Making Meaning Out of Interpersonal Victimization

Abstract

Research examining meaning-making in the aftermath of interpersonal victimization among women has been restricted by quantitative methods and a focus on single distressing event. Qualitative methods were used to inspect meaning-making cognitions among a community sample of IPV (intimate partner violence) survivors. Consensus coding resulted in eight categories of meaning-making. The most widely endorsed cognition was self-blaming. Other strategies included justification for the abuser, normalizing violence, attribution to karmic or godly intervention, minimization and social comparison, reappraisal/opportunity for growth, absence of a protective figure, and failure to make sense of abuse. Implications with respect to adaptiveness and intervention are discussed.

Keywords

meaning-making cognitions intimate partner violence interpersonal trauma

Despite burgeoning prevention and intervention efforts, violence against women remains a widespread epidemic. Women are subjected to continual risk of violence, manifest in various forms, throughout their lives. As a female child, one is at risk for physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, as well as neglect. Several key studies in the field have illustrated the overwhelming prevalence of this pandemic. For example, Russell (1983) and Finkelhor, Hotaling, Lewis, and Smith (1990) found that 27-38% of adult women reported retrospective childhood sexual victimization. This pattern of victimization often persists into adulthood without proper intervention, resulting in revictimization in the forms of intimate partner violence (IPV), sexual harassment, rape, and stalking. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC; National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, 2003) estimated that 4,450,807 women suffer from IPV each year. Furthermore, as many as 322,230 women are subjected to rape, and 500,000 are stalked, according to the CDC.

Inspired by efforts to improve therapeutic interventions for trauma survivors, research on meaning-making strategies in the aftermath of trauma has proliferated in recent years. According to Taylor’s (1983) theory of cognitive adaptation, successful adjustment to difficult life circumstances involves three phases, namely, finding meaning in the experience, regaining mastery over the experience, and restoring one’s self-worth. Meaning-making typically entails either a change in the survivor’s “view of the negative event (appraisals) to make it fit into their existing world views” or a change in “world views to accommodate the stressful event” (Park & Blumberg, 2002, p. 600). This may involve thinking about the cause of the event, its impact and significance, as well as one’s life meaning after experiencing the event (Taylor, 1983). Successful meaning-making following trauma can engender feelings of closure about the event, enabling the individual to be hopeful about their future and move on in life (Harvey, Orbuch, & Weber, 1990; Park, 2010). Conversely, failure to engage in meaning-making of the stressor may lead to psychosomatic illness, prolonged grief and anxiety, and maladaptive response patterns to future stressors (Horowitz, 1986; as cited in Harvey, Orbuch, Chwalisz, & Garwood, 1991). As such, trauma survivors’ meaning-making appraisals, and ultimately a successful integration of past and present, may determine ensuing adaptation and resiliency (Grossman, Sorsoli, & Kia-Keating, 2006).

To comprehend the concept of meaning-making, it is essential to consider the World Assumptions theory by Janoff-Bulman (1989). The theory puts forward three fundamental assumptive world views—the world is benevolent, the world is meaningful, and the self is worthy—which most individuals embrace to guide their encounters in the world and with others. This is consistent with the just world hypothesis, which asserts that people need to believe in a just and systematic world and that one’s outcome is directly contingent upon their actions (Lerner & Miller, 1978). Positive world assumptions and belief in a just world allow individuals to feel safe and navigate their world without a constant feeling of fear or anxiety. However, these beliefs are quickly violated by the uncontrollability and unpredictability of trauma, penetrating our sense of agency and invulnerability (Greening, 1997). Hence, unable to fathom the traumatic event, many survivors choose to blame themselves for the event, most likely to maintain their just world perception (Lerner & Miller, 1978). This saves the individual from having to accept that they are sometimes powerless to guide the events that they encounter.

Moreover, interpersonal forms of trauma are particularly damaging as they involve a personal violation by a malicious perpetrator, relative to non-interpersonal forms of trauma (e.g., natural disaster; Janoff-Bulman, 1992). This qualitative difference has been demonstrated in various studies, where survivors of interpersonal trauma, as compared with survivors of non-interpersonal trauma, were found to display questioning of personal autonomy and strength of will, as well as shattering self-worth and belief in a safe, meaningful, and benevolent world (Lilly, 2011; Lilly, Valdez, & Graham-Bermann, 2011; Lim, Adams, & Lilly, 2012). These distorted cognitions not only hinder trauma-related adjustment (Ehlers & Clark, 2000; Owens & Chard, 2001), they may also result in a loss of the purpose and meaning of life (Wright, Crawford, & Sebastian, 2007).

Another approach to understanding meaning-making is through the growing body of posttraumatic growth literature. Posttraumatic growth pertains to positive personal growth and reflection as a result of experiencing an adverse life event, typically facilitated through active cognitive processing and disclosure (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004). These perceived benefits can be life-changing and span various dimensions such as self-protective behaviors, strengthening of religious faith, increased introspectiveness, and better understanding of healthy romantic relationships (Himelein & McElrath, 1996). Taken together, this line of investigation reiterates the ability to construe meaning and benefits from adverse experiences so survivors realize that their ordeal is not futile (Draucker, 1989).

Collectively, the role of meaning-making in posttrauma psychological resilience merits further exploration to elucidate the ways in which trauma survivors make sense of the agonizing experience, the types of meanings derived, and how these meanings influence trauma resolution and recovery. Together, these data may help inform related therapeutic interventions provided to this population (Wright et al., 2007). Furthermore, in spite of the recent advancement in the literature, most available studies have elicited information from survivors using a largely quantitative method, focusing on a single adverse event. As aptly captured by Testa, Livingston, and VanZile-Tamsen (2011), “Violence against women is a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon, occurring within a social context that is influenced by gender norms, interpersonal relationships, and sexual scripts” (p. 2). Purely quantitative data may fail to encapsulate one’s subjective experience as well as the variation in meaning-making, particularly for survivors with long-standing trauma history. A semi-structured, open-ended interview that takes into account all interpersonal traumatic events is necessary to better understand women’s experience of violence.

