Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Y C Ulrich.
Women who are leaving abusive relationships rely on social support. However, their descriptions of the process of leaving, their reasons for leaving, and what helped them most in leaving relate to issues about the self as much as the availability of support. Clinicians who consider both of these resources can better support the decision making of women who are living in and leaving abusive male partners.
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Research has focused on factors associated with leaving physically abusive relationships, yet little is known about what the woman thinks when she leaves. Fifty-one formerly battered women from rural and metropolitan areas in two midwestern states described 86 reasons for leaving a physically abusive relationship. During open-ended interviews, women who rated themselves as severely abused spontaneously emphasized leaving as a process. Content analysis resulted in reasons categorized as safety, dependency, and personal growth. Self-report retrospective data from a nonrandom sample limit generalizability of results; however, the awareness and reasoning of the women, coupled with their emphasis on leaving as process and personal growth, suggest the importance of education and support programs for abused women and women at risk for abuse.
Feminist scholarship describing women's relational self and its development can influence awareness of women's psychological development as occurring within the context of their relationships to others. Women's psychological maturation progresses in connection with others rather than only in separation from others, as traditional theories have espoused. The author argues that feminist scholarship emphasizes newer theories that elucidate the relational self, describe its development, and clarify caring and relationships. Understanding the concept of the relational self can contribute to effective psychiatric nursing, and feminist scholarship can assist developing in psychiatric nursing's conceptualization of the relational self.