Trauma Science for Survivors and Expert Witnesses
An ongoing masterlist of trauma science to arm you with knowledge
Navigating the justice system as a survivor SUCKS. Judges and lawyers who deal with trauma everyday are somehow chronically undereducated in how trauma ACTUALLY works. They spend a lot of time circling questions, interrogating people, and creating triggering conclusions about questions that actually have answers in science. The avergage person is also not a trauma expert and does not have the type of scientific knowledge necessary to defend themselves.
I took part in a gender-based misconduct trial at my university from 2021 to 2023. I was shocked by how little people knew about trauma science, particularly as I left and started doing the reading myself. Suddenly, I was seeing many prominent rape and sexual abuse cases very differently because I was finding pivotal trial moments that ruined cases for survivors reflected in scientific articles I was reading that would have changed the way things went for them. So I’ve started compiling a list of articles I think everyone should have access to, and included some key points I found important.
Survivors deserve a justice system that is ACTUALLY expert in their experience and not just in the law.
Trauma Science Everyone Should Know
Common Pitfall One: “So you’re saying this person did this to you and you’re telling me the details of how that went down. But I see that you got the color of the wall wrong in the room this was happening.”
Mather, M. (2007). Emotional arousal and memory binding: An object-based framework. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2(1), 33–52. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6916.2007.00028.x
Arousal, or alertness, changes the way people form memories.
High levels of stress disrupt hippocampal and prefrontal function, but facilitates the amygdala. This results in strong memory of items but impaired memory of association between those items.
“Participants who watched a slide show of an event with a critical central element that was either neutral (a woman walking with a bicycle) or arousing (a woman lying wounded near her bicycle) remembered the central detail (the color of the woman’s coat) better in the arousing condition than they did in the neutral condition but remembered a peripheral object (the color of a car) less well in the emotional condition than in the neutral condition.”
People typically expend the boundaries of pictures when remembering them. But in one study, highly anxious participants were less likely to expand the boundaries of aversive pictures in memory, whereas anxiety levels did not influence boundary extension for neutral or pleasent pictures. This means people dealing with consistent arousal had a smaller image of their own memories.
In one study, participants were asked to recall the words and the fragment. If the second critical word was taboo, participants were less likely to recall the illusory word than if the second word was neutral.
Participants were more likely to remember the specific details of emotionally arousing objects (e.g. a picture of a spider) than of neutral pictures (e.g. a picture of a barometer). Arousing information has more privileged access into memory. So it makes sense for people to remember the highly arousing elements of a situation without actually remembering the less important periphery details.
According to a one theory, binding the source of an emotional word to its context is given top priority by the emotional system and all other binding is postponed until the emorional binding is complete (and my note is that in support of McKay, this is how Synpatic Tag and Capture works as the system saves resources to consolidate items that have been tagged with a synaptic tag).
“A study in which participants watched short film clips without a soundtrack as they listened to lists of words also revealed arousal-based impairments (L. Anderson & Shimamura, 2005): Participants’ later word–film association memory was worse for words heard during the most highly arousing films, depicting an amputation or self-mutilation, than for words heard during nonarousing neutral or positive films. However, the second most arousing film clips, depicting either a car chase or downhill ski racing, yielded better word–film association memory than the control films.” This is an example of the Yerkes-Dodson inverted U-shaped function, which states that medium arousal yields the best memories and overly high or low arousal can impact the quality of the memory.
“On each trial, the four pictures were all high arousal, medium arousal, or low arousal. As the arousal level of the four pictures increased, participants’ ability to identify correct picture–location conjunctions decreased, but their ability to later recall the pictures increased. Thus, in this working-memory task, arousal impaired binding but enhanced item memory.”
There are many theories as to why this happens. For example, after a stressful experience, peaks in cortisol levels typically occur 20 to 30 min later, and increased cortisol levels are still seen up to an hour later. This means any study that tests memory immediately after an arousing encoding session is affected by increased levels of stress hormones that can impair retrieval.
“Not surprisingly, low-arousal word–number pairs showed a pronounced forgetting curve, with nearly 50% of the associated digits recalled on the immediate test, dropping to about 0% a week later. The surprising finding was that memory for the high-arousal associates showed the opposite pattern, with only about 10% recall on the immediate test but about 40% recall a week later.”
“Participants with extremely intense emotional reactions to 9/11 showed less memory consistency in peripheral details over the 2-month interval than did those with moderate emotional reactions. In contrast, there was no difference between the two groups in the consistency of the central details in their accounts. A week later, the cortisol group showed enhanced recognition memory for the story, especially for the emotional phase of the story, but this group showed impaired recall of details from the emotional phase of the story compared with the placebo group. Thus, arousal seems to impair later memory for peripheral details of emotional events. However, both of these studies tested only memory for peripheral details, not the links among various elements of the event.”
Common Pitfall Two: “So this happened when you were a child. And in all this time you didn’t say anything or come forward about it?”
