This thesis is a study of how young women in Denmark manage and make sense of their memories of psychological partner abuse. Through a cultural psychological epistemology, methodology and theoretical framework, I set out to study how memories of psychological abuse can be understood in a broader, cultural and social context. In particular, I examine how recollections of psychological abuse can be treated as vital memories. Vital memories are recollections that are structured as series of episodic memories, crucial to a sense of self in present, require considerable and ongoing work, are shaped by available cultural resources and tend to be mediated along setting and practices.
To support this claim, I have conducted a collective case study based on three semi-structured qualitative research interviews with three young women, who identify themselves as victims of psychological abuse in a former romantic relationship. The empirical material was analysed as vital memories and through the lenses of other selected theoretical perspec-tives, where memories are understood as a flexible and situation-dependent process. From this I compared and discussed different aspects of the managing and sensemaking of recollections of psychological abuse across the three cases in order to generalise in relation to common themes.
Based on this analysis and discussion, I argue that young women’s recollections of psychological indeed can be treated as vital memories. The women in this study continue to struggle with feelings of ambiguity and ambivalence in relation attribution of agency and responsibility; yet I found that these feelings in some cases have turned into resources as they open a space to reflect upon personal capacities and moral character. Moreover, the findings indicate that the women’s memories are mediated along settings, practices, and collective frameworks, and that culturally available resources in the form of psychological and psychiatric categories help the women to give structure and meaning to their past. Addi-tionally, the women’s managing and sensemaking of their past is intertwined with culturally shaped stereotypes of what it means to be an abused woman.
Thus, by situating difficult and painful memories of psychological abuse in a broader, cultural and social context, this thesis suggests a way of treating recollections of psycholog-ical abuse from a non-pathological perspective.