Young women speak out: healing the selves through narrative therapy

摘要

This paper explicates the contemporary voices of Malaysian women projected towardsudraising awareness on violence to the public through Young Women Speak Out, anudanthology of short stories and poems written by victims of violence and sexual abuse.udThis collection is published in 2007 by All Women’s Action Society (AWAM), anudindependent feminist organisation committed to improving the lives of women inudMalaysia. The writers’ writings of life-narratives are analysed in the framework ofudnarrative therapy developed by Michael White and David Epston and Kamsler’s theory ofudrevising individuals’ relationship with one-self in relation to violence and abuse. Byudplacing the plots of the stories within Kamsler’s stages of revising individual’sudrelationship with one-self in relation to violence and abuse, the stories reflect the authors’udsuccess in forming a more positive self-dignity, thus allowing them to go on with theirudlives guided by new perspectives and hopes. By contextualizing their violent experiencesudin a broader cultural politics of race, gender, class, sexuality, professional andudinstitutional dominance, these stories, when viewed as therapeutic engagement, haveudhelped these women to externalise their problems allowing them to create awareness asudwell as speaking out to the Malaysian society in order to expose the detrimental effects ofudsexual and domestic violence.