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Current issues in understanding sexual victimization
Published in Rachel E. Lovell, Jennifer Langhinrichsen-Rohling, Sexual Assault Kits and Reforming the Response to Rape, 2023
A victim who freezes during an attack can get trapped in a response known as “tonic immobility.” Tonic immobility is a primal defense mechanism, often known as “playing dead” when faced by a threat in order to confuse or discourage the attacker. In humans, it is elicited in situations when escape or fighting is impossible (Kozlowska et al., 2015). In the sexual assault literature, it is sometimes referred to as “rape paralysis.” While freezing is brief, tonic immobility can last substantially longer and occurs later in the defense cascade (Roelofs, 2017). There is evidence that humans experience tonic immobility (Volchan et al., 2011), and sexual assault is the most likely event to trigger it. Victims who experience tonic immobility, both men and women, are more likely to have post-traumatic symptoms (Coxwell & King, 2010).
Comorbid Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Concussion
Published in Rolland S. Parker, Concussive Brain Trauma, 2016
Tonic immobility: Inability to move is an unlearned response observed in animals (regardless of their opportunity to do so), although this has been reported in rape, plane crashes, and so on (“scared stiff”; “frozen with fear”; “limp”; “faint, trembling and cold”). It is differentiated from learned helplessness, a learned response that usually requires several trials of inescapable aversive stimulation. From an evolutionary perspective, when confronted with danger, all resources are concentrated on the immediate danger, and the repertoire of reactions is limited to that which has evolved for protection. The cognitive component is not considered to be a form of peritraumatic dissociation, although both are considered to be a result of extreme fear. It may be associated with undisrupted or enhanced event-related memory, consciousness, and learning. Some degree of perceived or real restraint is consistent with anecdotal reports (e.g., sexual assault and plane crashes) (Marx et al., 2008; Zoellner, 2008).
Impacts of Victim Resistance and Type of Assault on Legal Decision-Making in Child Sexual Assault
Published in Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 2023
Kyle P. Rawn, Mary M. Levi, Andrea M. Pals, Holly Huber, Jonathan M. Golding
It is important to note that even though perpetrators report that most child victims resist in some way (Leclerc et al., 2011), some children do not resist, and in some cases, victims are physically unable to resist. One reason may be tonic immobility – an involuntary, reflexive response to fear-inducing stimuli – and may explain the apparent paralysis or “freezing” experienced by an adult, and presumably also a child victim of sexual assault (Galliano et al., 1993). Additionally, in most states, physical resistance is not required for an instance to qualify as first-degree rape, especially when the victim is of a certain age (Tracy et al., 2012). It should be the case that any victim of sexual assault should not have to resist. Unfortunately, that is not reflected by laws, commonly held rape myths, nor even mock jurors, especially in the present study. Therefore, future research may investigate: (a) how the present study may play out in states that still require physical resistance for a situation to be deemed rape, (b) how rape myth beliefs may impact verdicts in the context of child victims, and (c) how child tonic immobility specifically is viewed in a legal context.
Integrating general practitioners into crisis management would accelerate the transition from victim to effective professional: Qualitative analyses of a terrorist attack and catastrophic flooding
Published in European Journal of General Practice, 2022
Bernard Clary, Bélinda Baert, Gérard Bourrel, Michel Amouyal, Béatrice Lognos, Agnès Oude-Engberink, Elodie Million
Our findings highlight those participants experiencing an initial emotional shock, which created barriers to their thinking and acting. French psychiatrist Muriel Salmona, who led a national survey on sexual violence in 2015, has shown that this process can also arise from terrorism and other attacks, often causing a ‘cessation of thought’ which she called ‘traumatic dissociation’ [22]. This state of involuntary and temporary motor inhibition is like ‘tonic immobility’, described as a universal process observed in traumatic shocks such as rape [20]. This tonic immobility is associated with the development of subsequent post-traumatic stress disorder and severe depression in the study by Moller et al. Our qualitative study could not quantify this phenomenon. Still, in the IMPACTS study of emergency and law enforcement/response health professionals who were deployed to deal with the Paris attacks and hostage-taking, 3% developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and at least 14% developed an anxiety disorder [7]. For the 2016 Berlin terrorist attack, one study showed a slight increase in levels of aggression and hostility among police officers and significantly lower environmental quality of life among firefighters [8]. Previous studies had shown that PTSD was associated with the intensity and duration of exposure, lack of preparedness and social isolation [5].
Analysis of a Modification to the Sexual Experiences Survey to Assess Intimate Partner Sexual Violence
Published in The Journal of Sex Research, 2021
RaeAnn E. Anderson, Samantha C. Holmes, Nicole L. Johnson, Dawn M. Johnson
It is also possible that these findings, suggesting participants need specific cues for experiences that are inconsistent with rape myths, extend to other issues in sexual victimization measurement. For example, it may be that in incidents in which people experience tonic immobility during an assault (e.g., reflexive, involuntary paralysis) or explicitly choose not to fight back physically, they may also unintentionally underreport their experiences on sexual victimization questionnaires because these experiences are discrepant with rape scripts/stereotypes. Similarly, men who are raped by women and people who are coerced via verbal strategies may struggle to recognize these experiences as rape or sexual assault and thus, underreport their experiences. An important area for future research is further examining IPSV in a variety of relationship types, genders, and sexual identities.