Abstract
This research explores the implications of drawing upon critical postmodern thinking for practitioners who are working to support victims/survivors of sexual assault in the legal system. It explores practitioners' perceptions of their capacities to bring about changes in the legal response to victims/survivors of sexual assault. Given that feminist theoretical approaches have traditionally dominated progressive approaches to practice in the field of sexual assault, the initial the focus of this research was concerned with exploring possibilities for effecting structural change both within and outside of the legal system. However, drawing on critical postmodern thinking broadened the initial scope of this research to additionally explore the ways practitioners construct and are constructed by their roles, in order to uncover discourses about their internal capacity to envision agency and power to bring about change. Therefore, one of the aims of this thesis is to explore whether critical postmodern perspectives, and the practices they imply, may enable practitioners to envision possibilities for addressing the structural problems of the legal system at a local level, and therefore to connect them with the means of social change. In attempting to create options to challenge and resist the overwhelming inadequacies of the legal processes and outcomes that often create a secondary assault for victims/ survivors, the research question explored in this thesis was: How does critical reflection on practice develop possibilities for change? Deconstruction and reconstruction of the participants' accounts of their practice with victims/ survivors in the context of the legal system, clearly indicated that critical reflection did in fact unearth new ways to think about change and new ways to enhance change practices with the legal system.