Revictimization & Self Harm in Females Who Experienced Childhood Sexual Abuse

1. Revictimization & Self Harm in Females Who Experienced Childhood Sexual Abuse

2. Lifetime Trauma Histories • Abused participants reported twice as many subsequent rapes or sexual assaults • Several studies have found higher rates of self-abuse or self-harm in childhood sexual assault victims

3. Self-harm, suicide, and self destructiveness (risk taking, self-defeating behaviors and eating disorders) have all been studied as forms of revictimization • However, according to Noll, self harm and revictimization are separate but related behaviors

4. Dissociation • A psychophysiological process whereby information is actively deflected from integration with its usual or expected associations • This may range from daydreaming to extreme multiple personality disorder

5. Dissociation has been implicated as a factor that leads to the development of revictimization • It is thought to be useful initially. • It may lead to greater vulnerability to reenactment

6. This is because it prevents victims from engaging in self protective measures • The more it is used as a defense against repeated trauma, the more likely it is that the person will use it as a primary defense in adulthood

7. Dissociation • By blocking or distorting threatening material from entering the conscious awareness • Individuals are less able to process danger cues

8. May be less likely to experience the anticipatory anxiety that normally signals the presence of danger

9. Dissociation • During a traumatic event it is called “Peritraumatic dissociation” • Thought to be a primitive coping mechanism • Protects the child from being psychologically overwhelmed by the abuse event

10. However, the memory disruption associated with the tendency to dissociate peritraumatically • Leaves the victim with an inability to learn from traumatic experiences