasian, Latina, Native American, and Pacific Islander women. The youngest woman interviewed was 18 and the oldest was 70. The women also had a diverse range of experiences of homelessness. One young woman had been homeless for a week, whereas another woman had been homeless for the better part of 20 years. Several women reported having experienced multiple periods of homelessness.
We asked each participant about experiences of criminal victimization over the course of their life, grouping their answers into episodes of violence occurring in adulthood and childhood/adolescence (see Table 2). The most frequent form of victimization experienced in adulthood was intimate partner violence, followed by sexual assault. Those who experienced violence in childhood/adolescence most frequently reported physical assaults (usually by a parent) and sexual abuse (by a family member).
Individual Reports of Violent Victimization by Type
Fourty-eight of the women reported multiple instances of violent victimization (see Table 3). Reports included women who were victimized in childhood and adulthood, as well as multiple incidents of physical and sexual violence in adulthood.
Single or Multiple Incidents of Victimization Reported
Fifty-two participants self-identified as resilient. These women did not merely refer to themselves as “strong” or as “survivors” to indicate resiliency, but also expressed positive attitudes, feelings, behaviors, and coping strategies they attributed to helping them process and resolve issues related to past violence. In contrast, six of the women stated they did not see themselves as having overcome victimization and described themselves as vulnerable and/or weak. Two other participants were still having difficulty processing their situation and had mixed feelings about their post-victimization progress, seeing themselves as being both strong and weak at different times.
The majority of women interviewed—including those from each of the three categories identified in Table 4 above—had used mental health counseling services 1 at some point in their lives. Eighteen of these women were currently in counseling and 19 had received counseling in the past (see Table 5). Interestingly, we found that 23 of the participants had never received counseling and that this group included women from across the three categories identified. These findings are suggestive of the possibility that the presence of resilient attitudes alone are not necessarily indicative of whether a woman is going to use mental health services.
Resiliency Self-Identification
Usage of Counseling Services
Regardless of whether a woman had exposure to mental health counseling, we asked her if she saw such services as a personally useful tool for dealing with the effects of violent victimization. As can be seen in Table 6, the majority of women who self-identified as “resilient” saw mental health counseling as something from which they could derive personal benefits. This was also the case for four of the vulnerable women and the two women who expressed “mixed feelings.” In contrast, 19 of the resilient women either saw counseling as not personally useful or had mixed views on its utility. Lastly, two of the women who self-identified as “vulnerable” also did not see counseling as being useful to helping them overcome the issues they are facing. These results, particularly when fleshed out with the participants’ own words, reveal a pattern that suggests that attitudes toward mental health counseling do not neatly correspond to boxes marked “resilient” or “vulnerable.”
Attitudes Toward Counseling Services
Experiences of Victimization
In analyzing our interview data, we found that the women had reported, in total, eight different forms of violent victimization experienced over their respective life courses. In keeping with similar other studies (Tischler, Rademeyer, & Vostanis, 2007), the most frequently reported form of victimization was physical assault by an intimate partner. Several of the women were homeless after fleeing abusive domestic situations. For some, intimate partner violence was only one of several experiences of different forms of abuse in lives marked by violence. For instance, after relating a childhood of abuse and gang violence, a middle aged woman in Chicago said simply of her marriage in adulthood, “there was beatings.” Similarly, when we asked a middle aged woman in Detroit if she would ever report the sexual violence she had experienced on the streets to a police officer, she responded negatively. When asked whether the possibility of having to deal with a male police officer was a consideration, her response introduced previously undisclosed experiences of intimate partner violence. “It’s a shameful thing that happened. My husband hit me.”
