Abstract
The many court-involved women who have experienced trauma in their lifetimes are particularly vulnerable to the negative outcomes of trauma. The purpose of this qualitative inquiry is to understand how women who have repeatedly broken the law incorporate traumatic experiences into their identities in such a way that they increase their agency, communion, or spirituality. The research also documents the types of traumatic experiences the women included in their life stories. Informed by narrative identity theory and the related theory of posttraumatic growth, the life stories of 118 women on probation and parole were examined for themes indicative of identity transformation through redemption or indicative of contamination and stagnation. The narrative accounts considered in this study involved sexual, physical, and psychological abuse; neglect; sudden or unexpected loss; violence exposure; and severe illness or injury. Nearly all women reported having at least one traumatic experience in their lifetime, and the majority incorporated the experiences into their identities. Posttraumatic growth most often included gains in communion (i.e., helping others and caring for others) and gains in individual agency (i.e., empowerment). Thirty women also described having generative concerns or taking generative actions to improve the well-being of others as an outcome of their traumatic experience(s). For women with children, becoming better mothers and protecting their children from victimization were the overarching themes of their redemption, communion, and generative narratives. The findings highlight the importance of community responses to traumatized girls and of counseling and therapy for justice-involved women. Several specific suggestions for supporting the development of trauma and survivor narratives as a therapeutic tool are provided as a means for clients to develop interpersonal connections and empowerment.
Traumatic events can be conceptualized as an incident or series of related incidents in which a person is damaged by harm or violence (DeVeaux, 2013). They include direct trauma and indirect trauma from hearing or seeing the trauma of another person (Tedeschi et al., 2018). Trauma is indicated by (a) a negative event (b) that is experienced as overwhelming, damaging, or threatening, and (c) which has long-term complex effects on well-being and ability to function (Goodman, 2017; Herman, 1992; Ringel & Brandell, 2012; Van der Kolk, 2014). Practitioners have developed interventions that reduce the negative effects of trauma (Covington et al., 2008) and these interventions are used with offender populations (Levenson & Willis, 2019; Tompkins & Neale, 2018).
Compared with women in the general population and men in the justice system, women in the justice system have an especially high prevalence of trauma. They have more often experienced physical and sexual abuse in childhood (Messina et al., 2006; Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000; Winham et al., 2015). They also have a high prevalence of separation from their children, living in unsafe neighborhoods and housing, and loss of loved ones due to illness or violence (Arditti & Few, 2008; Carlson & Shafer, 2010; Cobbina et al., 2014; Kubiak, 2005; Maschi et al., 2011). For many women, repetitive and combined types of trauma are related to substance abuse and mental health problems (Covington, 2007; Green et al., 2016; Hall et al., 2013; Salina et al., 2007; Salisbury & Van Voorhis, 2009). Because this constellation of difficulties occurs more frequently for women than for men (Gavazzi et al., 2006; Holtfreter & Morash, 2003; Reisig et al., 2006; Salisbury & Van Voorhis, 2009), there is a need to document how women in the justice system realize both positive and negative outcomes after trauma.
Consistent with narrative identity theory (McAdams, 2013) and the related theory of posttraumatic growth (PTG; Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004), this article reports on qualitative analysis that showed how women in the justice system incorporated traumatic experiences into their identities. According to narrative identity theory, some individuals construct accounts of negative events that reflect identity development that supports desistance from crime (Maruna, 2001; Stone, 2016; Stone et al., 2018). Alternatively, a person may construct an identity that incorporates a negative event as a contaminant that explains subsequent negative events. This outcome is called stagnation. Although some scholars have applied narrative identity theory to explanations of desistance from crime (e.g., Appleton, 2010; Maruna, 2001; Miller et al., 2015), research has not specifically focused on the connection of trauma to identity among women who have broken the law. Accounts of how women construct positive features of their identity out of traumatic experiences can provide models for women and helping professions seeking to address women’s trauma. Moreover, women’s accounts of traumatic events that become lasting contaminating features of identity can suggest reasons why some women experience long-lasting negative effects.
