Shattered Voices: Daughters’ Meaning Reconstruction in Loss of a Mother to Intimate Partner Homicide

Abstract

Intimate partner homicide is a major public health concern around the world and the most lethal outcome of domestic violence. Its impact on the surviving bereaved offspring is immense, yet there is a significant gap in the literature regarding the long-term effects of this type of loss. The current qualitative study is aimed at filling this gap. The study used the constructivist paradigm of bereavement as a theoretical background to reveal the meanings constructed by bereaved Israeli daughters whose biological mothers were killed in acts of intimate partner homicide by their biological fathers. Three main themes of meaning emerged from 12 in-depth semi-structured interviews: “destruction of one’s home”; “blast injury”; and “in doubt”. An examination of the three themes in the current study reveals a deep shatter in participants’ world of meaning to its very basic foundations. In light of intense psychological and social forces, the participants constructed and reconstructed such narratives of meaning in a continuous process of meaning making throughout their lives, years, and decades post loss. Derived from the findings are implications for practice. Mental healthcare professionals must attend to this basic shatter with an extreme level of caution, as they help homicide survivors reconstruct a world of meaning shattered by loss. Moreover, the long-lasting effects emphasize an appropriate legal and political involvement; specifically, policy regulations and rights should provide psychosocial care programs that are suited to the needs of offspring co-victims of intimate partner homicide in particular. In light of the strong social influence on participants’ loss experience, further efforts are required to raise social awareness about this burning social concern and to fight the stigmatization of co-victims of homicide in general and co-victims of intimate partner homicide in particular.

A Trisonance: Identities of Women Whose Mothers Were Murdered by Their Fathers

“…As is evident in the findings and as suggested by previous studies of homicide losses and IPF trauma (Alisic, Groot, Snetselaar, Stroeken, Hehenkamp, & van de Putte, 2017;Armour, 2005;Pitcho-Prelorentzos et al, 2021;Steeves & Parker, 2007), participants' loss experience (i.e., their autobiographical memory) played a pivotal role in their attempts to articulate a narrative of who they are (McAdams & McLean, 2013). As the bereaved in our study are survivors of homicide, and the biological daughters of both perpetrator and victim of the same crime, they are related to the event as its direct "co-victims," as well as the direct (genetic and structural) extensions of both murder victim and perpetrator.…”

“…The media, legal system, and social services tend to perceive the deceased mothers as the “direct” victims and IPF offspring are usually referred to as “secondary victims” or co-victims of homicide, typically defined as “individuals who have familial connections with the victim and thus are indirectly victimised” (Connolly & Gordon, 2015, p. 1). The findings of the current study and previous findings (Pitcho-Prelorentzos et al, 2021) contribute to the understanding of the experience of offspring survivorship following IPF as they portray a direct, full, and independent form of victimhood, which stands apart from the mothers’ victimhood. Thus, defining and referring to this traumatically bereaved population as co victims disregards their unique survivorship experience and symbolically couples their victimhood with the mothers in a way that endorses “pathological identification” with the mothers.…”

“…Contradicting a prominent cultural tendency toward child-centrism (Kestler-Peleg & Lavenda, 2018), neither parent was able to prevent the murder and protect their children from the subsequent devastation. Therefore, as a result of the parents’ weaknesses or flaws, participants demand to care for their own survival (Pitcho-Prelorentzos et al, 2021). Therefore, in order to ensure both physical and mental survival, participants reject and dissonate themselves from their parents’ characteristics which are associated with the cause of their tragic loss.…”

“…Nonetheless, the literature has yet to thoroughly address the meanings of being "that girl whose dad killed her mom," and the processes through which such an identity is constructed. Therefore, complementing our publication describing the meanings adult daughters of IPF victims reconstruct in their loss (Pitcho-Prelorentzos et al, 2021), the current study aims to voice and document participants' narration of identity in light of their loss, using McAdams' concept of narrative identity (McAdams & McLean, 2013).…”

Mitigating Loss and Trauma: The Continuing Bonds Experience of Daughters Bereaved to Intimate Partner Femicide

“…Participants in this study struggled to find meaning in the loss and described a prolonged struggle for psychological survival, as they felt alone and unsafe in the world and anxious about future unexpected tragedies. These accounts were accompanied by a dissociative tendency to protect themselves from the overwhelmingly traumatic and disenfranchised experience (Pitcho-Prelorentzos et al, 2022). Another study emphasized the complex process of identity formation in this population, due primarily to the disidentifications with each of their parents stemming, in turn, from their biological relationship with both the victim and the perpetrator of the socially taboo crime of domestic homicide (Pitcho-Prelorentzos et al, 2023).…”