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domestic practices and governed by the needs of others. In contrast, recovery was
constructed within a narrative of personal transformation in which participants
relinquished their good woman practices and attended to their own needs. However,
participants appeared to face a discursive double bind whereby letting go of
domestic and caring work and beginning to care for themselves were both central to
their wellness and threatening to their identities as women. The analysis explores
the ways in which participants negotiated and resisted dominant discourses of
femininity in their accounts of recovery from depression.
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