In the present study, qualitative methods were used to analyze interview narratives of IPV survivors. This study seeks to examine common meaning-making strategies among IPV survivors related to not only their experience of IPV, but also to their entire history of interpersonal victimization. Given the enduring quality of people’s core conceptual system, it is reasonable to suspect that the way in which participants make sense of their history of victimization may be more related than dissimilar. Due to the qualitative nature of the study, the present study is primarily exploratory, intended to amass an exhaustive list of meaning-making strategies that can lead to testable, quantitative hypotheses in future studies.

Method

Participants

The present study is part of a larger data set collected at a Midwestern university, which was comprised of 211 women from the local community. Only women who had endorsed IPV within the past 6 months, and were administered an individual interview regarding their victimization, were included in the present subsample. Of the 57 available transcripts, only 25 were needed to achieve saturation because identical themes continued to emerge in subsequent transcripts, yielding no new data. The final sample of women had a mean age of 31.79 (SD = 11.20) and 52% of them were single at the time of the interview. The sample had a 76% rate of unemployment, though 60% of the women had some form of higher education (i.e., some college or vocational training or greater). The sample self-identified as primarily African American (56%, n = 14) and European American (28%, n = 7). Of the women in the sample, the majority (72%) had not stayed at a domestic violence shelter.

Measures

Demographic Questionnaire

Participants were asked a number of demographic questions, including age, gender, ethnicity, education level, current relationship status, household income, number of times the participant had moved in the past 4 years, and whether the participant had ever gone to a domestic violence shelter.

Traumatic Life Events Questionnaire (TLEQ)

The TLEQ (Kubany, 2004) is a 23-item questionnaire that assesses exposure to a variety of potentially traumatic events, including sexual assault, non-sexual assault (e.g., physical assault, being robbed), stalking, natural disaster, war or combat exposure, and motor vehicle accidents. The frequency of each of these events was tabulated using the following response options: never, once, twice, 3 times, 4 times, 5 times, and more than 5 times. The TLEQ has demonstrated sound psychometric properties, including high temporal stability in a number of populations (e.g., college students, war veterans, battered women, residents of substance abuse programs; Kubany et al., 2000). In this study, the TLEQ was used primarily to identify a list of potentially traumatic events to facilitate the semi-structured interview. The TLEQ has shown promise for such purpose; one study (Pierce, Burke, Stoller, Neufeld, & Brooner, 2009) concluded that the TLEQ produced a nine-fold higher rate of traumatic event identification, as compared with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID; First, Spitzer, Gibbon, & Williams, 1998).

Interview

To understand the cognitions employed by these women to make sense of, or cope with, their typically extensive history of victimization, a number of open-ended questions were asked. These contextual questions (e.g., Were there warning signs for these experiences?, Did you feel responsible for these events?, and How did you make sense of what had happened and how did you move on?) examined how participants made sense of and moved on from different distressing events that they experienced throughout their life. To ensure complete coverage of traumatic events, participants were prompted with the traumatic events that they previously endorsed on the TLEQ. When deemed necessary, clarification questions were asked to acquire a comprehensive understanding of participants’ meaning-making schemas. An outline of interview questions can be seen in the appendix. Questions were developed by the third author after an extensive review of the extant literature on meaning-making and in consultation with several research colleagues well informed in the current literature on IPV.

Procedures

Data collection

Potential participants were recruited via advertisements printed in local newspapers and flyers posted at commercial and social service agencies, including a local domestic violence shelter in northern Illinois. Women were prescreened via telephone and excluded if they had not experienced at least one physical incident of IPV in the past 6 months. Eligible women were invited to complete a semi-structured interview, which lasted approximately 3 hours, at the university research center. Transportation and child care (provided by trained undergraduate research assistants) were available to participants at no charge. Participants received US$50 compensation for their time.

Participants were informed that the purpose of the study was to investigate women’s exposure to potentially distressing events and associated mental health sequelae. They provided consent to participate in the interview and to be audio-recorded to facilitate data analysis. Next, participants completed paper-and-pencil questionnaires before they were administered a qualitative interview regarding their IPV victimization experiences. The interviews were conducted by master’s-level clinical psychology students and undergraduate research assistants trained in clinical interviewing and research ethics. A debriefing form and a list of local resources were provided at the end of the study. Participants who appeared visibly distressed or disclosed potential risk issues (e.g., suicidality, homocidality, child/elder abuse) were assessed by the interviewer, who consulted with one of the principal investigators via telephone, before the participant was allowed to leave the interviewing site.

Data analysis

Data analysis consisted of four main phases: (a) transcription of audio recordings, (b) examination of all transcripts to exclude ineligible participants, (c) independent reviewing and coding of 25 valid transcripts, and finally, (d) discussion of coding categories that were independently created by the three authors and building consensus around these categories. Each of the four steps is detailed as followed.

All 57 audio recordings were first transcribed by undergraduate research assistants before they were reviewed by graduate research assistants. Six were excluded due to a failure to meet study inclusion criteria (i.e., the participant did not experience physical IPV victimization in the last 6 months despite having previously endorsed this experience in the phone screen). Of the remaining 51 narratives, 25 were randomly selected for review. The coders independently identified cognitions that participants used to make sense of their experience(s) of victimization. These specific statements were used to derive broad, overarching meaning-making categories that qualitatively described the narratives. Following this process, the authors gathered to compare and contrast generated codes. The final codes were determined based on the achievement of consensus among the coders. It was determined that only 25 interviews (out of 51 valid interviews) will be discussed in the current study as saturation had been achieved.