Narrative Identity Theory and PTG
Narrative identity theory research has established that an individual’s life story is a meaningful tool for understanding identity development and desistance from crime (Maruna, 2001; Stone, 2016; Stone et al., 2018). Life story narratives organize meaningful and important life episodes and events to construct individual identity (Vincze et al., 2014). Life stories often contain redemption scenes that show how an individual makes good of an adverse event and how this process leads to a positive feature of a person’s current identity (McAdams, 2013). Redemption scenes show gains in agency (i.e., achievement and increases in control, power, or status), communion (i.e., love, relationships, feelings of connectedness to others, and ability to help others), and/or spirituality (i.e., religiosity and increased faith or belief in a higher power, divine purpose, or connection with the world/universe). Generativity, the concern for future generations, is one form of communion. Life stories also contain evidence of stagnation, which occurs when an event “spoils” (i.e., contaminates) the future. These scenes that reveal redemption and contamination show how individuals make meaning and continuously reconstruct their identities in the wake of major adverse life events.
Tedeschi and Calhoun (2004) conceptualized the phenomenon of PTG as a positive change resulting from crises. PTG is a narrative process that is instrumental in understanding how the sense of self has been transformed for the better as a result of trauma (Pals & McAdams, 2004; Tedeschi and Calhoun, 2004). The outcomes of PTG include increased personal strength (e.g., feelings of power), improved interpersonal relationships, seeing new possibilities (e.g., pivotal changes in life priorities), gaining a new appreciation of life (e.g., greater life satisfaction), and spiritual/ existential changes (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004; Tedeschi et al., 2018). Life stories are critical to understanding PTG because they reveal changes in an individual’s sense of self after a traumatic event and they show how the transformed identity functions in the life story (Pals & McAdams, 2004). Whether or not an individual experiences PTG depends in part on how the individual narrates the trauma in relation to a sense of self. Research evidence supports this notion that PTG is influenced by an individual’s acknowledgment of an event’s significance and the individual’s positive cognitive construction of a resolution to the event in relation to the life story (Pals, 2000; Pals & McAdams, 2004).
There is evidence that trauma-focused treatment strategies support the development of positive trauma narratives. Neimeyer (2004) asserted that personal narratives are disrupted by trauma and loss, and that the narration of these negative events is an integral component of posttraumatic healing and transcendence. Narrative disruption involves a fragmentation of the survivor’s memory, resulting in an inconsistent and incoherent chronological narrative (Robjant & Fazel, 2010). To address this disruption, narrative therapies take a constructionist approach to posttraumatic healing and growth. Narrative therapists support the client’s development of a coherent personal narrative that results in mental well-being (Baerger & McAdams, 1999).
Research demonstrates the efficacy of using narrative therapies to expose survivors to trauma memories (Foa et al., 1995, also see Foa et al., 1991; Keane et al., 1989). For instance, Foa et al. (1995) observed that trauma narrative therapies reduced posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression symptoms in a sample of 14 female rape survivors. Another study of children with PTSD showed that including a trauma narrative component in cognitive behavioral therapy reduced children’s abuse-related fear and anxiety (Deblinger et al., 2011). This evidence is reason for understanding the process of justice-involved women’s PTG and for identifying narratives that result in stagnation.
Research Questions
We examined life story narratives to answer the overarching question, How do women who have broken the law incorporate traumatic experiences into their identities? Additional questions were as follows: What types of traumatic experiences do the women commonly identify in their life stories? How do they grow in agency, communion, and/or spirituality after traumatic incidents? How do some women’s narratives of trauma support contamination and stagnation?
Method
Sample
The present study is a secondary analysis of data collected from 118 women who participated in two consecutive 3-year studies over a 6-year period. All 402 women in the original sample had been convicted of a felony and began probation (i.e., a sentence to being supervised in the community instead of being incarcerated) or parole (i.e., community supervision after serving part of a prison sentence) approximately 3 months before the time of an initial interview in 2011 or 2012. The initial sample was restricted to women with a history of substance misuse because they constitute the majority of women in the correctional system (Fazel et al., 2017; Guerino et al., 2011; Lynch et al., 2014). The primary investigators recruited participants from the caseloads of 73 probation and parole agents in Michigan. To contain costs, agent selection was restricted to 16 counties within a 1.5-hr drive from the research office. These counties included urban, suburban, and rural areas. Agents identified 846 qualifying women, but not all women participated for reasons such as not responding to contact attempts or not reporting to the agent’s office when interviewers were on site. There were no statistically significant differences between participants and nonparticipants in official records of substance use, violations, arrests, misdemeanor convictions, and felony convictions in a 12-month period. Slightly more of the women who did not participate were incarcerated by the end of 12 months, so the sample is somewhat biased to exclude those women.
Life story interviews were conducted with women who had serious criminal histories. To select this subsample of 118 women, the researchers started with a list of 168 women randomly selected from all those with a history of at least five convictions. Of the 168 women, 32 could not be located, nine had moved out of state, three declined to participate, two had corrupted audiotapes, two were deceased, one was in a jail that prohibited an interview, and one discontinued the interview.
