Helping South Asian Immigrant Women Use Resilience Strategies in Healing from Sexual Abuse: A Call for a Culturally Relevant Model

Abstract

This article calls for the counseling and psychological field to construct a culturally relevant model for working with South Asian immigrant women survivors of sexual abuse to support their resilience and healing. Patriarchal norms of South Asian culture and acculturative stressors in the United States are examined to understand how they influence survivors' abuse experiences. The literature on South Asian women's experiences of intimate partner violence is reviewed in addition to resilience studies with women of color who have survived sexual abuse. Practice and research implications are presented.

KEYWORDS:

• resilience
• sexual abuse
• South Asian
• women