Living beside traumatic experience

Abstract

This article examines the limitations of the medical model's formulation of survivors of sexual abuse. It argues that therapeutic goals framed within the medical model reflect the outcomes of mastery and rational control in liberal individualistic conceptions of the self. Through a critical analysis of autobiographical vignettes of a survivor's experiences, the article proposes that a post-structural understanding of living beside traumatic experience is helpful in fully recognizing the issues faced by survivors of sexual abuse. It outlines 6 contributions that the formulation of living beside traumatic experience offers to current understandings of survivors.