Participant Characteristics
The ages of the 118 women ranged from 22 to 59 years at the time of the life story interview (M = 39.98, SD = 9.19). The sample was racially diverse, as 44.9% identified as White, 36.4% as Black, and 17.8% as multiracial or “other.” One woman did not report her race. The majority of the women were mothers and 35.6% reported being the sole provider for their children. Before the life story interview, 95 women (80.5%) answered affirmatively when asked, “Have you had any experience that was extremely frightening, horrible, or upsetting?” When this question was asked a year after the life story interview, 104 said yes (88.1%). When asked about four current PTSD symptoms with questions developed by Van Voorhis et al. (2013), only 21.7% of the women reported experiencing none of the four symptoms, whereas 67.8% experienced two or more. Thus, we can conclude that most of the women in the sample had a traumatic experience.
Procedure
The university institutional review board approved all study protocol. Trained interviewers conducted the face-to-face life story interviews, which were usually held at public places that afforded some privacy (e.g., coffee shops) and which the participants selected. A US$75 incentive was paid in cash. Women’s life stories were recorded (with their consent) and then were transcribed and read into NVivo software for coding and analysis.
The Life Story Interview (McAdams, 2008) began with the interviewers prompting the women to identify the main chapters of their lives. Thereafter, the interviewer inquired about meaningful or significant scenes in the life stories (e.g., high point, low point, turning point, positive childhood memory, negative childhood memory, and challenges). Interviewers also asked study participants about their aspirations and expectations for the future.
Coding
In the first step in coding, the transcript for each woman was reviewed to identify accounts of (a) redemption scenes resulting in increased communion, (b) redemption scenes resulting in increased agency, (c) redemption scenes resulting in increased spirituality, (d) contamination scenes, and (e) negative events followed by unrelated positive events. A codebook developed by McAdams (2008) was used to identify these accounts. To establish validity in identifying accounts, the two authors coded 50 narrative interview transcriptions (just more than 40% of the transcripts). They achieved an acceptable level of agreement about the number of accounts (Guetzkow’s U = .083, which means that they agreed 91.7% of the time; Guetzkow, 1950). For the five specific themes (e.g., redemption scenes resulting in increased communion), the authors achieved a Cohen’s kappa of .837 for 257 passages in 50 transcripts. In instances of disagreement about the passages that should be coded or how a passage should be coded, the authors discussed the text, reached agreement, and recorded the mutual decision in the master data set. The authors then divided the task of identifying accounts in the remaining life stories.
In a second step of coding, the authors coded responses to questions about aspirations and expectations for the future for content reflecting generativity, explanations of future plans that did not include generativity, and stagnation (Cohen’s kappa = .886 for n = 118 passages). Finally, an author and another researcher coded the accounts of redemption into 28 specific types of sequences (Cohen’s κ = .755 for n = 116 passages). Several of these sequence types were relevant to trauma (e.g., being abused as a child, leading a woman to be a better parent to her child). In the final round of coding, the first author considered all the passages related to redemption, contamination, generativity, and stagnation and confirmed that they pertained to a traumatic experience. The trauma-relevant passages were the focus of analysis. She also categorized the different types of traumatic events, for example, child abuse and sexual assault.
Analytic Strategy
We examined the redemption accounts that involved trauma and identified common stories that showed how women linked trauma to growth in their agency, communion, and/or spirituality. We similarly identified common stories that revealed how women connected traumatic events to generativity, contamination, and stagnation. Finally, we compared accounts of redemption with accounts of contamination so that we could increase understanding of whether there was something about the narrative that differed for the two outcomes.
Findings
Nearly all women (110, 93.2%) included one or more traumatic experiences in their life stories, but not all of them connected these experiences to identity in accounts of redemption or contamination. More than half of the women described at least one trauma-related redemption scene, a quarter described trauma that led them to be generative, and just over one third described trauma that culminated in contamination (Table 1, last row). The highest number of women experienced growth in communion (n = 48), a sizable number gained in agency (n = 38), and some in spirituality (n = 27). The qualitative analysis revealed several patterns of how women incorporated trauma into their life stories and identities.
Number and Percent of Women Describing Trauma-Related Narrative Scenes.
Note. Percentages are calculated from the entire sample of 118 women. If a participant did not connect the event to her identity, it could not be coded as redemption, generativity, or contamination.
