In the rich world, there are two kind of people at the receiving end of sexually-motivated violence: victims and survivors. The difference is easy enough to spot to the naked eye, but the fastest way to explain it is to look at the crisis intervention after an incident.
For those who have not had crisis intervention following an incident of sexually-motivated violence, it goes like this. You will explain at great length what happened, thinking the counsellor wants to hear all about. The counsellor will nod and pretend to take notes, and then he or she will ask something along the lines of "what could you do to prevent this happening again?"
This is when the survivors will choose to say "you know, that's a good point" and then start strategizing. Over the course of several incidents (and there will be several incidents over a person's life, unless they live in a friction-less vacuum under a rock on Mars), the survivor will develop a strategy that will greatly reduce the frequency of incidentts and the damage sustained in any incident. One might say this increases their "self-esteem" or more accurately, self-efficacy. But in reality, they can do this because they already have self-efficacy. They just need to apply it.
The victim, on the other, will respond with anger and something to the effect that "you're saying it's my fault." Of course the concept of "fault" is irrelevant outside of the insurance and civil law worlds. As the saying goes, "dysfunctional teams look for blame; functional teams look for solutions." The victim, however, will never accept this concept. This is exactly what makes him or her a victim. Whenever a victim is crossed, he blames someone and expects an apology. The apology will neither restore the victim nor prevent further incidents. Perhaps as a logical consequence, the apology does not satisfy the victim. While he may be pleased at first, he will retain the conviction that he was wronged, forever.
A friend of your correspondent's once went on vacation. At quitting time on his last day of work before the vacation, he left his personal protective equipment in the spot where he had been working. The next day, the foreman picked it up and put it away. On his return, the worker could not find his PPE. Rather than making inquiries, he went home, and then refused to go to work for ten days because "someone stole his PPE." The perfect victim mentality.
Once upon a time, your correspondent thought that as survivors choose to respond productively, so victims choose to respond counter-productively. Further observation of victims suggests that in fact they lack the ability to make a decision.
A person in your correspondent's life has a poor relationship with her mother. She asked her mother to participate in relationship counselling with her. The mother agreed and they attended a first session. The counsellor then asked to have a session with the daughter alone. The daughter freaked out because "he's blaming me when it's her fault", and refused to attend any further sessions. Ten years later, the same was still having relationship problems, this time with a man. Your long-suffering correspondent, having listened to endless such tales of woe, managed somehow to get the person to agree, rationally, that as she can only control herself and none other, it was pointless to make demands regarding another person's cognitions or behaviour. And having agreed that logically this is the case, the person then exclaimed "but they're wrong!!!!!" At this point your correspondent realized that somehow the victim brain is unable to process personal responsibility. Even though the victim can understand the rational argument and see its validity, the brain cannot internalize this knowledge and agree that this could be used to guide one's behaviour. And this is not so much a cognitive process as a limitation of the physical brain. A sort of brain damage, if you will. Literature such as On Being Certain (Robert A. Burton, 2009) supports this theory.
This is why, therefore, there are survivors and victims of sexually-motivated violence. Survivors can see that they control their behaviour and no one else's, and that therefore the only way to reduce incidents of sexually-motivated violence against themselves is to change their own behaviour. Victims physically cannot process this theory because something in their brain is lacking; probably something to do with the prefrontal cortex, which handles cause and effect, theory of mind, planning, and self-control. Thus victims are in fact victims long before they suffer any incident of sexually-motivated violence. They are victims because their brain, physically, is that of a victim, in the same way that addicts are addicts regardless of the presence or absence of a focus of addiction, because physically their brain is that of an addict.
The good news for victims of sexually-motivated violence is that the brain has a certain amount of plasticity and one can force the under-active prefrontal cortex to develop. The bad news is that, as in addicts, changing the prefrontal cortex requires first of all admitting one needs to change and that no external force will effect this change. Addicts overcome addiction strictly by their own effort, which begins with the assumption of responsibility. Likewise victims have to begin by assuming responsibility - the very thing they've always been unable to do.
