Women In Focus. This is a project which by means of photography and writing focuses on the recovery and the integration of the life history of women who in the past have experienced violence from their partners.

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to share the experience gained by the “Women In Focus” (Proyecto Enfocadas) project in Madrid (Spain) which was organised by a department of the city council which serves victims of domestic violence. The target group of the project was 10 women who in the past had experienced violence from their partners and the project describes how they recovered from this situation through therapy. They participated in 17 group workshops which used photography and writing. The objectives of these workshops tended to promote artistic creation, personal development, the integration of their life histories and the development of self-esteem and empowerment by giving a collective voice to the participants. Consideration was given in the second stage to the raising of awareness about the issue of gender violence through the message of the participants and on prevention through samples of their artistic work. After a description of the experience the focus will be on the psychological level on the assumption that the project has helped the participants to integrate the traumatic events they experienced into their life history. This will be through the study of three specific cases which show different levels of integration.