Previous research has also shown that homeless women are frequently the victims of sexual violence (Evans & Forsyth, 2004), thus it was of little surprise to find that occurrences of sexual assault were also high in this group, with sexual assault by an acquaintance being the most frequently reported. For instance, a Latina woman in Chicago related the following experience: “It happened 3 years ago and . . . I was drinking with this guy and . . . I know him. I didn’t want to be with him. So, anyways, I don’t know what happened. He got me drunk. And he had sex with me.” A young African American woman in Chicago revealed that she had been sexually assaulted by a member of her deceased husband’s family: “this man grabs me and takes me under the porch on one of the buildings and raped me.” Some women reported multiple episodes of sexual assault, as was the case with an older woman in Detroit with a long history of homelessness. In response to the question “have you ever been sexually assaulted?” she answered the following:
An attempted rape. I was actually raped once and an attempted the second time out there. It wasn’t in Michigan, it was in Florida.
How many times have you been sexually assaulted?
Altogether you mean? It’s been several times.
Homeless women who have been sexually abused as children have been found to be at increased risk of sexual victimization as adults (Hudson, Wright, Battacharya, & Sinha, 2010). In our sample, we encountered 14 women who reported both forms of this victimization.
Twenty-four participants reported experiences of physical assault in adulthood, usually by strangers, although occasionally by acquaintances or adult family members. One middle-aged woman in Detroit reported being randomly attacked by another shelter client. Her assailant struck her in the face hard. When asked if this was an unusual event, she replied, “I’ve had people try to attack me. Once somebody bit me in the arm and I was in the hospital.” Another woman stated that it was not unusual when she was sleeping outside or panhandling to have random strangers throw things at her. For others, violence was connected to experience in the sex trade or disputes with adult family members.
We obtained the lowest reporting rates for robbery and attempted murder. Eighteen of the women reported having been robbed. One young woman stated that she wasn’t immediately aware of what was happening, when a man flashed a knife and grabbed her purse, because she was listening to loud music. Another woman was robbed while she was out with her children. As she described the scene, “All my kids were crying. I had blood on me. I was pregnant.” When asked if this was her only experience of robbery, she responded, “Nooo! [laughs]. I wish it was. I’ve been robbed a few times. Jumped.” Three women reported incidents of attempted murder. These reports included incidents involving domestic violence, in which a partner or former partner brandished a gun or attempted to choke the victim to death.
We also asked about violent victimization during childhood and adolescence. In total we received 28 reports of physical abuse and 25 of sexual abuse. Altogether we found that 37 of the women had histories of childhood abuse, several having been victimized both physically and sexually. Among them was a young African American woman who simply stated, “It’s like I had some very traumatic experiences during my childhood with emotional and psychological abuse, physical abuse and stuff.” A woman in Chicago with a history of severe family violence began recounting her history as follows: “I was raped by the time I was three. Sorry, five. Five. When my Dad was in the house.” She then went onto detail how her father “whupped me. Busted my skin.”
Twelve of the women cited histories that included gang violence in adolescence. One was a young woman in Detroit, who initially responded negatively to queries about victimization. When she was asked again later in the interview about the violence she had been exposed to in her life, she began to open up: “Abuse, gang violence, fights and all that.” A middle-aged woman in Chicago who had grown up in a violent family environment reported that “at 12 years old, I was associated . . . it’s just something that happens.” She then went on to provide several examples of gang-related violent victimization, including having had guns pulled on her, being threatened by rival gang members and experiences of sexual assault. “I used to hang with the gangbangers,” she explained, “I was not gang. They raped me.”
Resiliency After Violence
As noted, we asked study participants how they saw themselves and their ability to function in the world, both immediately after their victimization and since, as well as the extent to which they felt they had overcome their experience(s). Six women self-identified as vulnerable, two expressed mixed feelings, seeing themselves as both “vulnerable” and “strong,” and 52 of the women described themselves as “strong” and referenced resilient attitudes and behaviors.