Results

Participants in the present study reported exposure to an average of 15.68 total interpersonal traumatic events (SD = 9.83), which indicates the total number of times each trauma occurred, and an average of 4.76 (SD = 2.59) different types of interpersonal traumatic events. Table 1 shows the prevalence of each interpersonal traumatic event assessed on the TLEQ. For a vast majority of the women, victimization began in their childhood or adolescence, and was largely perpetrated by family members or intimate partners. Furthermore, at the time of the interview, all participants had experienced at least one physical incident of IPV in the past 6 months. Narrative analysis revealed eight main categories of meaning-making (see Table 2). Each of the categories (and subcategories) is discussed below following the order of their prevalence. The quotes provided within the text are small samples of the broader narratives offered by participants that were coded as attempts at meaning-making.

Table 1.

Prevalence of Interpersonal Traumatic Events (N = 25).

Interpersonal trauma	n	%
Adolescent sexual abuse	4	16
Childhood sexual abuse by a peer	3	12
Childhood sexual abuse by an older person	7	28
Childhood physical abuse	9	36
Physical abuse by an intimate partner	25	100
Robbery involving a weapon	7	28
Severe physical assault by acquaintance or stranger	6	24
Sexual abuse as an adult	5	20
Stalking	14	56
Threat of death or serious bodily harm	14	56
Unwanted sexual attention	14	56
Witness to family violence	11	44

Table 2.

Prevalence of Meaning-Making Categories and Subcategories (N = 25).

Type of meaning-making	n	Sample narratives
Self-blame	22
Situational	16	“Um, the partner violence . . . I feel like maybe 40% responsible you know, sometimes I’ll, you know, get drunk and black out and just talk crazy . . . [if] I tighten up you know, with my actions that would help my relationship out.”
Trait	15	“I’m just a very obedient person . . . a lot of our training to be nice and to be respectful of other people sometimes um, sometimes will allow you to be too nice to people that are putting in a lot of advances. Or, you know, you’re not aggressive enough in defending your own personal space and rights in those regards.”
Justification for abuser	16
Abuser attribute	12	“And it was just one that was just not wrapped too tight.”
Partner substance abuse	8	“I basically thought they were drunken rages, until . . . I started finding out that he had no clue remembering anything he had done to me previously, so.”
Abuser stress	4	“I know that he was looking for a job—I know that was stressful . . . [he] doesn’t really mean to do it.”
Cultural factors	2	“[Corporal punishment] is a disciplinary thing in African American households that you may get hit with a belt. I don’t see that as the worst thing in the world, I don’t.”
Have not made sense	15
Cannot make sense/confusion	10	“You know, you wonder about when these violent events happen to people . . . why, why they keep happening . . . And I can’t figure out . . . I’m like ‘what’s going on here?’ It’s like, ‘what the heck?’”
Suppression	8	“We wake up and let it be, like it never happened.”
Disbelief	5	“Well, I [had] seen it coming because of the arguments that we used to have, but I didn’t really think that he would hit me but he would always say it, and I never thought he would until he actually did.”
Desensitization to violence/IGTV is O.K.	9
Justification—IGTV is O.K.	8	“Uh, that type of stuff right there follows you . . . you end up being in a relationship with someone like that . . . it’s a cycle that repeats itself.”
Desensitization to violence	5	“We lived some pretty rough lives so stalking to me is just like . . . it’s nothing. It’s childish play to me. . . . I’ve lived a hell of a life for some stalking to not bother me.”
Karmic or godly intervention	9
Bad: Randomness	5	“It’s just things that just so happened, these shitty situations in my life. None of it is connected to anything, it’s just . . . I was dealt a shitty hand in life.”
Bad: Why me	2	“Why does karma have to come back to me when I didn’t even do anything to deserve karma?”
Good: Higher power	2	“God has a purpose for all of us. . . . Gosh, there’s got to be some reason why that I’m going through these experiences . . . it’s somehow supposed to make me a better person.”
Good: Self-capacity	1	“What makes me so different that I have to go through this shit and [other people] have got the perfect life, but I don’t know, I guess like, it’s because I could handle it, you know. Like, I really believe that people aren’t given more than they can handle.”
Minimization and social comparison	8
Minimization	7	“I try and stay real upbeat about it because I figure that everybody’s had a rough childhood, everybody’s had experiences that have been awful for them and we need to move on from that . . . you can’t be stuck just going ‘oh my god, pity!’ and stuff.”
Social comparison	3	“But, after you know, talking to all those people that I talked to and just realizing that there’s a lot of people out there worse off than me, it helps me to go on.”
Reappraisal/opportunity for growth	6
Reappraisal	4	“Like basically now I’m just taking it one day at a time and going to school and . . . trying to complete college, and look for a job. And not let all the negativity of bad things that happened to me, you know, keep me from having a positive image, image in life.”
Opportunity for growth	2	“It showed me how I want to raise my children and how I don’t want to raise my children, it showed me how much love to give my children and show my children more equally than favoring my son over my daughter; it taught me how not to be a shitty parent.”
Absence of protective figure/role model	4
Not knowing right and wrong	2	“I think pretty much it led to everything that happened in my life because I didn’t really have that figure there to tell me what was wrong and right. My mom kind of gave up on me when I was 13 and just let me do whatever I wanted; [she] didn’t give me guidance as to what was right and wrong.”
Absence of protective figure	2	“And then by my father not being there, I was, you know, trying to date and look for male, like male attention of some sort. So I think that’s why, like, some of the events [had] recently happened in my life.”

