Results in family casework with feebleminded clients 1

Abstract

The bombing in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995 was a massive assault on the meaning‐making of survivors and community members. Utilizing a social constructionist perspective, this article explores the evolution of the community's social narrative as it shifted in the immediate wake of the blast to a new framework for understanding the event three months later. It is speculated that the community's storying of the bombing was initially centered on issues of action and recovery in order to restore civil order. Only after the departure of the Red Cross, which contributed to the formation of this communal narrative, did traditional crisis notions concerning phases of grief begin to appear in the local Oklahoma City newspaper. In addition, individual stories that did not conform to the larger understanding of events were conferred less authority than those in accordance with the dominant narrative.