Reaching Redemption and Gaining Communion and Generativity
Motherhood, positive changes in relationships, and new life priorities
Women who gained communion through redemption increased their capability to care for others, relationships with others, and empathy for others. The highest proportion of women who gained communion had experienced an unexpected loss, the second highest had experienced sexual abuse as a child, and the third highest had been physically abused as an adult (Table 2 for these and subsequently noted frequencies).
Number and Percent of Women With Different Gains Associated With Redemption.
Note. Agency, communion, and spirituality are gains resulting from redemption, so this table only includes redemption scenes. One redemption scene could result in more than one gain and women could include more than one redemption scene in their stories. Percentages were calculated from the entire sample of 118 women.
For several women, redemption after trauma involved being better mothers to their children. For instance, Jasmine (pseudonym) disclosed that she was molested by a family member as a child shortly after losing her mother. She recalled, A negative childhood memory would be when my uncle was touching all over me and molested me. I had just lost my mother, and then this crap. It just kind of, just made me . . . just shut down to where when I was in school I wouldn’t talk, participate, or nothing. I never told anybody. I don’t know why.
Jasmine then shared how she found redemption from her traumatic experience. She reasoned, “My daughter . . . was the first one I told. I would always try to seal that image, somebody touches you, you tell me.” She continued, “I went through something terrible in my childhood, you know, and sometimes it might damage a person for life, but I guess I just didn’t . . . let it tear me totally down, and totally apart.” Jasmine learned from her sexual trauma and ended her silence about it to keep her child safe. Jasmine’s story illustrates an explanation that Tedeschi et al. (2018) set forth—that PTG can occur when motherhood increases women’s willingness to express emotions and connectedness to children, their intentional disclosure of the incident, and/or meaning making with the new priority of keeping children safe.
Similar narratives involving motherhood were shared by women who had experienced a sudden loss. Gloria recalled, When I was like four . . . my mom died. I lived with my grandma and grandpa because we all lived there and that was the best memories I have in my—pretty much childhood—was being with my grandma and grandpa.
Gloria explained that she had a “difficult time” with her stepmother, but she found comfort with her grandparents who “babied and loved” her. Connecting the experience to her identity, she explained that her time with her grandparents influenced how she raised her daughter. Gloria continued, “They showed me love and support to where I took that to my daughter . . . So that made me a better mother.” In this redemption sequence, Gloria gained communion by using her experiences with her mother’s death, a close relationship with her grandparents, and a negative relationship with her stepmother to be a “better mother” for her own child. Having love, support, and someone to care for after trauma was a common theme in women’s accounts of redemption.
Some women lost custody of their children (typically due to substance abuse) and they described this loss as traumatic but, similar to women who were abused in childhood, they were able to achieve redemption by continuously striving to be “a better mother.” In many cases, redemption involved getting sober, so they could increase their connectedness with children. Some women had more children to be better mothers to them and others attempted to reestablish relationships with children they were separated from. For example, Vicki explained that her “biggest failure was not trying to stay clean [off drugs] . . . when I was pregnant . . .” Vicki’s drug use resulted in losing custody of her daughter. She continued to explain that she lost another child who passed away while an infant, “I regret I never got to experience raising a child from birth. The only child I did have [as an infant], I was robbed of it four months later because my first-born died of crib death.” Vicki made efforts to overcome these losses by reconnecting with her daughter and establishing ties with the daughter’s adoptive family. She spoke with her daughter regularly and felt she had made great progress in establishing a bond with her. Vicki said, “She loves me. She tells me [about] having a boyfriend but she doesn’t tell her guardian . . . she confides in me and I feel good about that.”
In a different type of story of how trauma led to redemption through motherhood, Raven spoke about the effects of exposure to violence in her community, Right now . . . all my time and energy go to my son, tryin’ to keep him out these streets. I don’t want him to get caught up in these streets, because . . . when I was growin’ up . . . It wasn’t a thing to us to fight—protect your woman like a soldier and go on about your business, maybe I’ll fight again, cool, if not leave it alone. Now . . . they don’t—they don’t do that, they shoot. And this is my oldest son. I have a son under him, and I don’t want him to see . . . the path that his brother goin’ down. ’Cause his dad is in prison, and he gets out [in] August. Been gone nine years, my son is 13, so he live with his uncle now, because I don’t want him to see what his brother doin’, ’cause I don’t want him to try to do it. I don’t want him to follow in that road.
Raven’s exposure to violence led her to describe herself as generative, specifically as prioritizing keeping her sons safe from violence. Mothers who reported generative thoughts often linked them to improving the life circumstances of their children.