Typical of the responses received from the six participants who saw themselves as “vulnerable” were the comments of a young woman who stated that the she felt “weak” because of the “shame” she felt over her use of heroin and cocaine to deal with the effects of sexual assault and intimate partner violence. When asked why she felt ashamed, she replied that she had seen herself as “so different from everybody else.” A woman in Detroit, who was battling major depression and had made multiple suicide attempts, similarly said that she did not see herself as strong. When asked how it was that she was able to continue functioning in her daily life, she replied, “I didn’t want my kids growing up saying my momma didn’t love me enough, she killed herself. That’s what kept me here.” Another woman with a history of physical abuse stated that she felt weak and vulnerable because she was dealing with ongoing mental health issues that caused her to leave her home state. “When am I gonna stop running?” she asked in frustration, “when I am going to learn to fight?”
Two of the women in our sample revealed mixed feelings, indicating that they saw themselves as strong and resilient in some ways but as vulnerable or weak in others. One of these women was a 29 year old who had been homeless for a few months. She said of herself, “I feel that I’m very strong, especially to deal with the things that go on.” However, she subsequently added, “I know that here lately, I’ve been feeling a little weak. Just the littlest things gets to me and I feel that there’s no hope.” Similarly, a 24 year old Chicago woman stated, “I don’t think I’m a weak person, but I know that there’s many times where I feel weak.” As noted earlier, both of these women revealed that they were still in the process of dealing with the effects of violence.
More frequently, women described themselves as either resilient and/or having become resilient following their experience(s) of violent victimization. To do so, they most often employed the word “strong” to self-describe. For example, a pregnant 19 year old victim of sexual assault with a history of child abuse resulting in placement in the foster care system, said of herself and her ability to cope, “I’m a strong person.” Speaking of her history of abuse, she noted, “it made me a stronger person.” She was comfortable referencing that history because, “in the end, it make me stronger talking about it. You become something more than an assault victim.” When we asked a young African American woman in Chicago about how she had dealt with sexual assault, robbery, and intimate partner violence, she stated with pride that she had gone through such things “and I still kept my head up strong.”
We asked those who saw themselves as “resilient” to what factors they attributed their “strength.” In some cases, women cited lessons learned from childhood experiences as a significant factor. As an example, when describing how she was dealing with the trauma from her past, a woman who had fled an abusive husband stated, “I feel like I have to be strong.” When asked why, she reflected on childhood experiences of adversity and her family’s belief that hardship could be overcome through personal strength: “I lost my parents when I was young. So I’ve always heard, ‘You’re the oldest. You’ve got to be strong.’”
In keeping with other studies that suggest that optimism is a major contributing factor to fostering resiliency (Williams et al., 2001), we found that the majority of “resilient” respondents saw themselves as positive people with an optimistic outlook that helps carry them through adversity. As a 43 year old woman living in a Detroit shelter explained of herself, “I’m a good morning person . . . I’m grateful that I woke up this morning and I’m not where I was. I feel like my worries are few because I woke up this morning.” A 20 year old woman in a shelter in Chicago said of herself, “I’m not going to tell you what’s wrong with my day. I’m going to tell you what’s good about my day . . . and make you smile.”
Self-blame and feelings of responsibility over one’s victimization are often significant sources of distress faced by victims of sexual assault (Breitenbecher, 2006). In the case of some of the women we met who self-identified as “resilient,” their ability to be resilient was strengthened by the fact that they were able to recognize what was done to them was not their fault. For example, in speaking of the childhood sexual abuse she suffered, an African American woman in Detroit noted that she was unwilling to accept blame or responsibility for what happened to her, stating that this attitude helped her deal with the abuse. As she said, “I never thought that it was my fault.” A women in another Chicago shelter, who had herself been the victim of intimate partner violence as an adult and sexual abuse as a child, similarly refused to accept responsibility for the victimization: “It’s not mine, so you can have it.”
Spiritual faith often serves as a buoy for homeless citizens (Kidd & Davidson, 2007; Williams & Lindsey, 2005). This is no less the case for those in our study who saw themselves as “resilient.” “I pray a lot,” an African American woman in Chicago said, “I ask God to remove those things that I have no control over.” A woman in Detroit with a history of gang violence explained that her spiritual faith helps her to envision a better future: “I see myself in a house. And I know all I endured to get there. I already picked out my colour . . . this is just a test, that’s the spiritual part of me.”
