The Mental Health Focus in Rape Crisis Services: Tensions and Recommendations

Abstract

In the evolution of rape crisis services, tensions persist between rape crisis service programs and mental health professionals. Changes within these programs and professions have brought the embedded concerns to the surface, but they remain unexamined and unresolved. Recent research on rape trauma and survivors' mental health needs has added to tensions by calling for description and evaluation of rape crisis services and timely psychological treatment for survivors. This article offers a new perspective by discussing the tensions in an open but balanced way so as to promote discussion and solutions. Recommendations and action steps are offered for promoting constructive dialogue and change to improve direct services for survivors.

Interdisciplinary Team Conflicts Among Forensic Nurses and Rape Victim Advocates

“…provide counseling, but there were concerns that these professionals lacked understanding of sexual violence within a feminist framework (Woody & Beldin, 2012). The addition of professional service providers also led to a stronger focus on counseling, but less on social change (Ullman & Townsend, 2007).…”

“I Don’t Like Being That Hyperaware of My Body”: Women Survivors of Sexual Violence and Their Experience of Exercise

“…This qualitative study (approved by the university's institutional review board) used a phenomenological approach to uncover and describe the lived experience (van Manen, 2017(van Manen, , 1990 of exercise among women survivors of sexual violence by forming a partnership with an RCC. Enhanced psychotherapist-researcher partnerships are recommended to promote safety for survivors of sexual violence participating in research (Woody & Beldin, 2012). None of the researchers were previously affiliated with the RCC.…”

“…We employed multiple mechanisms of data collection (i.e., FGD, individual interviews, questionnaires) to triangulate the data and to enhance the trustworthiness of our findings. We formed a diverse research team and followed the recommended approach of forming a partnership with an RCC because enhanced psychotherapist/researcher partnerships are believed to promote increased safety for survivors of sexual violence participating in research (Woody & Beldin, 2012). We remained attuned to exiting ethics, including member checks.…”

A Crisis of Care: The Politics and Therapeutics of a Rape Crisis Hotline

“…In fact, the feminist ideologies undergirding many rape crisis centers—which focused on addressing the social and structural factors that permitted sexual violence against women—were considered as being antithetical to professional mental services. Many rape crisis centers perceived psychology as masculinist and medicalized distortion of female pain (Campbell ), and “feminists rejected the notion that survivors’ responses to rape represented pathological trauma requiring treatment by professional counselors” (Woody and Beldin , 97). The increasing professionalization of rape crisis centers, however, combined with incipient research on the neurobiology of trauma, led to more integration of psychologists within centers, though tensions between crisis intervention and counseling remain.…”