Resilience or illusion: A qualitative study on abuse awareness

In this study, individuals' awareness, perceptions and attributions of abuse, reactions to abusive behaviors and coping styles were investigated within the framework of three forms of abuse: partner abuse, parental abuse and workplace abuse. The relationships of abuse attributions and coping styles with psychological resilience, abuse experiences and myths about abuse were examined. The sample of the study consists of 8 participants, 4 women and 4 men. Demographic Information Form, Myths About Abuse Form, Semi-Structured Interview Form, Stress Symptoms Scale and Abuse Experiences Form were used as data collection tools in the study. In the semi-structured interview form, 6 scenarios containing abusive behaviors were presented to the participants. The perceptions and references about the abuse scenarios and the concept of abuse in general were collected by conducting interviews that lasted approximately 30 minutes with each participant. The interviews were analyzed with the thematic analysis method and five themes were determined as attribution, reaction, effect, motivation attributions and coping. Sub-themes were determined for each theme. The sub-themes for the attribution theme were victim-focused explanation, abuser-focused explanation, and relationship/environment-focused explanation; The sub-themes for reaction theme were active and aware, active and unconscious, passive and aware, passive and unconscious and indecisive; The sub-themes for effect theme were physical, emotional, cognitive/negative attributions to self, relational, and motivational; The sub-themes for motivation attributions theme were control/power/prestige, environment/context, self-worth and character trait; The sub-themes for the coping theme were problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping. It was revealed that 6 out of 8 participants did not notice abusive behaviors and normalize the abuse in at least one scenario. It was observed that the behaviors were normalized especially focused on victim-oriented explanations and it was observed that the form of abuse with the highest awareness was workplace abuse. It was found that the expressions of the participants about the motivations of the abusive behaviors were compatible with the literature; the motivation to be strong, the effects of upbringing styles and the individual's perception of inadequacy were the prominent motivation codes. It was observed that the participants who used only emotion-focused coping styles showed passive reactions to their experiences of abuse and had higher stress scores.