New possibilities to help other survivors
Helping through acts of service and sharing wisdom with other survivors, and thereby gaining in communion, was another common generative theme. In Nicole’s case, she made good out of the physical abuse she endured at the hands of her ex-husband, who tried to kill her. She felt that overcoming the abuse helped her to empathize with other survivors and led to her helping women and children. For 3 years, Nicole had been volunteering at, and taking food to, a local homeless shelter several times a week. She described the emotional support she provided, “I think I’m a very good listener. [I’ve] been there, done that, I can listen all day.” Women’s increased empathy and interactions with institutions that helped them, or people in similar circumstances, provided them with opportunities and inspiration for expressing generativity and connecting with others.
The most common type of traumatic event related to generative narratives was abuse or assault that occurred in childhood. Some women made meaning of childhood trauma by using it to realize a new calling or purpose. For example, Jasmine, whose description of her disclosure of abuse to her daughter was presented above, explained that after an extended stay in a substance abuse treatment program “[I] wanted to go on and . . . work with children . . . to try to help any troubled children that I could. That’s why I’m trying to get my bachelor’s in human services . . .” In addition to redemption, Jasmine described generative goals of pursuing a career focused on helping children who, just as she herself, had been victimized.
Reaching Redemption and Gaining Insight and Empowerment
Many women noted gains in agency (i.e., insights and feelings of power) associated with redemption through overcoming trauma. Several of them explained how they reconstructed their identities as survivors rather than victims. One type of scene began with traumatic sexual abuse in childhood followed by a downward spiral. A few women disclosed the trauma to a parent or other relative who either did not believe them or did nothing to help. However, they described eventually getting trauma-related mental health treatment either in a substance abuse program or from a therapist. They explained how counselors helped them to see how trauma had affected their lives, realize their own strength, and move forward. Anna commented, [The greatest challenge was] overcoming being abused. Being able to feel like a survivor rather than a victim. Survivor—you know you’ve made it through. A victim—for a while I played the victim, “Poor me. This happened to me and I’ll never get over it.” Now it’s, “I’m dealing with it, I survived it. And it will never happen to me again.”
Gabriella described a similar shift from being a victim to being a survivor, That was like a fork in the road for my life to where I could go left or right. And which is, I could go left and ignore it and pretend it didn’t happen and use drugs so I could really pretend it didn’t happen. Or I could have used it constructively without being a victim anymore and instead being a survivor and helped other women who had the same thing happen.
Both Anna and Gabriella gained insight into the connection between their childhood abuse and their drug abuse, and this increased their agency to make the decision to stop using drugs and, at least for Gabriella, to use the knowledge gained to help other people.
Also noting insight and empowerment that came with redemption, Ariana reflected on a 2.5-year relationship with a boyfriend who beat and, on one occasion, stabbed her: He used to beat me up. I had to try to numb myself [with drugs and alcohol] from the pain, irritation, and frustration . . . When I got done with him I was able to release all that . . . I know better. I got out of that [relationship] . . . It let me know that a man don’t love you that hit you . . . and that I deserve better. You [don’t] gotta turn to drugs. You can walk away if you’re strong enough.
Although Ariana did not use the word “survivor,” she clearly indicated that once she realized that her drug use was related to the physical abuse, she left. She also came to see herself in a positive light, as a person who did not “deserve” abuse and who was “strong.”
Reaching Redemption Through Connecting With God
Quite a few women gave accounts of episodes or events in which they made spiritual gains. They described how, after traumatic incidents, they experienced strengthened faith, increased concern about life and mortality, and enhanced connections with God, the world, or the universe. Misty’s story demonstrated how religion played a part in women’s redemption. When her fiancé died of an overdose, his parents gained custody of her son. After losing them both, she recalled, “I turned back to drugs because I didn’t want to think or feel.” Connecting the painful episode to her identity, she managed to find good in the situation. Misty reasoned, It let me know God was there. I could see the shell of my fiancé in his casket, and I knew there was no soul in there. I knew that God had already taken him, which really reinforced my belief in God. I had questioned God in the past.
Asked what the experience said about who she is as a person, Misty responded, “It says that I know my relationship with higher power. It gives me reason and purpose to live—shows me that we’re all here in person for a short time and not to be reckless.” Her spirituality brought her solace after the tragedy and she found a new appreciation for life.