Note. IGTV = intergenerational transmission of violence.

Meaning-Making: Self-Blame

Self-blame (n = 22) represents the most widely reported type of meaning-making in regard to participants’ victimization. Two types of self-blame were endorsed: situational self-blame and characterological (trait) self-blame, which are not mutually exclusive (i.e., participants often endorsed both types of self-blame). Sixty-four percent (n = 16) of the sample engaged in situational self-blame and attributed the cause of the trauma to a modifiable source, such as their behavior. For example, some participants felt guilty for having performed actions that supposedly provoked the perpetrator to act violently: “ . . . I shouldn’t have made him mad, like I should always, like, try to make him happy and . . . avoid conflict. . . . I should probably stop if he says ‘Leave me alone’” (Participant 111). Others held themselves responsible for not preventing the assault from taking place:

. . . I kind of feel like I babied him into doing it or something, you know? Um, it started out with . . . just a little brushes or something. . . . I never really paid much attention to it, but when that ass-whooping came about . . . yeah, that was probably my fault for not nipping it in the bud earlier. (Participant 82)

Unfortunately, this cognition may persist for a long time and generalize to other relationships. For example, a participant stated that

But when you go through it at an early age, it’s really hard to get out of that feeling of it really wasn’t your fault, but you feel like, “I should’ve done something, then he wouldn’t of hit mom and then he wouldn’t of hit me.” But . . . it’s really nothing you could of done, it’s that person. But [now] I’m 35 years old and I still feel like, “Man, what could I of done, to make it better, to make that household better?” (Participant 85)

Conversely, characterological (trait) self-blame refers to attributing the occurrence of the victimization to certain stable, enduring characteristics of oneself. An overwhelming majority of the participants (n = 15) reported making sense of their victimization using this strategy. For example, one participant held herself accountable for the physical abuse by her mother:

Oh yeah, I felt responsible for her getting mad, I’d say my entire life. I figured that it was somehow my fault that I wasn’t being the perfect something, somehow . . . it always created a lot of uneasiness and anxiety in me because I never knew whether I was at fault. I never knew what caused the anger. (Participant 56)

Apart from her mother, this participant also extended characterological self-blaming to her experiences of IPV and stalking, even though she could not identify specific traits that incited these incidents. As mentioned, characterological self-blame was often pervasive and difficult to challenge. One woman clearly illustrated this while narrating her experience of marital violence: “ . . . in my head I feel like everything I did was wrong and that’s why he did the things he did to me, but whether that’s the truth or not, I don’t know” (Participant 53).

Other participants were able to pinpoint a specific trait that incited the abuse. For instance, Participant 118 stated that her trait of being independent and avoidant of intimacy was responsible for her abuse: “ . . . the whole being too independent, not really allowing anybody to get that close . . . making him feel like he not needed.” Poor judgment in selecting a potential partner is another common trait for which many women blamed themselves. One of the five women who endorsed this trait noted that she overlooked red flags, and consequently, became romantically involved with her abusive boyfriend: “He had a history of being in and out of jail for various stuff like that. And I knew about it, and I just didn’t believe it, so, I ignored it. I ignored the signs” (Participant 18). Ironically, in hindsight, these women shared similar frustration of having “picked some winners,” stated sarcastically (Participant 66).

Meaning-Making: Justification for Abuser

The second most frequently endorsed meaning-making cognition was to rationalize the perpetrator’s actions (n = 16). Within this category, four subcategories of justification emerged: perpetrator’s attributes, substance abuse, stress, and cultural factors. The most commonly endorsed subcategory was specific partner attributes, as discussed by 12 participants. One woman with a history of stalking (Participant 104) stated that “It happened because my husband was insecure and my boyfriend was insecure. . . . I know they’re not my fault.” In addition, perpetrators’ hot temper and tendency to be controlling were cited among other specific attributes that caused them to be aggressive. At times, women overgeneralized observations of their perpetrators to other relationships; for example, Participant 56 believed that anger and violence are imminent in all relationships based upon her experiences of abuse by her mother and boyfriends: “ . . . everybody can be happy or they can be angry . . . all people are going be that way because everybody I’ve ever been close to has been that way.”

The second most common subcategory involved perpetrators’ drug and alcohol abuse as a justification for their actions (n = 8). For example, when queried regarding participants’ decision to stay in an abusive romantic relationship, Participant 53 noted that “I basically thought they were drunken rages, until . . . I started finding out that he had no clue remembering anything he had done to me previously, so.” For many of these women, their perpetrators’ drug and alcohol abuse eventually consumed their childhood and romantic relationships. One woman stated that

It was probably our third year of marriage when things started turning bad with him . . . he started using heroine . . . our relationship went down, okay, cause there is going to be a loss of money, there’s going to be times when he don’t come home. We started getting violent at each other. (Participant 142)

Similarly, Participant 82 blamed her parents’ “crack habits” for their physical abuse of her and “not being parents at all.”