The ability to create and maintain positive relations with peers has been cited as a self-protective factor within homeless studies (Rew & Horner, 2003; Valentine & Feinauer, 1993). Thus, not surprisingly, several of the women cited positive social relations with other homeless women or staff members in their shelter as a major source of self-confidence and support in dealing with their victimization. One woman described the support she receives from her friends in the shelter in the following terms: “Most of us that’s in the shelter have the same problems. So, might as well talk about it with them. We [are] like a little family.” When we asked a 36 year old African American woman who has survived childhood physical abuse and adult domestic violence if she sees herself as a resilient person, she replied, “I do considering where I’ve been and came from, yeah.” She attributed her resilient attitude to her ability to make close, supportive friendships: “I have a friend that’s my support system. He gets me through like everything. I have two other ones. They get me through everything that I’m going through. They make me so strong today.”
Resilient attitudes were often illustrated with specific examples through discussions of positive coping strategies. For example, some of the women spoke of how being actively engaged in positive physical or mental activities outside of the shelter helps them not only self-care (Williams et al., 2001), but to also cope with residual issues from the past and present stressors associated with being homeless. One woman we met in Chicago lifts weights and another takes her dog (who lives nearby with a sister) for daily walks. A middle-aged Native American woman advised that she likes to “go for long walks over out at the beach” or to “go and sit in the library and pick up a book and start reading . . . and get lost in it.”
The majority of interviewees also attributed some or all of their ability to deal with their victimization in positive ways to their development of cognitive strategies that allowed them to compartmentalize their feelings, and thus to mentally and emotionally distance themselves from their experiences of violence. Most of the women described such strategies using terms such as “moving on” or “letting go.” As an example, one woman stated that to deal with the violence in her past, she made a conscious decision to “let it go, otherwise it will kill me.” A woman in Chicago had so completely distanced herself from her experience of sexual assault that when we initially asked her if she’d ever been sexually victimized, her first response was negative. She then contradicted herself, acknowledging that “it don’t bother me like that because I like put it in the back of my head.” Another interviewee acknowledged that she actively compartmentalizes her experiences of victimization: “I cannot think about any negatives . . . I know there’s no one else I can push it off on. If I think of everything’s that happened, it’s not gonna do me any good to get depressed. It’s just gonna drive me down.” For this young woman, it is important to “do what I need to do” to “get my life together.” In instances where this strategy was cited, we learned that the distance provided through compartmentalization allowed a woman to gain new perspective on her experience and its aftermath. Rather than staying rooted in the trauma of the victimization, women who spoke about compartmentalization tended to see it as a tool to help them in the pursuit of their life goals. “I trained myself so that if something happened, I will leave it, let it go and move on,” said a young woman in Detroit, “since then when something bad happened to me I kinda let it go and move on.” For her, this strategy is critical because, as she said of herself, ‘You gotta future to look to.’”
As seen above, the desire to overcome the trauma of violence is often closely associated with dreams of a positive future. Indeed, the majority of “resilient” women in our sample held positive personal aspirations and/or were taking steps to make their dreams a reality. Some of their stated goals were small and personal, such as the desire of a middle-aged woman in Detroit to visit her relatives in Canada. Another woman wanted to repair her family, and so while at the shelter, she and her husband were attending various programs to gain sobriety and regain custody of their children. A middle-aged woman we met in Chicago with a history of family, gang and domestic violence, was released from prison with the desire to rebuild her relationship with her sons. She proudly discussed how she and sons were now visiting and speaking regularly on the phone. Other dreams involved fresh starts through employment or education. For example, a couple of the women spoke of plans they had made to get jobs and begin over again in new cities or states. One woman in Chicago explained how she was overcoming the negativity and hardship in her past as follows: “I haven’t been a very nice person all my life. God may be punishing me. I’m comin’ back. I’m goin’ to school!” She was not alone; several women were either attending school or planning on beginning courses. One was a young victim of domestic violence currently attending law school. Another was a young woman who had been forced into sex work and was finishing her last year of high school to “transfer to either Wayne State or UCLA or any southern Baptist college for psychology.” Some of the aspirations shared involved other potentially life-changing courses, as in the cases of the two young women in Detroit who told us they wanted to enter the navy and the air force respectively, to learn occupational skills, develop personal resources and see the world.