Contamination
Losing loved ones
Women who gave accounts of sudden or unexpected loss related to contamination described death of loved ones or separation from them, especially children. In one example, Louisa told the interviewer about getting off drugs and doing well in life. She lost custody of other children in the past due to her substance use, but she got clean because she became pregnant again and wanted to keep her son. She described her situation as follows: Once I had him the doctors never told me I was in threat or jeopardy or that my child could be taken away from me because I had used [drugs] with the one before him. Two days out of the hospital they just took him, gone. On top of that, my placenta bag was stuck to my uterus so they had to give me a partial hysterectomy, so I immediately went into surgery; they took my uterus because I couldn’t get the after birth out. Not to mention I can’t never have kids anymore and here it is two days out of the hospital, I don’t even remember my son anymore, you just completely took him away from me and he 14 now and I don’t even know where he . . . other than that picture right there when he was two weeks old, I don’t even know what he looks like. I never see his face or anything. I never got the chance to hold, never seen him, they just rushed him straight to the emergency room . . . I was feeling hurt . . . I was feeling like why God . . . I’m like, why me . . . every time I take a step to do something right, bad is pushing me back down and I don’t want to feel no more so then I go to the other side of the world that I been experiencing every [day] since I lost my kids from the first time. Like losing my girls, it was just like all over again. So I don’t know, I just felt, I felt raged, I felt I didn’t care, I don’t care, I don’t love nobody, don’t nobody love me.
In this passage, Louisa made positive changes in her life (i.e., getting off drugs and doing the right thing) to become a mother to the child she was expecting. This positive change was spoiled because she unexpectedly lost the opportunity to mother her son and to bear more children.
Not all contaminating losses involved women’s children. For instance, Avery’s happy childhood ended when her 3-year-old brother was hit by a car and killed. After explaining the close relationship she had with her brother and that her parents no longer organized family activities, she described the rest of her childhood and adolescence as “very lonely.” The common theme in these accounts is that some women experienced losses that led to their seeing themselves as negatively affected in the long run with nothing good they could salvage from the experience. They expected a future of negative events and saw themselves in a long-lasting, if not endless, downward spiral.
Abused by family members and lack of social support
Women who were abused by family members often shared contamination stories in which they depicted themselves as suffering permanent damage to themselves and their communion with others. Marilyn divulged her experience of being sexually abused as a child by her brother. She explained, It affects me . . . a lot. Because . . . it just is nasty. Thinking of a family member trying to do that to you . . . I would never let him around my kid. Sometimes he’s over at my mom’s house and he’ll try to like hug my daughter. It makes me feel like I want to throw up and it’s just, so that negatively affected me forever . . .
Marilyn described her sexual trauma as a child as causing her to always see herself as unable to fend off her brother. Although she expressed the desire to keep her brother away from her daughter to protect her, she remained distressed that she had not been successful in doing so because of their familial ties.
In her contamination story, Maxine described how being sexually abused by her stepfather led her to withdraw socially, become uninterested in school, and eventually run away from home, which permanently damaged her relationships with her mother and sister. She had told her mother about the abuse, but her mother maintained her relationship with her stepfather. “I decided to leave because my resentment for her was eating me alive.” She also came to see herself in a negative light. She felt her decision to run away meant she was an “impulsive” person. After running away, she had tried to reconnect with her sister, but her mother would always “sabotage” her efforts. She said her greatest loss in life was losing her relationship with her sister, saying “Sisters are supposed to be close so losing our relationship makes me feel like I’m missing out on a relationship that we should have.”
Women who were victimized in childhood, and then not believed or protected by the people they told, described damaged family relationships, distrust of parents, and feelings of being unsafe. In contrast, a few women with a similar history reached redemption through positive disclosure experiences in adulthood. Processing trauma with the support of a counselor—even many years after the event—appeared to promote PTG. However, few women described discussing their trauma with a mental health professional. As we did not specifically ask women about whether they received trauma-informed interventions, it is not clear whether they received services that were ineffective or they received no services at all.
Discussion
Limitations and Future Research
Study limitations should be considered. First, the sample included women who had repeatedly been convicted, whose offenses included felonies, and who had a history of substance misuse. Because findings cannot be generalized to all individuals who have broken the law, there is a need for additional research with diverse samples. Second, it is possible that some scenes that showed how trauma resulted in contamination will be followed by eventual redemption. According to Tedeschi and colleagues (2018), progress in PTG depends on pretrauma individual differences, the characteristics of events, the scale of the event and how it affects schemas, how distress is managed and when, the nature of rumination and self-disclosure, sociocultural influences, and the narrative process. Future studies should ask specific questions informed by PTG theory to collect the data necessary for drawing valid conclusions about the effects of these multiple influences. Finally, the present study design was not intended to single out redemption from traumatic events as a singular influence on desistance from illegal activity. In addition to constructing identities that incorporate past trauma into current views of the self, people who have broken the law face challenges in constructing identities that link prior illegal activity to current prosocial selves (Maruna, 2001). Thus, we would not expect constructions of identities that incorporate trauma into a current positive view of oneself to be the only or even the primary influence on desistance.