Third, other women (n = 4) appeared to be protective of their perpetrator by acknowledging the perpetrator’s stress and that he/she was merely looking for an outlet for their frustrations. For example, when queried if there were any particular incidents that prompted the escalation of long-standing verbal assaults to a physical attack, Participant 111 suggested job stress as its main reason, “I know that he was looking for a job—I know that was stressful . . . [he] doesn’t really mean to do it.” Another participant reportedly made sense of the verbal and physical abuse from her mother by attributing it to her parents’ divorce:

Oh, I think that she was stressed out . . . she had talked about getting divorced . . . that’s why my dad tried to kill himself. ‘Cause they had been married 42 years and um, I think that she was just all stressed out about them guys getting divorced. (Participant 56)

Finally, cultural differences were mentioned by two women as justification for perpetration of violence, including corporal punishment: “It’s a disciplinary thing in African American households that you may get hit with a belt. I don’t see that as the worst thing in the world, I don’t” (Participant 142). Likewise, Participant 78 made sense of her history of IPV by attributing it to her husband’s foreign culture: “ . . . I thought it was cultural. My husband’s Italian, I thought that this was just a cultural difference for a long time. They’re loud. They yell. They are different towards each other. I really put . . . his behavior down to that.”

Meaning-Making: Have Not Made Sense

Despite other meaning-making cognitions, most women (n = 15) struggled to make sense of their victimization, making this the third most prevalent category. This theme can be dissected into three subcategories: cannot make sense/confusion, suppression, and disbelief. In spite of their numerous reasoning attempts, many women (n = 10) remained baffled about their victimization. For example, Participant 56 was left with lingering “why” and “how” questions regarding her extensive history of abuse, particularly those that were perpetrated by her mother and intimate partners. When describing these “betrayals,” she stated that “you know, you wonder about when these violent events happen to people . . . why, why they keep happening. . . . And I can’t figure out . . . I’m like ‘what’s going on here?’ It’s like, ‘what the heck?’” The inability to make sense of the abuse also seemed to be associated with lasting damage: “Uh, he like screwed me up big time. It’s going to take me a while to come to terms with all everything that happened and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to make sense of it” (Participant 105).

Being unable to make sense of their history of abuse, many women (n = 8) resorted to suppressing the painful memories: “brush it under the rug,” and “move on.” For example, in regard to her experience of childhood molestation, Participant 85 stated “I just choose not to talk about that ‘cause I just block that out, like, you were the first person I ever told that to . . . my mom doesn’t even know that happened . . . I just totally ignored that part of my life.” Nevertheless, a few women conceded that suppression may not be an adaptive coping strategy: “I have a problem with not dealing with my issues. So, that’s probably why you’re getting a lot of that from me, like as far as make sense, um I don’t” (Participant 105).

In the aftermath of their victimization, many women (n = 5) also responded with shock and disbelief that another human being is capable of committing such violence. For example, in her recounting of an armed attack by an acquaintance, Participant 142 stated that

In my wildest dreams, I would never have thought that he would have jumped off that garage and jumped into that car and held that gun on me. . . . I didn’t think he ever had the potential, he was the most sweetest man I ever met.

Having faith in their abuser also led some women to overlook seemingly blatant warning signs of the perpetration. For example, one participant paid no heed to her partner’s previous physical assault of his sister, and was eventually physically and emotionally abused by him: “Before I even started talking to him, I heard what he did to his sister . . . [he] hit her, punched her in her face and stuff like that. But I really didn’t take no cautions to me” (Participant 130).

Meaning-Making: Desensitization to Violence/Intergenerational Transmission of Violence (IGTV) O.K.

Early exposure to violence within the family and the community is pervasive in this sample. As such, about one fifth of the sample (n = 5) reported that acts that would otherwise be labeled as violent were normal. For example, having experienced family violence throughout her childhood, Participant 53 had reportedly become desensitized to violent behaviors:

. . . when you see it all the time, it becomes a norm—it becomes a normal instead of a non-normal. Somebody else’s family it’s very, very not normal, but when you’re seeing it all the time, and you’re hearing it all the time, you think everybody’s like that.

Therefore, it is not surprising that this participant experienced little distress when she witnessed a stranger being beaten up brutally: “If I hadn’t been exposed to some sort of violence prior to that, I probably would have taken it a lot harder that what I actually did.”

Likewise, IGTV, evident in various narratives (n = 8), also resulted in desensitization to violence:

Well . . . I know now that I’ve accepted getting beat up by the men that I’ve been with, because my uncles and brothers—the way they beat me up and I just care to get through life . . . but it was like a normal everyday thing to me, I just like thought there was nothing wrong with it. (Participant 104)

As a result, many women found it difficult to take precautions that may have helped prevent them from entering an abusive relationship or end it when it became abusive. For example, one woman associated her partner selection with having witnessed family violence throughout her childhood: “Uh, that type of stuff right there follows you . . . you end up being in a relationship with someone like that . . . it’s a cycle that repeats itself” (Participant 105).

Meaning-Making: Karmic or Godly Intervention

A number of women resorted to karmic and godly intervention to explain their suffering (n = 9). Four subcategories emerged within this category, including higher power, self-capacity, randomness, and “why me?” Meaning-making cognitions involving higher power (n = 2) and self-capacity (n = 1) were seemingly more optimistic; participants were able to identify positive aspects that resulted from their experiences. For example, Participant 56 submitted herself to the will of a higher power (e.g., “ . . . God has a purpose for all of us. . . . Gosh, there’s got to be some reason why that I’m going through these experiences . . . it’s somehow supposed to make me a better person”), whereas Participant 33 cited self-capacity to make sense of her victimization:

What makes me so different that I have to go through this shit and they’ve got the perfect life, but I don’t know, I guess like, it’s because I could handle it, you know. Like, I really believe that people aren’t given more than they can handle.

