A feminist analysis of narratives about adult survivors of child sexual abuse in Australian peer-reviewed literature

Abstract

This article examines contemporary narratives about adult survivors of child sexual abuse within Australian peer-reviewed literature since 2017. A feminist study, using a scoping literature review method, gathered 15 articles that were descriptively and thematically analysed. The first two themes highlighted the ongoing dominance of patriarchal-informed paradigms of medicine, psychology and psychiatry that reproduce narratives of harm and responsibility. In contrast, the final theme identifies alternate narratives that construct diversity and nuance of adult survivors’ experiences, which have implications for social work and human services research and practice in Australia, and elsewhere, where similar patriarchal norms persist.