A new 12-step program, based in Chicago, aims to use group therapy and concepts modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous to help rape victims recover from the trauma associated with rape. Though the premise of group counseling is a good one, the steps the program encourages victims to follow are not conducive to healing.
The Chicago program has rape victims ask forgiveness of relatives and friends that might have been hurt in their recovery process, implying a certain amount of guilt should be out on the part of the victim. The program, which incorporates spirituality, is a structured, communally based support system, and it attempts to feed off the successes of AA-like programs. The problem is that rape is not the victim's fault; it is not caused by some negligence or disease on the victim's part.
Rape is perpetrated solely by the rapist. No lack of planning, intuition, or judgment can be blamed, or guilt imposed, on the victim. Recovery is slow and painful, and it must be approached cautiously. A structured, faith-based, group-oriented rape recovery system is not necessarily a bad thing - on the contrary, a well-organized system that goes step by step in an effort to help rape victims recover is a positive thing and will likely have much success if presented properly.
The appropriate method of treatment would be to rid the victims of guilt, rather than add to it. To advance the notion that rape victims need a multi-step system culminating in their admittance of responsibility in the act is ill informed. There is no legitimate excuse for rape and there is no legitimate excuse for pinning the responsibility of rape on the victim.
The program is structured for people who have already been through a program similar to AA. The problem with this is that alcoholics and other addicts are just that - addicts who are responsible for their own actions, whether they suffer from a disease or not. Rape is, by definition, imposed on the victim without consent. These two groups cannot be compared; victims of rape do not bring rape upon themselves, nor do they have a disease that caused them to be raped. Additionally, non-addicts will not benefit as much as people familiar with the AA-type of structure. Since there is no real correlation between addicts and rape victims, this makes any significant headway resulting from this program negligible.
Lumping addicts and rape victims together creates more problems than whether one is familiar with a program, though. Addicts in recovery are taught that their actions have hurt themselves and those they care about. The same cannot be said when it comes to rape. Rape is not something that the victim can control, especially once it has occurred and the victims are trying only to recover. Addicts, however, are themselves guilty of violating societal expectations, if not as vicious as rapists.
People need to talk about the crimes that were inflicted on them and they need to be able to do it in a safe and supportive setting. Group therapy and group recovery is widely known to be an asset to victims, by making them realize that they are not alone in their trauma and struggles to overcome it. If the rubric for recovery were revised significantly, a 12-step rape recovery program would do wonders for the victims of sexual crimes.
Rape is not a sickness, and treating it as such ignores the immense psychological consequences of the act. The fragility of the human psyche post-rape is not something that should be aggravated by pressing guilt on the victim. While a support-group system with an educated method for recovery in place is important, it can be as damaging as the proper recovery process would be beneficial, should it mistreat the issue. If treatment and recovery are to take place, the process must take care not to worsen the victim's delicate state.
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
