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Making the Connections: Women, Work, and Abuse

NCJ Number
156082
Author(s)
P A Murphy
Date Published
1993
Length
264 pages
Annotation
This volume explores the impact of physical abuse, sexual assault, and other abuse on women's identities as workers and suggested ways that vocational rehabilitation methods and expertise can be used to assist women in healing their work lives.
Abstract
The discussion is based on the analysis of 496 closed workers' compensation cases for abuse factors; interviews with eight female survivors of rape, battering, and incest; the author's clinical vocational rehabilitation counseling experience in workers' compensation systems and experience as an employer of female clerical professional workers; and several literature reviews. Each of the 11 chapters begins with a case story of how the abuse changed a woman's identity as a worker. The chapters focus on prostitution as the center of the rape paradigm, a history of the rehabilitation profession, post-traumatic stress disorder in survivors of abuse, the physical injuries of abuse survivors, and the abuse of injured and disabled women. Additional chapters focus on the rehabilitationist as expert witness and the use of vocational experts in a variety of cases, including no-fault divorce and domestic tort cases; civil sexual assault cases; civil suits in incest, pornography, and prostitution cases; and wrongful death cases. The final chapter presents a feminist vocational rehabilitation model. Appended methodological information, vocational service delivery standards, and resolution for the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence and approximately 200 references