Psychotherapy for the rape victim: some treatment models

A victim of rape immediately feels an acute disruption of her life style and coping skills and a great stress on her ego. In order to achieve long-term integration, she must resolve a lack of trust of men, paranoia about her physical safety, guilt, and a grief reaction. The author reviews several models of therapy, including the traditional psychodynamic approach, the humanistic approach, and the behavioral-cognitive approach, and also some of the literature on crisis theory. She proposes a model for measuring the rape victim's recuperation--a numbered scale of adaptive behavior on which she can advance from the first stage, acute disorganization, to higher levels of behavior. Two important factors influencing the victim's recovery are symptom relief and the support of significant others.