Life after sexual assault: women's experiences of inner resources
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Life after sexual assault: Exploring women's experiences of inner resources. An Interpretative Phenomenological Approach.
IRAS ID
212511
Contact name
Anna Flo Arcas
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
City University London
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 10 months, 16 days
Research summary
This research is interested in exploring women’s experiences of inner resources after sexual assault.
Literature shows that most of the studies in the area of sexual violence and sexual assault follow quantitative approaches -based on medical models and following legal definitions- that can depict an image of a damaged woman that needs fixing. Only recently, studies have started to focus on the process of sexual assault recovery or healing, and I am interested in discovering what women who have experienced sexual assault and/or rape find is helpful in their journey, aside from support offered by others such as friends or organisations. My intention with this research is to focus on women’s individual and unique experiences,as well as to bring methodological diversity into the arena.
Participants will be 8 women, 18 years old or older, with at least one experience of sexual assault and/or rape, and who have discussed these experiences in therapy. They will be recruited from Integrated Psychological Therapy Teams in Lewisham and Southwark through conversations with staff and posters. They will participate in a short telephone screening, and an hour long face-to-face semi-structured interview.
Interviews will be audio recorded, transcribed, and analysed using an Interpretative Phenomenological Approach, which will provide a table of themes for each interview, and one for the study as a whole.
The study will last a year overall.
It is intended that the knowledge acquired through this research will provide Counselling Psychologists and other professionals a better understanding of how to best support individuals that have experienced sexual assault and improve mental health and other services; as well as help them recognise and acknowledge inner resources women identify in this research during therapeutic relationships, and therefore create effective and tailored mental health interventions, and develop specific therapy methods.REC name
North East - Newcastle & North Tyneside 2 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/NE/0385
Date of REC Opinion
3 Feb 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion