2012/11/21 by Christine A. Courtois · 1 citation
Psychology · #Child Abuse and Trauma #Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research #Migration, Health and Trauma
paper · doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199744220.013.0020
openalex publication_date 2012/11/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Abstract Feminism has greatly contributed to the treatment of trauma, especially of the sort that involves interpersonal victimization. Additionally, contemporary feminism has been crucial in identifying the scope of interpersonal violence against females, identifying these events and experiences as traumatic, and providing philosophical foundations and strategies for psychotherapy. It has also encouraged the understanding of the victimization in terms of cultural and other contextual considerations that contributed to its occurrence. Trauma victims and survivors benefit from a treatment that is oriented toward re-empowerment, encouragement of their personal strength and resilience, an understanding of adaptations to trauma as survivor skills rather than pathology, an understanding of their unique individual and social characteristics and the influence they have on both the occurrence of their victimization and their recovery. Therapists who treat traumatized clients from a feminist/multicultural model must attend to the potential points of accord, as well as to the points of disagreement between the two, and to the multiple identities and individual needs of each client.