A comparison of how trauma survivors of interpersonal violence use clinical and community support services

Introduction: Trauma research shows that survivors of interpersonal violence, such as child abuse and domestic violence, develop cognitive, emotional, relational and identity-related difficulties and long-term impairments. Trauma- and cognitive-focused therapies tend to be the first line of treatment. These treatments place survivors as individuals at the core of understanding trauma and recovery, and this is important in order to address individuals’ difficulties. However, this also makes it an intrapsychic problem focused on individuals’ malfunctioning which needs repairing, rather than considering appropriately the role of context and social processes. Data presented here comes from research that sought to explore these individual and social recovery processes. The current study presents the data which investigated similarities and differences when female adult trauma survivors accessed clinical or community support.