Attitudes Toward Mental Health Counseling
It is somewhat axiomatic to view mental health services as a desirable, if not necessary, component of an effective treatment plan for dealing with the effects of violent victimization and other traumatic experiences (Bogar & Hulse-Killacky, 2006; Fine, 1992). Thus, initially, we expected to find that “resilient” women would generally hold positive attitudes toward mental health services and thus be more willing to attend therapeutic-oriented programs as part of a process of “active healing” (Bogar & Hulse-Killacky, 2006; Fine, 1992). While this was largely the case, we discovered a more nuanced, diverse set of responses toward the use of mental health services. These findings were reflective of the fact that the women interviewed tended to differentially weigh the costs and benefits of counseling, assessing whether therapeutic services would meet their individual needs given their situation and where they saw themselves in relation to the process of overcoming the effects of violent victimization. In this section, we discuss these attitudes in turn (positive, negative, and mixed) as they relate not only to the categories of women studied, but also to factors women cited as important to shaping their views.
In the majority of cases our assumption was borne out; women who self-identified as strong or resilient did hold favorable attitudes toward the use of mental health services. For example, a woman who is herself dealing with the effects of intimate partner violence without support, felt that counseling would be a good option for her because victimization-related issues “may hit you at different moments, it would be nice just to have somebody there to talk with, to get it out.” A woman in Chicago, who had sought treatment for major depression after leaving an abusive partner, stated repeatedly that she views herself as a strong woman and that being strong is not antithetical to seeking assistance when it’s needed. Another woman who is in therapy to address issues stemming from a sexual assault, said of her counseling sessions, “I’m dealing with the stuff that I do know now and hopefully it brings out some more stuff so that I don’t hide it in the back of my head, so that it don’t come out later and hit me in the face.” Another young woman from Chicago stated that her visits with her therapist are beneficial to aiding her growth process: “I do talk about things that’s going on with me because if I do hold it in, I have resentments. I left everything out, resentments and anger and all types of stuff within me. If I’m holding things in and I know I’m not happy about it, of course, I’m not going to be the person I really want to [be].” She added, “as long as I got it out of me, I’m free.” For this individual, counseling and other programs offered at her shelter are beneficial because they aid in helping her not only in her goal of securing housing, but “to try to better myself.”
Four of the women who self-identified as “vulnerable” also saw counseling as potentially useful for helping them to resolve issues arising from past experiences of violence. Among them is a woman who said of herself, “I need help and I know I need help. Why won’t nobody listen to me? What do they want me to do? Hurt myself or hurt somebody else before they listen to me?” She had sought out therapy through her shelter and received a referral to a therapy group; however, despite her desire for assistance, she was unable to continue with the sessions. When asked why she had stopped attending the program, she replied, “I was working midnights and having to go to group in the mornings. It was hard. Then I had to go home and get just a little bit of sleep to go back to work at night. So, I just stopped going.” However, she had located a practise that offered one-on-one therapy sessions that could better accommodate her schedule, so she was “gonna go to this one.”
The two women who self-identified as having “mixed feelings” about how they were functioning postvictimization were also of the view that mental health programs could be personally beneficial. Indeed, one the women stated that she felt a lack of available counseling services was a significant hindrance to her ability to overcome the effects of victimization. What she wanted, she said, was “just want one person. My own person that I could really, really talk to,” a counselor to help her “get put on that balanced path, so that I can go forward and stop looking back.” This young woman, 18 and pregnant as a result of ongoing sexual abuse, had specifically come to her present shelter because of the various residential, counseling, medical, and other services she was told would be offered to her. After a week of being at the shelter and not being placed in a counseling program, she was frustrated and worried about the future, seeing mental health services as a necessary tool to help herself and her child. As she explained, “I tried and tried to forget about it. Let it go. Forgive it. But it keep coming back.”
