Sexual Assault Victims Struggle With More Psychological Consequences Than Previously Believed

By Rebekah Marcarelli r.marcarelli@hngn.com | May 22, 2014 09:00 PM EDT

Researchers found victims of repeated sexual assault report more psychological consequences than previously believed. 

One in five adult women and one in 100 adult men have reported being raped, a University of Missouri news release reported. 

"Our findings are important because we are able to identify some of the weaknesses and potential fallacies in classifying survivors based on the violence encountered during the assault," Bryana French, assistant professor of counseling psychology in the Department of Educational, School and Counseling Psychology in the College of Education at MU, said in the news release. "Indirect, repeated or subtle manipulation tactics can lead to a lifetime of psychological consequences."

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Individuals who have been repeatedly assaulted (not necessarily raped) had higher instances of psycho-behavioral consequences than has been predicted in the past. 

The researchers hope that by learning to understand these victimization patterns they could help reduce sexual assault in adolescents. 

Researchers who look at rape and assault victims tend to focus on severity; but understanding the patterns of victimization could make more of an impact. 

The recent study looked at three types of sexual victimization: "verbal coercion, substance-facilitated assault and forcible rape," the news release reported. 

Those who had been assaulted through methods such as physical force, verbal coercion, and substances such as alcohol experienced the most mental consequences. These consequences included "lower self-esteem, higher psychological distress and greater sexual risk-taking later in life," the news release reported. 

"Most sexual victimization research tends to focus on forcible, violent rape while the subtler forms of sexual assault, like manipulation and coercion, are less studied," French said. "Unfortunately, we know that people who are victimized often experience re-victimization by the same or different individual. Our research focuses on those individuals who receive multiple forms of unwanted sexual advances and the psychological toll those experiences take on the victims."