Discussion List for campus-based and allied personnel working to end gender-based violence on campus.

["Abby Tassel" <>]

Hi all-

This is a very common pattern post assault and while I hope, as Brett pointed out, it is not considered in any way relevant in a hearing, it can be important to help survivors and their family/friends understand it.  Of course, in domestic/relationship violence this is what is happening all the time and often it is the danger associated with NOT continuing the relationship and the myriad other reasons that I’m sure we have all brainstormed with groups over the years. 

 

But in a sexual assault outside of an ongoing relationship, as others have noted, being in a relationship can be a way to try to fool oneself into thinking that this might not have been as bad as one thought and that life can go on as before even though there are often significant internal messages indicating otherwise.

 

Another way of thinking about it that I have found often resonates with survivors is that they are wanting to take control of the situation to whatever amount they can.  This is sometimes called “attempt at mastery” and is what generally drives impulses like going back to the place a victim was assaulted to “consensually” hook up, and in general wanting to be very sexually active; a way to “prove” that the world hasn’t changed and that we can be masters of our lives and sexuality. 

 

Unfortunately this can be a set up for women who actually live in a world that is not really safe for them.  In particular, women who have been previously assaulted and have that flicker of freeze response that perpetrators pick up on are targeted, not uncommonly leading to repeat victimizations (and those who do not know better saying things like “she was looking for trouble” or worse).  It is difficult to have these conversations because of the need to clearly avoid saying that it is in any way the victim’s fault.  Focusing on the perpetrators’ targeting as opposed to the victims’ “vulnerability” is one good rule to be thinking about I have found. 

 

Hope this is helpful. 

Abby

 

Abby Tassel

Assistant Director

WISE

38 Bank Street, Lebanon, NH 03766 * 24-hour crisis line: 866-348-9473 * Office: 603-448-5922 ext. 102

www.wiseoftheuppervalley.org Friend us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter

 

 

 

From: Crocker, Patricia King Williams - crockepk [mailto:]
Sent: Tuesday, August 20, 2013 9:01 AM
To:
Subject: RE: Survivors continuing relationship with attacker

 

Hi Wade,

 

I remember hearing something similar to Karen’s response – maybe even at a presentation by Lisak(??) – that survivors will often act in ways that seem totally incongruent with having been assaulted in an effort to find a sense of normalcy or balance, sort of like trying to trick themselves out of feeling traumatized.  The presenter spoke specifically about behaviors involving the assailant such as ongoing communication or even sexual contact with the assailant after an assault.

 

Tricia

 

Patricia K. W. Crocker, Ph.D.

Staff Psychologist & Coordinator of Sexual Trauma Empowerment Program

James Madison University

Counseling and Student Development Center

Varner House

800 South Main Street, MSC 0801

Harrisonburg, VA  22807

Phone: (540) 568-6552

Fax: (540) 568-8096

 

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From: Guttentag, Karen S.
Sent: Tuesday, August 20, 2013 8:49 AM
To: Felty, Wade P.;
Subject: RE: Survivors continuing relationship with attacker

 

Hi Wade,

 

My (amateurish) sense of why this might happen is that it may reflect an effort to reestablish a sense of normalcy and to minimize the trauma of what took place. Behaving as though this interaction was normal and nothing unusual may be a coping mechanism on the part of the survivor, an attempt to convince herself/himself that what occurred was not so terrible, not so out of the ordinary, and by doing so, regain a sense of balance.

 

Hope this is helpful—and I’d love to hear other interpretations as well, as I may be off base.

 

Karen

 

Karen S. Guttentag

Associate Dean for Judicial Affairs and Student Life

Middlebury College

Middlebury, VT 05753

phone) 802-443-2024

fax) 802-443-2525

 

 

 

From: Felty, Wade P. []
Sent: Tuesday, August 20, 2013 1:53 AM
To:
Subject: Survivors continuing relationship with attacker

 

Colleagues,

 

I want to thank all of your for your many very helpful responses to my request for information on the neurobiology of sexual assault. The works of Dr. Lisak (who I’ve heard in person and read a lot of) and Dr. Rachel Campbell (who I was not familiar with until many of you wrote in) are particularly helpful. I think I have a solid mound of information to give our Dean’s Sexual Conduct Review Board to help them understand memory problems and tonic immobility. If I haven’t thanked everyone personally, I am working on doing so.

 

The final piece I am interested in is something a few panel members have questioned me about, and which I do not have a scientific/psychiatric explanation at the moment but I have heard it is common response….what causes some victims to continue associating with their attacker? i.e. last year we had a victim talk about how she texted her attacker a few times, and they even went out on several dates, and she continued regular social contact right up to the days leading up to her disclosing to us. Is this a symptom of rape trauma syndrome? I know it is almost more understandable when they are intimate partner, but what about when they are mere acquaintances and the victim still seeks out contact with them (positive contact, not accusatory/angry contact). Some of my older faculty colleagues have trouble understanding this. I know it is a common response but I am trying to explain possible motivations.

 

Wade

 

 

Wade Felty

Wade Felty

Office of Residence Life & Housing and Judicial Affairs

Assistant Sexual Assault Response Coordinator

Randolph-Macon College

(804)-752-3234 (Office)

(717)-813-3513 (Mobile 1)

(804)-441-4187 (Mobile 2)