Positive views of the merits of counseling were not, however, universally held. In fact, one third of the women either saw counseling as not being useful or held, at best, mixed views as to the utility of such services. This finding was particularly the case for “resilient” women, several of whom felt that counseling would entail costs outweighing any potential benefits. An important factor seen to influence “resilient” women’s negative attitudes toward the use of counseling services was whether they saw themselves as having more or less put past violence and its effects successfully behind them. Thus, given their stage in recovery, they felt attending counseling services would no longer be of any personal benefit. As one African American woman in Chicago explained, “I don’t think about this stuff [her history of childhood physical and sexual abuse]. It don’t faze me.”
For some of the “resilient” women, not only did counseling seem to lack potential benefits, but also represented emotional and psychological risks they were not prepared to take. In particular, they felt the process of reliving their experiences of violent victimization in a therapeutic setting would hinder any progress they had made on their own by forcing them to relive traumatic experiences and disclose those experiences and feelings to a therapist. Indeed, a woman in Chicago explicitly stated that she sees therapy as potentially side tracking her from continued progress in overcoming her victimization. Of counseling she said, “I myself wasn’t willing, because I was thinking, ‘why think about it? Why let it back in my brain?’ . . . I’d have to go there again . . . You’re not going to really concentrate on anything else. I myself am trying to concentrate on exactly what I have to do, nothing else.” As counseling can be a mandated part of a program offered by a community service provider, and thus inescapable, some of the women stated that they actively thwart the process by refusing to disclose their victimization and/or avoiding discussions of other things in their lives that they see as “bringing up the past.” One young woman openly resented her shelter’s mandated counseling, “I don’t get the point of counseling because why keep talking about it again and again? It’s just going to make it worse. Just sit there and keep telling them about it. Thinking about it. It’s just going to sit on your brain.” We note these women’s concerns over potential risks of emotional disclosure are consistent with other studies conducted within the general population (Kushner & Sher, 1989; Vogel et al., 2005). While it is not uncommon for resistance to emotional disclosure to be interpreted as a sign of individual pathology, for many victims “preserving emotional invulnerability” serves as a mechanism for maintaining a sense of control that can help them to weather past and present situations (Fine, 1992).
We note that two of the women who self-identified as “vulnerable” also held negative views of the utility of mental health counseling to help them overcome trauma. One of these individuals was a 39 year old Latina resident of Chicago with an extensive history of intimate partner violence, including sexual assault. Given her present situation, dealing with that history was not seen to be a high priority issue in her life. “Mostly,” she said, “I just worry about surviving.” Similarly, a 60 year old Detroit woman with a history of repeated victimization and chronic homelessness stated that, after a sexual assault, a doctor had recommended follow-up treatment and counseling. However, she was unable to follow through with either recommendation for “different reasons.” Although she chose not to elaborate on those reasons, it was clear that she was in a precarious living situation. The shelter she was staying at was a temporary hostel in which residents sleep on chairs and she was panhandling for spare change in the city’s downtown core, relying on kind strangers for transport back to the shelter at night. Thus, for her too, basic survival appeared to be a greater priority.
Not surprisingly, given that the women in our sample had frequently experienced multiple instances of violent victimization, the issue of trust and the negative costs of trusting strangers with one’s intimate details was also a theme in interviews with the two “vulnerable” women (see also Williams et al., 2001). When initially asked why she would never use counseling services, one said, “just trust issues.”
