Abstract
D.Litt. et Phil. (Psychology)
Criminal violence is seen to impact individuals living in South Africa both directly and indirectly on a daily basis. South African studies demonstrate high prevalence rates of criminal violence events as well as the possibility of experiencing multiple traumatic events across the lifespan. Vehicle hijacking is seen as a prominent type of criminal violence within the South African context. South African studies have focused on exploring the negative outcomes of criminal violence involving posttraumatic stress symptomology. Few studies have focused on additional negative outcomes involving fear of crime, changes to the individual’s assumptive world, as well as an overall impact on the individual’s quality of life. In line with international trends, a few South African studies have explored the possibility of posttraumatic growth across a range of traumatic events within the South African context, including criminal violence. However, within these studies the survivors of the criminal violence sub-group demonstrate lower levels of growth. The present study identified a gap in the literature whereby no previous studies have explored the possibility of both negative and positive outcomes in the short-term and longer-term aftermath after a criminal violence event within the same study in the South African context.
Using an interpretive phenomenological analytic approach, this study explored the lived experience of post trauma outcomes after experiencing a vehicle hijacking event in the South African context. Purposive sampling was used to select six participants that had personally experienced a vehicle hijacking event within a two to five-year time frame prior to the interview. Four of the participants were involved in a shared vehicle hijacking event involving the presence of family or friends and two of the participants had experienced the vehicle hijacking event alone. Each participant engaged in a semi-structured interview in order to describe their lived experience and understanding of the specific phenomenon. The interpretive phenomenological analytic approach is an idiographic mode of inquiry focused on...