Dalenberg, C. J., et al. (2012). Evaluation of the evidence for the trauma and fantasy models of dissociation. Psychological Bulletin, 138(3), 550–588. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027447
This study challenges the notion that individuals with dissociative disorders and/or recovered memories are inherently confabulating or fantasy prone. This is what my paper tackles. There are many good studies in this meta-analysis that explore the science of sexual abuse in particular. I found a few of the cited studies potentially useful for survivors but should be read in context to get the full picture of what is being discussed in that part of the paper as it’s a very complex subject.
“Leavitt (1997) found that “recovered memory” patients scored lower on interrogatory suggestibility than the psychiatric comparison group. Thus, the research to date indicates that patients with delayed recall of trauma are actually less suggestible in this paradigm than other psychiatric patients.”
“Longitudinal studies also support the TM (Trauma Model). Mechanic, Resick, and Griffin’s (1998) study of amnesia postrape found that 37% of assaulted women reported some degree of amnesia at the 2-week point. At the 3-month marker, this number had dropped to 16%. This is the pattern to be expected for a traumatic reaction that is resolving for a portion of the participants. The opposite pattern would occur if involved therapists were creating the illusion of amnesia over time.”
“In Hyman and Billings’s (1998) study, for instance, participants were asked to attempt to recall actual childhood events (contributed by their parents) or false events constructed by the researcher (such as spilling a punch bowl on the wedding party at a reception). Participants initially denied 26% (of 218) true memories and 97% (of 66) false memories. Given that it is unlikely that the participants confabulated a complex memory on the spot, the small number of initial agreements in such studies are likely to be responses to social demand rather than memories. Thus, the typical dependent variable in false memory research is the number of false “recoveries” after the research participants are sent home to attempt retrieval of their lost memories.”
“Thus, in experimental false memory studies, recovered memories are predominantly accurate, but should be questioned (just as perceived continuous memory should be questioned) in situations of strong suggestion (Geraerts et al., 2007). Across all samples—abused or nonabused, clinical, nonclinical, and experimental—it has been found that (a) recovered memories and continuous memories were equally accurate and (b) both recovered and continuous memories of trauma are more likely to be true than false (cf. Dalenberg, 2006).”
“Is there evidence that dissociative symptoms are actually occurring, rather than being a manifestation of malingering or misunderstanding of more common cognitive states? Gleaves, Hemandez, and Wamer (1999) found in a survey of clinicians that therapists for 446 DID patients reported evidence for corroboration of dissociative symptoms from family or psychiatric records in 67% of patients prior to diagnosis. Because this type of evidence is likely to be discounted by FM theorists as due to the credulity of therapists, it should be noted that observers using other documentation have reached similar conclusions.”
“Geraerts et. al. found that those who had spontaneously reported recovered memories of abuse were more successful in a thought suppression paradigm. Recovered memory survivors were better able to suppress thoughts than continuous memory survivors, and experienced less rebound of the targeted thoughts when the suppression period was over.”
Common Pitfall Three: “If this was so awful, why didn’t you go to the police right away? Why did it take you so long to get support?”
Murphy-Oikonen, J., McQueen, K., Miller, A., Chambers, L., & Hiebert, A. (2022). Unfounded Sexual Assault: Women's Experiences of Not Being Believed by the Police. Journal of interpersonal violence, 37(11-12), NP8916–NP8940. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260520978190
“Police officers are in a unique position to act as gatekeepers for justice in sexual assault cases, given their responsibility to investigate sexual assault reports (Shaw et al., 2017). Despite the role of police officers to investigate and present evidence to a prosecutor (Venema, 2016), research suggests that police officers often make decisions about the truthfulness of sexual assault reports prior to a thorough investigation (Maddox et al., 2012). Shaw et al. (2017) found that increased victim blame by police during the investigation of sexual assault resulted in fewer investigative steps and decreased the likelihood of the case proceeding to prosecution.”
“One in four women will experience sexual assault in their lifetime. Although less than 5% of sexual assaults are reported to law enforcement, one in five cases reported to police are deemed baseless (by police) and therefore coded as “unfounded.””
“Despite the high prevalence of sexual assault, it remains one of the most underreported crimes to law enforcement, with less than 5% of sexual assaults reported to authorities”
“Women cite numerous reasons for lack of reporting to police, including shame, not wanting to get in trouble, fear of disbelief from law enforcement, and the use of substances at the time of the assault”
“Among women who do report their sexual assaults, a high percentage are deemed by police to be false or baseless and therefore coded as “unfounded” (Johnson, 2017). Unfounded differs from unsubstantiated in that unsubstantiated refers to a failure to prove that a sexual assault occurred, while unfounded claims essentially consider the report as a lie".”
“In 2017, the Globe and Mail published a report identifying exceptionally high rates of sexual assault cases being coded as “unfounded” by the police. Findings from Canadian national policing data indicate that one in five cases (i.e., 20%) of sexual assault reports to police are deemed baseless (Doolittle et al., 2017). However, the high rates of unfounded are inconsistent with findings from a meta-analysis of seven studies of confirmed false reports of sexual assault to police (Ferguson & Malouff, 2016). They reported that the rate of false reports was approximately 5% (0.52 [95% CI .030, .089], which is considerably lower than the Canadian average for unfounded sexual assault classifications.”