In relation to the seven women who had mixed views as to the utility of mental counseling programs, we note two interesting facts. First, each of these women was in the “resilient” group. Second, each woman had had experience with counseling programs—either currently and/or in the past. What we discovered is that their ambivalence toward counseling was largely based on unsatisfactory personal experiences. It appears that although therapeutic benefits were derived from the experience of talking out their problems, these women largely felt the therapeutic treatment they had received was not getting to the root of their issues, and thus had been of limited use. An example of this can be found in the words of a 47 year old woman in Chicago, who had been physically and sexually abused as a child and had undergone group counseling to deal with resulting issues. “I was able to talk about it in a group. When I did I felt okay. When I was there. But when I got out, I’m still feeling this hurt. It seemed like I was getting nowhere with it because it was still haunting me.” However, this group also held out the hope that future counseling might be of benefit to them, if the services provided could meet their present therapeutic needs but also fit with their current life situation and goals. For one woman, who continues to feel haunted by her victimization and suffers panic attacks as a result, such services would need to be offered “here at the shelter.” For another, therapy would be beneficial if “it didn’t take my mind off what I need to do here: housing, job.” In order to address what she perceives to be her most pressing problem, homelessness, this woman feels that she needs to “stay focused,” and thus counseling “could come in handy later on,” if it was available at the end of the business day (“when I’m done at five”). In short, as Finfgeld-Connett (2010) has similarly found, the issue of whether a given service is seen as effective at meeting not only a woman’s therapeutic but other needs is an important consideration in her decision making.
Concluding Remarks
The purpose of this article was to explore resiliency among homeless women who have been victims of violence. Our data reveals that contra the image of the pathological victim found within social scientific accounts, the majority of homeless women we interviewed expressed resilient attitudes and behaviors and were in various stages of overcoming victimization and its adverse effects. We also observed that perceptions of the utility of therapeutic counseling in aiding the process of overcoming trauma vary. For many of the women sampled, therapy is clearly seen as a welcome positive step toward overcoming victimization; however, our data suggests that we should not assume this is the case for all. One third of the women interviewed saw mental health counseling services as not useful or as of limited use. For some women, counseling was actually seen as a potential impediment to their ability to “get on” with life. These women felt that they had already successfully overcome their victimization and so were less inclined toward using counseling services and, in some cases, exhibited resentment over forced participation in mandatory counseling programs. Women also cited the need for having services that complement, rather than compete with, other priorities in their lives including securing work and housing. For women who are struggling with basic survival issues, counseling is, perhaps not surprisingly, seen as a lesser priority than securing shelter and other resources.
The present study is not without limitations. Although efforts were made to address issues related to disclosure, one important potential limitation we have to consider is the possibility that levels of victimization reported do not accurately reflect research participants’ actual experience—that is, our report rates may be lower because of participants’ unwillingness to disclose victimization. Thus, the actual number of victimized women in our original sample may have been higher than 60. Future researchers in this area need to be sensitive to disclosure issues and to take active steps to minimize them. Further, our study sampled women who are utilizing services, and thus excluded women who are on the streets and do not access community resources. Our justification for focusing on the former was that our initial research interest was in service access issues, and thus we sought the views of those already accessing services. Had we not excluded women who do not currently access services, our sample would perhaps have generated higher rates of victimization and fewer resilient women. Regardless, our results clearly indicate the need for broader study of resiliency and trauma across more diverse groups of homeless women.
Why is further study necessary? As our own research demonstrates, there is a complex relationship between individual and social factors in both the process of overcoming victimization and its effects, as well as in influencing women’s attitudes toward counseling services. Continuing research in this area has significant implications for the effective delivery of mental health services. Through improved understanding of the factors that encourage resiliency, we can create mental health programs that better capitalize on homeless women’s strengths rather than simply emphasizing their vulnerabilities (Ingram, Corning, & Schmidt, 1996). Further, improved understanding of resiliency processes would aid in the development of a therapeutic perspective that recognizes that women’s paths postvictimization are unique and dynamic, so that programs can be tailored appropriately. In short, we will be doing a better job of helping to empower women as agents, rather than treating them as weak and pathological objects.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Agnes Cole Dark Fund, Faculty of Social Science, University of Western Ontario.
Notes
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