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“I’m a Winner, Not a Victim”: The Facilitating Factors of Post-Traumatic Growth among Women Who Have Suffered Intimate Partner Violence

Post-traumatic growth (PTG) is a positive psychological change following trauma. Intimate partner violence (IPV) is one such trauma. The aim of this phenomenological study was to explore PTG from the perspective of women who have survived IPV as well as their perceptions of PTG. Twenty-two female IP...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Bryngeirsdottir, Hulda S., Halldorsdottir, Sigridur
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8834824/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35162363
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031342
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author Bryngeirsdottir, Hulda S.
Halldorsdottir, Sigridur
author_facet Bryngeirsdottir, Hulda S.
Halldorsdottir, Sigridur
author_sort Bryngeirsdottir, Hulda S.
collection PubMed
description Post-traumatic growth (PTG) is a positive psychological change following trauma. Intimate partner violence (IPV) is one such trauma. The aim of this phenomenological study was to explore PTG from the perspective of women who have survived IPV as well as their perceptions of PTG. Twenty-two female IPV survivors aged 23–56 who reached PTG, according to the working definition used, were interviewed. The overriding theme of the study was “I’m a winner, not a victim”, which describes the essence of the women’s experience of PTG. They described their experience as a shift from being suffering victims of IPV to becoming winners who enjoyed PTG. They felt that their positive attitude and personal strengths had helped them to reach PTG as well as to face the fact that they had been in an abusive relationship, thus forgiving and believing in themselves and taking responsibility for their own health and well-being. They sought knowledge about violence, how to process it, and how to respond to triggers. They set boundaries for their perpetrators and were in as little contact with them as possible. They chose the company of positive, supportive, and constructive people and situations where they were not being controlled. It was concluded that, even though suffering IPV is a terrible experience that no one should endure, the participants’ experiences had resulted in PTG that they treasured.
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spelling pubmed-88348242022-02-12 “I’m a Winner, Not a Victim”: The Facilitating Factors of Post-Traumatic Growth among Women Who Have Suffered Intimate Partner Violence Bryngeirsdottir, Hulda S. Halldorsdottir, Sigridur Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Post-traumatic growth (PTG) is a positive psychological change following trauma. Intimate partner violence (IPV) is one such trauma. The aim of this phenomenological study was to explore PTG from the perspective of women who have survived IPV as well as their perceptions of PTG. Twenty-two female IPV survivors aged 23–56 who reached PTG, according to the working definition used, were interviewed. The overriding theme of the study was “I’m a winner, not a victim”, which describes the essence of the women’s experience of PTG. They described their experience as a shift from being suffering victims of IPV to becoming winners who enjoyed PTG. They felt that their positive attitude and personal strengths had helped them to reach PTG as well as to face the fact that they had been in an abusive relationship, thus forgiving and believing in themselves and taking responsibility for their own health and well-being. They sought knowledge about violence, how to process it, and how to respond to triggers. They set boundaries for their perpetrators and were in as little contact with them as possible. They chose the company of positive, supportive, and constructive people and situations where they were not being controlled. It was concluded that, even though suffering IPV is a terrible experience that no one should endure, the participants’ experiences had resulted in PTG that they treasured. MDPI 2022-01-25 /pmc/articles/PMC8834824/ /pubmed/35162363 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031342 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Bryngeirsdottir, Hulda S.
Halldorsdottir, Sigridur
“I’m a Winner, Not a Victim”: The Facilitating Factors of Post-Traumatic Growth among Women Who Have Suffered Intimate Partner Violence
title “I’m a Winner, Not a Victim”: The Facilitating Factors of Post-Traumatic Growth among Women Who Have Suffered Intimate Partner Violence
title_full “I’m a Winner, Not a Victim”: The Facilitating Factors of Post-Traumatic Growth among Women Who Have Suffered Intimate Partner Violence
title_fullStr “I’m a Winner, Not a Victim”: The Facilitating Factors of Post-Traumatic Growth among Women Who Have Suffered Intimate Partner Violence
title_full_unstemmed “I’m a Winner, Not a Victim”: The Facilitating Factors of Post-Traumatic Growth among Women Who Have Suffered Intimate Partner Violence
title_short “I’m a Winner, Not a Victim”: The Facilitating Factors of Post-Traumatic Growth among Women Who Have Suffered Intimate Partner Violence
title_sort “i’m a winner, not a victim”: the facilitating factors of post-traumatic growth among women who have suffered intimate partner violence
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8834824/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35162363
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031342
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