Making excuses and making sense: The role and nuances of active listening in eliciting and managing accounts of sexual violations

Mari Todd-Kvam, Nicolay Gausel, Carolina Överlien, Department of Social Work, Uppsala University, Department of Social Sciences, University of Stavanger, National Centre for Knowledge on Men, s Violence Against Women, Uppsala University and Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies

Qualitative Social Work: Research and Practice

Published online on October 18, 2025

Abstract

Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print.
Across institutional settings, people who talk about having committed sexual violence often do so in ways that may neutralize their personal culpability for it. These so-called neutralizations may be part of a pro-social forward-looking narrative, but ...