2007-2008

News Release

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DATE: March 27, 2008

Dr. Marie Croll’s new book takes a look at sexual abuse through the eyes of those who have experienced it. Her research is based primarily out of a 15-year private counseling practice working with sexually abused women. 
Dr. Croll, an assistant professor of Sociology and Social/Cultural Studies at Grenfell College, examines sexual abuse in a broad context beyond the strictly personal and isolated suffering documented in most scholarly publications.
Titled Following Sexual Abuse: A Sociological Interpretation of Identity Re/formation in Reflexive Therapy, this book “attempts to develop a broader perspective on this important issue via narrated accounts of women’s experiences. It is a sociological investigation that looks at the connection between the intra-personal and social worlds of victims as revealed through reflexive therapy,” according to University of Toronto Press.
Her work explores the transformational space between intra-personal and social experiences of self, a dual perspective that allows room for both personal and collective experiences to enter into a discussion of sexual abuse and its effects.
She argues that private and public interpretations of the abuse experience need to be considered together, as their influences on the individual are inseparable. Using individual case studies, Dr. Croll demonstrates the extent to which changing public perspectives on sexual abuse have come to define victims’ relationships to their own accounts, and she offers vital sociological insights and a necessary intra-personal vantage point for a deeper understanding of the experience of sexual abuse and the issues of therapeutic practice.
Following Sexual Abuse is available at the Grenfell College Bookstore and through the University of Toronto Press website: http://www.utppublishing.com/pubstore/.

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