Theoretical Implications
An overriding theme across the women’s narratives is the importance of communion with children and other family members as a way to achieve redemption. This finding is highly consistent with relational-cultural theory (Covington, 1998; Covington & Surrey, 2000; Jordan et al., 1991), which explains that girls’ and women’s development is heavily influenced by their connections with other people. It is also consistent with narrative identity theorists’ recognition that identity is influenced by gender-related, structurally available opportunities and cultural expectations (Giordano et al., 2002; King, 2012; Liem & Richardson, 2014). Motherhood and other forms of nurturing and helping people are emphasized in traditional conceptualizations of femininity and, as found in other research on women who broke the law (Miller et al., 2015), the women we studied emphasized motherhood in stories of redemption. Justice-involved women often have few alternative prosocial identities to motherhood (Morash et al., 2019), which may explain why Louisa felt unloved, despondent, and a sense of stagnation when she permanently lost the chance to have children.
In their experience of PTG, a sizable number of women (but fewer than those gaining communion) gained agency. Women typically grew after trauma by accessing resources in counseling and treatment programs and disclosing their traumatic experiences. Accessing resources and disclosing—both of which are components of PTG—helped women realize their strength and perceive themselves as survivors rather than victims. This shift in identity is an outcome of PTG and an indicator of empowerment (Tedeschi et al., 2018).
In addition to the opportunity to grow in the role of mother or helper and the availability of treatment interventions, we did not identify additional differences between women who eventually grew from their traumatic experiences and those who seemed to be “stuck” in perceiving themselves as victims. It would be a contribution to theory to extend future research on justice-system involved women beyond the narrative identity framework to determine what structural and individual characteristics are related to different outcomes after trauma. Some theoretical work has suggested that opportunity for change may be affected by stages in the life course and resources, as well as by individual motivations and preferences.
Giordano et al. (2002) conceptualized the interplay between individual preferences, motivations, opportunities, and catalysts for change as an influence on how highly delinquent girls changed (or did not change) once they became adults. Drawing on Giordano and colleagues’ (2002) theory of cognitive transformation, Hoskins and Cobbina’s (2019) examination of women’s cognitive shifts and identity change in carceral and substance abuse treatment settings found that treatment settings offer meaningful and needed opportunities for justice-involved women to pursue the development of new, prosocial identities. By applying this change process identified in the theory of cognitive transformation to understand the differential outcomes of trauma, we are not assuming that traumatized individuals typically break the law. However, there is some overlap in that one response to trauma is misusing substances to cope with the pain. We saw a similar process of change related to trauma and identity in our data. For instance, some women reached a life stage when they were outside of an abusive context and they had the opportunity and the motivation to get treatment and disclose abuse to a therapist. Only then were they able to stop destructive substance use behaviors and incorporate new understanding of themselves into their identities.
In a qualitative study of the narratives of women who had been abused as children, new opportunities such as marriage provided resources to leave disadvantaged neighborhoods and move to better resourced communities where there was more social support (Banyard & Williams, 2007). In a pattern similar to the cognitive change that Giordano et al. (2002) described, some women in the Banyard and Williams’ study talked about previously coping with prior abuse and other traumas by using drugs, and then changing themselves to cope in other ways. Banyard and Williams also found, as we did, that relationships with children, desires to protect and positively relate to children, and increased spirituality led to changes in childhood abuse survivors and thereby served as turning points. These changes were supported by external resources that included social support and opportunities to change.
Practice Implications
Because we used narrative identity theory to frame the research, and the study participants were on probation or parole in the community, findings are most directly relevant to the use of narrative therapy in community settings. Although counselors and therapists typically provide narrative therapy, often in substance abuse and mental health treatment programs, probation and parole officers can play a key role by drawing on the results of trauma screening and in-depth follow-up assessments to guide their referral of clients to appropriate therapeutic services. It is important to note that many probation and parole agencies promote the use of cognitive behavioral approaches that emphasize change in thoughts and behavior rather than identity development (Andrews & Bonta, 2010; Clark, 2010; Palmer et al., 2015; Van Voorhis et al., 2004). Our research suggests that alternative types of programming, such as narrative therapy, may be useful for the population that we studied either as separate from or combined with cognitive behavioral approaches. Thus, probation and parole agents should receive training so they are trauma-informed to the extent that they can make appropriate referrals for clients who have experienced trauma.