For those who have not had crisis intervention following an incident of sexually-motivated violence, it goes like this. You will explain at great length what happened, thinking the counsellor wants to hear all about. The counsellor will nod and pretend to take notes, and then he or she will ask something along the lines of "what could you do to prevent this happening again?"
This is when the survivors will choose to say "you know, that's a good point" and then start strategizing. Over the course of several incidents (and there will be several incidents over a person's life, unless they live in a friction-less vacuum under a rock on Mars), the survivor will develop a strategy that will greatly reduce the frequency of incidentts and the damage sustained in any incident. One might say this increases their "self-esteem" or more accurately, self-efficacy. But in reality, they can do this because they already have self-efficacy. They just need to apply it.
The victim, on the other, will respond with anger and something to the effect that "you're saying it's my fault." Of course the concept of "fault" is irrelevant outside of the insurance and civil law worlds. As the saying goes, "dysfunctional teams look for blame; functional teams look for solutions." The victim, however, will never accept this concept. This is exactly what makes him or her a victim. Whenever a victim is crossed, he blames someone and expects an apology. The apology will neither restore the victim nor prevent further incidents. Perhaps as a logical consequence, the apology does not satisfy the victim. While he may be pleased at first, he will retain the conviction that he was wronged, forever.
A friend of your correspondent's once went on vacation. At quitting time on his last day of work before the vacation, he left his personal protective equipment in the spot where he had been working. The next day, the foreman picked it up and put it away. On his return, the worker could not find his PPE. Rather than making inquiries, he went home, and then refused to go to work for ten days because "someone stole his PPE." The perfect victim mentality.
Once upon a time, your correspondent thought that as survivors choose to respond productively, so victims choose to respond counter-productively. Further observation of victims suggests that in fact they lack the ability to make a decision.
A person in your correspondent's life has a poor relationship with her mother. She asked her mother to participate in relationship counselling with her. The mother agreed and they attended a first session. The counsellor then asked to have a session with the daughter alone. The daughter freaked out because "he's blaming me when it's her fault", and refused to attend any further sessions. Ten years later, the same was still having relationship problems, this time with a man. Your long-suffering correspondent, having listened to endless such tales of woe, managed somehow to get the person to agree, rationally, that as she can only control herself and none other, it was pointless to make demands regarding another person's cognitions or behaviour. And having agreed that logically this is the case, the person then exclaimed "but they're wrong!!!!!" At this point your correspondent realized that somehow the victim brain is unable to process personal responsibility. Even though the victim can understand the rational argument and see its validity, the brain cannot internalize this knowledge and agree that this could be used to guide one's behaviour. And this is not so much a cognitive process as a limitation of the physical brain. A sort of brain damage, if you will. Literature such as On Being Certain (Robert A. Burton, 2009) supports this theory.
This is why, therefore, there are survivors and victims of sexually-motivated violence. Survivors can see that they control their behaviour and no one else's, and that therefore the only way to reduce incidents of sexually-motivated violence against themselves is to change their own behaviour. Victims physically cannot process this theory because something in their brain is lacking; probably something to do with the prefrontal cortex, which handles cause and effect, theory of mind, planning, and self-control. Thus victims are in fact victims long before they suffer any incident of sexually-motivated violence. They are victims because their brain, physically, is that of a victim, in the same way that addicts are addicts regardless of the presence or absence of a focus of addiction, because physically their brain is that of an addict.
The good news for victims of sexually-motivated violence is that the brain has a certain amount of plasticity and one can force the under-active prefrontal cortex to develop. The bad news is that, as in addicts, changing the prefrontal cortex requires first of all admitting one needs to change and that no external force will effect this change. Addicts overcome addiction strictly by their own effort, which begins with the assumption of responsibility. Likewise victims have to begin by assuming responsibility - the very thing they've always been unable to do.
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