The wrenching testimony of Christine Blasey Ford, who is accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of a sexual assault years ago, raises questions about the long-term emotional and physical tollthis kind of trauma takes on survivors and how our society responds to those who come forward long after the assault.
Emily R. Dworkin, a senior fellow at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, studies how the social interactions of trauma survivors can affect their recovery. She was also the lead author of a paper published in the journal Clinical Psychology Review in 2017 that looked through more than 100,000 studies conducted in the last 50 years and found nearly 200 relevant ones on the relationship between sexual assault and mental health to analyze.
What she found, Dworkin says, is strong evidence that sexual assault is associated with an increased risk for multiple forms of psychological harm "across most populations, assault types and methodological differences in studies." Too many survivors still face stigma and internalize that blame, and that can make it harder to seek help. And while some types of therapy have been shown to be helpful, she says, more information on evidence-based treatments for survivors "is critically needed."
[For more on this story by APRIL FULTON, go to https://www.npr.org/sections/h...l-assault-what-works]
For another story on a similar topic, see Sexual assault victims more likely to have anxiety and depression ā study.
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