‘We’re in the 21st Century After All’: Analysis of Social Responses in Individual Support and Institutional Reform

Abstract

In the course of our research and clinical work in Response-Based Practice (Wade, 1997, 2000, 2002, 2007, 2014;Coates, Todd and Wade, 2003; Todd and Wade, 2004; Coates and Wade, 2004, 2007, 2012)1, we routinely meet victims of violence who report receiving negative social responses from others. Often this takes the form of blame and misdiagnosis. The victim’s resistance to the violence is ignored and the victim’s responses are interpreted instead as ‘effects’ or ‘impacts’ and symptoms of disorders and deficits. When viewed in context, however, we find that victim responses — even responses of intense despair — become understandable as fitting and proportionate responses and as forms of resistance. By ‘context’ we mean the perpetrator’s actions, the specific situations in which those actions are committed, the social responses of social network and institutional actors (the focus of this chapter) and social and material conditions that are, or become, salient. Just as positive social responses can provide immense relief, negative social responses can incite further suffering, as in the case of Jenna, discussed here.