On the other hand, some participants considered the karmic or godly forces as contributing to their victimization. A number of women attributed the cause of their victimization to randomness (n = 5): “Like being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Yeah, it’s something that is bound to happen in everyday life.” Two other participants repeatedly questioned why they were targeted as victims:

So, I don’t know why any of this stuff has happened to me, you know. It makes no sense like, ‘cause I’m always a nice person. Why does karma have to come back to me when I didn’t even do anything to deserve the karma? (Participant 18)

Meaning-Making: Minimization and Social Comparison

Minimization and social comparison, which denote two different subcategories, were occasionally reported by participants in making sense of their history of abuse. In this sample, seven women downplayed the severity and intensity of their victimization to make sense of it. For example, to make sense of her rape, Participant 97 stated that “Umm, seeing as though that I wasn’t really physically, physically, you know, like, knowing that my, uh, virginity wasn’t taken away from me, I bet—um it really didn’t hurt me as much . . . ” Another participant (Participant 56) who endorsed minimization suggested that such belief was essential:

I try and stay real upbeat about it ‘cause I figure that everybody’s had a rough childhood, everybody’s had experiences that have been awful for them and we need to move on from that . . . you can’t be stuck just going, “oh my god, pity!” and stuff.

Other participants (n = 3) found it easier to tolerate and make sense of their victimization when they were able to identify people who are even less fortunate. For example, one woman who initially experienced difficulty acknowledging her rape and other forms of victimization stated that “But, after you know, talking to all those people that I talked to and just realizing that there’s a lot of people out there worse off than me, it helps me to go on” (Participant 148).

Meaning-Making: Reappraisal/Opportunity for Growth

To make sense of their history of abuse, a small minority of participants engaged in reappraisal (n = 4) and regarded their victimization as an opportunity for growth (n = 2). In regard to the former, some women reported being able to make sense of their victimization by reappraising the event to yield a different evaluation. For example, Participant 85 generated a relatively positive perspective about her childhood molestation following a reappraisal:

. . . at that time, I did feel, you know, like maybe it was my fault, but then going over it in my head some time I feel like you know, you can’t control what people are going to do to you . . . now that I’m old enough, I can say no, I can stop it. I can defend myself.

On a related note, two women considered their victimization as an opportunity from which they could potentially benefit, especially in regard to parenting skills. For example, Participant 97 who had endured childhood physical and emotional abuse by her mother, stated: “But I didn’t uh . . . let it physically affect me now, you know, it just made me more protective of my daughter.” Having experienced her mother playing favorites by being physically and emotionally abusive toward her and her sisters, another participant shared a similar sentiment:

It showed me how I want to raise my children and how I don’t want to raise my children, it showed me how much love to give my children and show my children more equally than favoring my son over my daughter. It taught me how not to be a shitty parent. (Participant 82)

Meaning-Making: Absence of Protective Figure/Role Model

Finally, four participants identified the lack of parental figures as the cause of their pattern of victimization. Specifically, two participants made sense of their subsequent involvement in dysfunctional romantic relationships by relating it to the absence of a protective figure or role model in childhood. For example, Participant 148, who was deprived of a paternal figure, began to seek male attention in ways that were detrimental and ultimately led to IPV: “By my father not being there, I was, you know, trying to date and look for male, like male attention of some sort. So I think that’s why, like, some of the events [had] recently happened in my life.”

Two other participants indicated that their victimization stemmed mostly from their inability to distinguish right and wrong, which underscores the importance of parental guidance in preventing bad decision making. For example, in regard to her rape and involvement in multiple abusive romantic relationships, Participant 18 stated that

It led to everything that happened in my life cause I didn’t really have that figure there to tell me what was wrong and right. My mom kind of gave up on me when I was 13 and just let me do whatever I wanted.

In the same way, one woman (Participant 118) ascribed her experiences of IPV to the absence of “a model per say of a good relationship.” Growing up in a single-parent family, her lack of contact and observation of healthy romantic relationships had subsequently prompted her to enter her first abusive relationship, with more to follow.

In summary, qualitative analysis of the women’s narratives revealed eight broad, overarching categories (with specific subcategories) that can be used to inform future quantitative research. The majority of these women made sense of their history of victimization using the following cognitions: self-blame, justification for abuser, desensitization to violence/IGTV is O.K., karmic or godly intervention, minimization and social comparison, reappraisal/opportunity for growth, and absence of protective figure/role model. These meaning-making cognitions were frequently endorsed in conjunction with one another. On the other hand, when women were unable to make sense of their trauma, they reported confusion, disbelief, or opted to suppress distressing memories.

Discussion

Cognitively oriented meaning-making may be broadly construed as the use of various cognitive frameworks (e.g., psychological, philosophical, religious) to make sense of traumatic experiences in an attempt to integrate past and present (e.g., Grossman et al., 2006). The ability to make sense of the misfortune appears to assume a critical role in restoring one’s self-worth and meaning of life, by reducing the discrepancy between the world views before and after experiencing the traumatic event (Park, 2010). Using a qualitative approach, the present study sought to elicit common strategies directly from the perspective of IPV survivors with respect to how they make sense of their experiences of interpersonal victimization.

Using thematic analysis, we yielded eight main themes of meaning-making cognitions, the most noteworthy finding being the overwhelming endorsement of self-blaming. Consistent with previous studies (e.g., Browne & Finkelhor, 1986), the majority of the women in the current sample endorsed characterological and/or situational self-blame to understand why the traumatic event occurred. The pervasive self-blaming can be understood using the World Assumptions theory (Janoff-Bulman, 1989) and the Just World theory (Lerner & Miller, 1978). Blaming the adversity on one’s actions or character may function to preserve a much-needed perception that the world is just and orderly. Self-blaming is especially rampant in cases of interpersonal trauma, in which the victim is often admonished by the assailant, who may shift responsibility for the event to the survivor (Hazzard, Celano, Gould, Lawry, & Webb, 1995). Unfortunately, self-blaming is associated with elevated risk for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression (e.g., Feiring, Taska, & Chen, 2002). Indeed, “long-term successful adjustment likely involves the development of an account that provides more in-depth understanding of the event and an interpretation that takes the onus off of self as the responsible agent” (Harvey et al., 1991, p. 518).