“Sexual assault appears to be coded as unfounded with relative regularity and seems to be ubiquitous within law enforcement discourse. High rates of unfounded sexual assaults reveal that dismissing sexual violence has become common practice amongst police in Canada (Balkissoon, 2017). In addition, it reveals the problematic nature and mishandling of thousands of women who reported their sexual assault and how this may further contribute to secondary victimization (Venema, 2016), distrust in legal institutions (Quinlan, 2016), trauma, (Haskell & Randall, 2019), and adverse health outcomes (Conroy & Scassa, 2016).”
“As societal myths favor the belief that many women lie about the assault (Weiser, 2017) and that rape only occurs to women who choose to live risky or chaotic lifestyles (Women’s Law Project, 2013), removing the code does not translate to changed beliefs. The widespread societal myths impact police response and investigation of sexual assault”
“According to Statistics Canada, between 2009 and 2015, less than half (43%) of sexual assault reports to police resulted in charges (Conroy & Scassa, 2016; Rotenberg, 2017) and in the United States, only 4.6% of sexual assault reports lead to an arrest (RAINN, 2020). Given that the role of law enforcement is to serve and protect citizens, a failure to deliver justice for sexual assault survivors has resulted in considerable public interest.”
End Violence Against Women. (2024, May 2). Review shows scale of police requests for rape survivors’ counselling notes | End Violence Against Women. End Violence against Women. https://www.endviolenceagainstwomen.org.uk/review-shows-scale-of-police-requests-for-rape-survivors-counselling-notes/
(This one is in the UK and I would love to know the numbers in the U.S.)
“As part of its ongoing End-to-End Rape Review, the government has last month (15th April 2024) released data showing the shocking scale of police requests for rape survivors’ ‘third party materials’ – their private counselling notes, mobile phone data, and other personal data or information.
This practice forms part of a wider police culture of investigating the ‘credibility’ of the victim rather than the actions of the suspect”
“The Home Office reviewed case files for 139 rape investigations from eight police forces across England between January and March 2023. In all cases, a suspect had been charged and victims’ third party materials had been requested.
The data found that overall, numerous requests were problematic in terms of being unnecessary, disproportionate and focusing on investigating victims’ perceived credibility.
There were 342 third party material requests seen in the case file review, including requests for:
GP records
Education records
Social services records
Counselling records
Independent Sexual Violence Adviser (ISVA) notes”
“Only 185 forms providing information about the request were found, meaning nearly half (46%) were missing this information. In 62% (114) of these requests, there were no parameters (such as a timeframe) to limit the amount of information about the victim being requested – effectively constituting a wholesale, blanket request for the victim’s private and personal information.”
“The case file review also looked at the rationales within the case file to justify why the third party material request was made.
197 rationales were found, with nearly a third (32%) focusing on establishing the victim’s perceived credibility or reliability, instead of focusing on establishing the facts of the incident. Most (71%) of the rationales that focused on the victim’s credibility or reliability were for victims aged under 18 at the time of the incident.”
“In the year-ending December 2023, the CPS made a decision to charge in 3,717 adult and child rape cases – this equates to 5.4% of the 68,387 recorded rapes being charged.”
“However, the latest Ministry of Justice data released today (2nd May 2024) shows that in the same time period, charges were brought in 2,473 adult rape cases – this equates to 3.6% of the 68,387 recorded rapes being charged.”
“In the year-ending December 2023, the CPS designated 42.6% of cases as “pending response – further investigation required” which means they are returned to the police (who will either try to get more evidence or make a ‘No Further Action’ decision), or it can mean that the CPS are awaiting more information from the police. In the year-ending December 2023, the CPS’ mean average time to charge with early advice is 421 days. In adult rape cases, the time from said charge to completion of the case at court is on average an additional 424 days, compared with 282 days in 2016.”
“In the year-ending December 2023, the CPS prosecuted 3,533 cases of rape (against adults and children), of which 2,158 cases resulted in convictions – a conviction rate of 61.1%. However, the Ministry of Justice data shows that when looking at rapes of adults in isolation, just 2,164 cases were prosecuted and 1,174 resulted in a conviction – a conviction rate of 54.4%.”
“Where a Victim’s Right to Review was applied for in sexual offence cases, the original decision was overturned in around 1 in 5 cases.”
“The vast majority of rapes recorded by the police fall at the first hurdle and never see charges brought, let alone a perpetrator convicted. The impact of this on women’s access to justice cannot be overstated, given we now have incredibly high levels of victims dropping out of prosecutions – shockingly, this is currently over 60%. We know that victims feel left with no option but to withdraw due to lengthy waits for justice and mistreatment during the process. It’s completely unacceptable that this has become the norm for how the justice system treats rape.”