Relative Wellbeing of Women Maltreated as Children

Linda Arnell1, Åsa Källström1, Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdottir2,3

  • 1School of Law, Psychology and Social Work, 6233Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden.

Violence Against Women
|December 13, 2021
PubMed

This study explores and analyzes how adult women in Sweden exposed to childhood maltreatment describe wellbeing, by using a thematic analysis of 22 semi-structured interviews with women maltreated as children. The results show that wellbeing was described as relative to both social norms and the childhood experiences and constituted four dimensions: Material and/or economic; Social and relational;Emotional; and Physical and/or mental. This study concludes that it is important to consider the relative and multiple ways wellbeing can be experienced and understood and to problematize norms of wellbeing, acknowledging the various ways people appraise their lives.

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