The second most widely endorsed meaning-making strategy is the justification for the abuser. This finding parallels that of Silver, Boon, and Stones (1983), who found that 53% of their sample of incest survivors, in an attempt to make sense of their victimization, used causal attributions to justify their perpetrators’ behaviors. Examples of causal attributions identified in previous research included using the perpetrator’s psychological functioning, motives, character, and behavior (e.g., alcohol or drug abuse, use of pornography, and lack of sexual control) to justify the abuse (Wright et al., 2007). Justification for the abuser is often a salient meaning-making strategy when it comes to betrayal trauma, or trauma committed by close loved ones, because survivors who endure abuse at the hands of someone they trust and rely upon to meet emotional or financial needs may be motivated to underplay or become less aware of the abuse (Freyd, 2009).

Other forms of external attributions endorsed by the current sample included attribution to karmic or godly intervention and the absence of protective figures. Attribution theory (Heider, 1958, cited in Taylor, 1983) posits that attributions are often made following a threatening event to understand, predict, and control one’s physical and social environment. Some women in this sample explained their suffering by reducing it to fate and randomness. Given the importance of self-perceived controllability after an unpredictable negative event (Taylor, 1983), the role of this strategy is unclear. In addition, the importance of parental figures and guidance was underscored in at least two narratives. Long-standing patterns of abuse may have been interrupted if only these survivors received better adult supervision growing up. It is unclear, however, whether having such awareness facilitates the women’s own parenting skills. Besides, it is arguable that attributions to external forces may reflect an attempt to deflect personal responsibility to preserve a better self-concept.

The use of minimization and social comparison in making sense of the victimization is compatible with Taylor (1983). The author asserted that successful posttrauma adjustment generally entails an effort to regain self-worth through self-enhancing evaluations. Downward social comparison has been found to be a robust technique to protect oneself against threat, to regain some perception of controllability, and ultimately to instill motivation to move on from the adversity (Taylor, 1983). The current findings also parallel those of Draucker (1989), who found that female incest survivors tend to compare themselves with those who were less fortunate to enhance their self-esteem. Nonetheless, the actual benefits of such strategies remain unclear as the individual may be denying the impact of the experience (Taylor, 1983).

On the other hand, acceptance of violence and IGTV as normative can be construed as “overaccommodation.” According to Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT; Resick & Schnicke, 1996), overaccommodation occurs when the individual overgeneralizes trauma-relevant information. As such, acceptance of violence and IGTV as normative may represent examples where the participant radically modifies their previous schema to incorporate the idea that violence is inevitable and therefore acceptable. This cognition in turn renders the belief that the individual lacks control or power to protect themselves, which contributes to the development and maintenance of PTSD (Resick & Schnicke, 1996). In fact, in a sample of rape victims suffering from PTSD, a decrease in overaccommodation-related cognitions was associated with symptom reduction (Sobel, Resick, & Rabalais, 2009).

Other meaning-making attempts, such as the use of reappraisal and perceiving opportunity for growth, appear to be more optimistic. Reappraising the situational meaning (based upon the traumatic event) can minimize the discrepancy between one’s world view and the situational meaning, making the event seem less aversive (Park & Blumberg, 2002). In this study, cognitions that emerged following the use of reappraisal clearly reflected the merging of one’s world view and situational meaning in a balanced, reality-based way. This way of thinking, also known as “accommodation” in CPT (Resick & Schnicke, 1996), represents a main focus in treatment. That only a few women in the current sample engaged in this kind of constructive reappraisal is concerning.

Although posttraumatic growth is not considered uncommon (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004), only a handful of women in the current sample reported finding positive benefits from their adverse experience. Furthermore, these perceived benefits were constrained to improved parenting skills and increased protection of their children against similar abuse. Other types of development (e.g., increased self-efficacy, improved social relations, and spiritual change; McMillen, Zuravin, & Rideout, 1995; Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004) were not evident in this sample, begging the question of whether strategies related to posttraumatic growth are likely for a population with ongoing, significant abuse. Considering the prevalence of childhood adversity in this sample, the absence of posttraumatic growth after such long periods of time is notable, and may indicate the lack of cognitive attempts required for such growth to transpire (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004). Conversely, Wortman (2004) raised the possibility that perceived growth may instead be indicative of a defensive illusion or an attempt to convince oneself that at least something good came out of the misfortune. Besides, it appears that not all perceived benefits are desirable. Wright and colleagues (2007) found childhood sex abuse (CSA) survivors who reported increased knowledge of sexual victimization also endorsed heightened isolation and lower marital satisfaction. Though it was initially believed among the authors that predominantly positive meanings would be revealed in the interviews, it became apparent that for these women, many of the attempts to make meaning were not particularly positive and left the participants feeling as though they deserved what had happened to them. Though some may argue that this does not reflect meaning made, we believe that for some women with extensive trauma history, active attempts to make meaning while continually being subject to others’ violence and aggression may result in rather solidified negative cognitions that are in strong need of intensive intervention.