Our findings emphasize the utility of narrative approaches for helping professionals in understanding how trauma alters clients’ identity. Narrative approaches to counseling and therapy are a useful method for helping professionals to understand how clients’ trauma has shaped their behaviors. Gaining this level of understanding offers space to establish trust and collaboration in the therapeutic relationship to reconstruct identity. To help a traumatized person become empowered and to shift self-perception from victim to survivor, narrative therapy builds on the clients’ strengths and recognizes both external forces and subjective realities (Biggs & Hinton-Bayre, 2008). Several techniques are used in group or individual sessions to achieve this change (Biggs & Hinton-Bayre, 2008; Combs & Freedman, 2012; Monk et al., 1997; White & Epston, 1990). They center on encouraging clients to examine and recreate their life stories to identify the traumatic event as a “bad guy” that is separate from the victim and that can be “dealt with.” Commonly, the therapist promotes recognition that outside forces influenced clients’ beliefs about themselves and their experiences and therefore the client has the power to reconstruct these beliefs.
In one specific approach, narrative exposure therapy, survivors are encouraged to tell detailed stories of their lives in chronological order to a professional who records and reads the story back to them and then assists the survivors with integrating fragmented traumatic memories into a coherent narrative (Schauer et al., 2011). This approach helps survivors to make sense of their trauma, develop a new sense of perceived identity, and heal (Schauer et al., 2011). The use of journal writing and presenting stories to individuals who have knowledge of the trauma or who are important to the client are other ways to allow for presentation, discussion, and change of life stories (Combs & Freedman, 2012). For example, therapists might invite participants to identify growth or insight that resulted from the trauma. Discussions within groups of similarly traumatized people can reduce feelings of marginalization and increase the possibilities for reconstructing stories that incorporate positive actions such as generativity (Combs & Freedman, 2012).
Because of the interconnection of substance misuse and histories of trauma, substance abuse treatment programs are in a particularly good position to help justice-involved women address traumatic experiences. Bailey et al.’s (2019) review of evaluations of 20 PTSD and substance use interventions concluded that integrated programs better serve women with complex trauma histories by providing safety, social support, and advocacy, and by teaching women coping and safety techniques, symptom stabilization, and emotional regulation. Covington (2007, 2019) and Messina et al. (2014), for example, have pioneered and evaluated the integration of trauma-informed practice for women in substance abuse and correctional programs.
Turning to broader policy and program implications of the extent and types of trauma documented for our sample, there are needs for prevention, assessment, and intervention. Women’s childhood experiences of abuse and feelings of betrayal, when they were neglected or when people did not believe or stop reported abuse, were the most typical starting points for contamination. This finding highlights the importance of detecting and addressing trauma needs early. Livny and Katz (2018) identified schools and families as “key stakeholders in child maltreatment” and highlighted the scarcity of prevention programs that enhance collaboration between schools, parents, children, and other community agencies (p. 148). They concluded that schools can serve as catalysts for prevention when they help engage a variety of community agencies in detecting and addressing child maltreatment. In addition to raising awareness, schools and other community-based institutions should consider offering strength-based parenting programs for parents at risk for child maltreatment (e.g., those with a history of child abuse), and beginning services before birth, as evidence indicates that these features help to prevent child maltreatment (Chen & Chan, 2016). Some women in the sample described the additional harm of not being believed by parents or other people when they reported trauma. In addition to prevention, our study highlights the importance of training teachers and community workers to be available and responsive to youth experiencing abuse.
Conclusion
The present study is the first to our knowledge to explore how women with serious criminal histories incorporate trauma into their identities. Findings include examples of how some women find silver linings in adverse experiences, whereas others do not. More research is needed to contribute to increase understanding of the sequencing of contamination and redemption scripts, and the influences that support PTG for people in the justice system. Evidence suggests that McAdams’ (2013) narrative identity theory is useful for examining this relationship. Future research should seek to provide further information about how women’s (and men’s) identity development can be promoted through correctional and therapeutic interventions. Understanding how people with histories of trauma “make good” out of negative situations, and which people find it difficult to “make good,” can improve treatment responses.
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 data collection was funded with National Science Foundation (NSF) grant 1126162, “Probation/Parole Officer Interactions with Women Offenders: Do Relationship Style and Communication Pattern Predict Outcomes?” NSF grant 1430372, “The Effects of Identity Development on Women’s Recidivism,” and the Michigan State University Foundation.
