Articles

THE MOTHER OF THE VICTIM AS POTENTIAL SUPPORTER AND PROTECTOR: CONSIDERATIONS AND CHALLENGES Anne Morris

Much has been spoken and written about the phrase, 'breaking the silence', as an expression that captures the experiences and struggles for victims and survivors of child sexual abuse speaking what had, till then, been unspeakable (Breckenridge 1999). In the 1970s and 80s the public accounts of child sexual abuse by those who had been subject to it were greeted with shock, disbelief and sometimes denial. At a personal level, similar responses to the disclosure of child sexual abuse within families and communities still occur. Some writers have commented that the real taboo against sexual abuse is about speaking about it (Armstrong 1978).

Maternal Alienation Fact Sheet

Sometimes a man who is violent within his family alienates children from their mother as an ongoing part of that abuse. He often isolates his partner from any sources of support, and is skilful at convincing her family, the neighbours, the children’s school, and any professionals involved with the family, that she is mad or bad. This type of abuse has been called maternal alienation.

The story of naming ‘maternal alienation’: new research enters the world of policy and practice Anne Morris1

Liz Kelly tells us that, "in order to define something a word has to exist with which to name it. … What is not named is invisible and, in a social sense, nonexistent" (1988 114). When I sought to understand why so many mothers who were victims of violence were blamed and often hated by their children, I found myself identifying and naming a phenomenon that had been virtually unnamed in the literature on violence against women.

WORKING WITH MATERNAL ALIENATION IN DOMESTIC/FAMILY VIOLENCE AND CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE By Anne Morris

This Resource for Practitioners is based on two action research projects on maternal alienation. The first project in 1999, undertaken by Northern Metropolitan Community Health Service (Northern Women’s) in partnership with Adelaide University, first identified maternal alienation and described its strategies (Morris 1999). The second project, the Maternal Alienation Project, was initiated as a partnership between Northern Metropolitan Community Health Service, Women’s Health Statewide and Adelaide University in 2002-3, to educate services across sectors about maternal alienation and develop practice responses to it. Practice responses were developed in two working groups with practitioners from 1) Violence Intervention Program (Northern and Central) and 2) Women’s Health services in Adelaide

Working with ‘maternal alienation’: connecting child protection and gendered violence in theory and practice By Anne Morris

‘Maternal alienation' is a concept recently developed to describe the attempts by some male perpetrators of violence to alienate children from their mother. It has been identified in child sexual abuse and domestic violence, but tends to be largely invisible to professionals. Professionals often assess these situations as maternal dysfunction or neglect, because they witness difficult mother-child relationships and children’s closer identification with their fathers. As a consequence professional intervention may reinforce perpetrators’ regimes of abuse and control.

Motherhood: Power and Oppression by Marie Porter, Patricia Short , Andrea O'Reilly Herrera

n feminism, the institution of mothering/motherhood has been a highly contested area in how it relates to the oppression of women. As Adrienne Rich articulated in her classic 1976 book Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution, although motherhood as an institution is a male-defined site of oppression, women's own experiences of mothering can nonetheless be a source of power. This volume examines four locations wherein motherhood is simultaneously experienced as a site of oppression and of power: embodiment, representation, practice and separation. Motherhood includes psychological, historical, sociological, literary and cultural approaches to inquiry and a wide range of disciplinary perspectives ? qualitative, quantitative, corporeal, legal, religious, fictional, mythological, dramatic and action research. This rich collection not only covers a wide range of subject matter but also illustrates ways of doing feminist research and practice.