Although most women in the current sample were able to engender some meaning from the abusive experience(s), others considered this task daunting and unattainable. Results across many studies have revealed this to be a widespread phenomenon, even after many years had lapsed since the trauma (Silver et al., 1983). The strong reliance on disengagement or avoidance coping strategies, such as disbelief, suppression, and confusion, may shield one from reexperiencing the profound agony (e.g., shame, self-blame, stigma, and powerlessness) of being victimized, offering an initial emotional relief to survivors (Finkelhor & Browne, 1985; Wright et al., 2007). However, survivors who continue to avoid a relatively active processing of their adversity may fail to achieve a long-term resolution and may experience a heightened and unremitting level of psychological distress (Coffey, Leitenberg, Henning, Turner, & Bennett, 1996; Wright et al., 2007). Given previous research, it was unsurprising that many women struggled to make sense of their victimization experiences, though the extent to which this was observed in the present study was notable. That many of the participants in this study were at this stage of meaning-making is concerning and highlights how early and ongoing exposure to interpersonal victimization may thwart attempts to make meaning out of one’s experiences in a way that may place women at risk for adverse mental health and additional interpersonal revictimization. The results of this study make clear the strong need for intervention with this population.

Although the use of a semi-structured interview generated a large amount of information in helping us understand how participants made sense of their victimization, there remain interesting avenues to be explored in future work. First, future studies may consider obtaining validating information from others in the participants’ network. This may reduce the “interviewer effect,” the notion that the presence of the interviewer may impact interviewee response and socially desirable responding and recall bias. Second, a prospective design with individuals at risk for victimization should be attempted to assess related variables that may contribute to how they view the causality of their victimization. Such observation may capture changes over time as trauma survivors go through cyclical recovery phases that may result in different kinds of meaning made. The use of a cross-sectional design in the present study makes it difficult to establish causality with the current findings. A premature conclusion of the use of meaning-making strategies is unwarranted (Lerner & Miller, 1978).

The unique sample in the current study represents both strengths and limitations. The majority of the participants are unemployed African American women; thus, the current study contributes to the field not only knowledge about meaning-making strategies, but also among a sample that has been traditionally difficult to reach. Nevertheless, participants in this study may represent a skewed sample as the monetary reward may be a greater motivator to them than to IPV survivors who are more financially stable. Draucker (1989) noted that volunteer participation may be associated with an individual’s coping mechanisms in the aftermath of trauma, particularly those related to helping others, restoring a sense of efficacy, and engaging in downward social comparisons. Given all these considerations, we caution against overgeneralization of the current findings.

Other limitations need to be considered to best interpret the current findings. Follow-up questions were determined on a case-by-case basis, depending on individual responses; therefore, this may result in some variability across content in interviews. Interviewers, however, were carefully trained to avoid prescriptive or leading follow-up questions. Finally, given that many of these meaning-making themes have been identified and documented in popular discourse and in legal institutions pertinent to violence against women, it is difficult to determine the extent to which these meaning-making frameworks influence the narratives provided by women who have been victimized by IPV. Thus, it is possible that some of these “meaning-making cognitions” seem to be part of more general cultural sense-making frameworks regarding IPV, which may limit the new information that can be learned from interviews with participants that are nested within a particular cultural discourse. Subsequently, what is known about recovery from violent relationships and posttrauma mental health may also be limited.

The present study yielded important information pertinent to psychological sequelae and recovery among a sample of IPV survivors. As suggested by McMillen and colleagues (1995), clinicians can only help modify the survivor’s reactions to the adversity as the experience cannot be reversed. However, though the ability to make sense of the trauma has been highlighted as a crucial aspect of posttrauma recovery, it is often not fully considered or assessed using qualitative designs (Grossman et al., 2006). This study also enhanced existing meaning-making research as it accounted for the participant’s extensive history of interpersonal victimization. Lastly, and most importantly, the current findings seemed to support a number of different theories related to meaning-making in the aftermath of interpersonal victimization. As such, commitment to one theory in empirical research inevitably leaves out important and relevant information that may facilitate posttrauma recovery.

Identifying common meaning-making cognitions using a qualitative approach is only the first step. Next, we need to focus on clarifying how different meaning-making cognitions might promote or hinder one’s posttrauma adjustment to help improve current therapeutic approaches with trauma populations, as well as to assess relationships from the words of survivors. Although some discussion related to the meaning-making–posttrauma adjustment association was offered in this article, the verdict is still out for many of these cognitions, warranting additional research to further elucidate this relationship.

Footnotes

Appendix

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) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Ban Hong (Phylice) Lim is a doctoral student in the clinical psychology program at Northern Illinois University. She earned her BA in psychology (with a minor in Social and Behavioral Sciences Methodology) from the University of Kansas. During her graduate studies, Phylice’s research program has focused on exploring pathogeneses of posttrauma pathology, as well as factors (e.g., meaning-making strategies and resilience variables) that may facilitate or hinder mental health following trauma. In her master’s thesis, Phylice explored the roles of more proximal factors (self-worth, self-blame, availability of support, and perceived control) through which insecure attachment may induce negative affect in a sample of trauma survivors. In her dissertation project, Phylice is seeking to clarify whether negative affect resulting from exposure to a stressful film could be partially attributed to skepticism about one’s memory.

Christine E. Valdez is a postdoctoral fellow in clinical psychology at the University of California, San Francisco. She earned her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Northern Illinois University. Her broad research interests include interpersonal trauma and revictimization. In particular, she is interested in understanding how emotions, cognitions, and gender intersect to predict mental health outcomes following interpersonal violence, including posttraumatic sequelae and recovery.

Michelle M. Lilly, PhD, is an associate professor of clinical psychology at Northern Illinois University (NIU). She received a joint doctorate in psychology and women’s studies from the University of Michigan where her dissertation focused on coping, religiosity, and world assumptions in survivors of intimate partner violence. She completed a clinical postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan before moving to NIU. Her research examines cognitive and emotional processes that predict posttrauma mental health following interpersonal trauma, as well as duty-related trauma exposure in 9-1-1 telecommunicators and police officers. She is also a licensed clinical psychologist with expertise in treating survivors of trauma.

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