In our book, A Womb of Her Own (Routledge 2017) author Kristin Davisson describes the factors of influence that affect the way an individual reacts to witnessing a rape. She writes as follows:
In examining reaction interview transcripts and coding the data, it became clear that several factors appeared to influence the data. That is, at least in some cases, certain variables seemed to significantly impact participant reaction. Some of these variables were pre-identified as potential “predictors” in the research questions (closeness of relationship; previous trauma), while others were not considered in this way. This section will explore the qualitative association of such variables as they were discussed or revealed in reaction interviews.
Multiple relationships with victims. Though the study focused on one “close” relationship, it became clear during reaction interviews that a number of participants had exposure to multiple female victims of sexual assault. (Five of 13 women indicated they had previous exposure to victims of sexual assault, though this data was volunteered not asked.) Although not a focus of the interviews, participants often volunteered reflections of their reactions to multiple exposures.
A 55-year old participant, remarked of her experience, “I knew more women in college, but I haven’t known of any for about 20 years, so I guess it was a shock to my system in some ways.”
Other women referenced closeness to the victim as an important indicator in their reactions. A 24 year-old woman reflected on her contact with two friends that were assaulted: “The other friend, I felt more protective of her and defensive for her. I worried about her more. This friend, my closest friend, I feel like she was so strong on her own that I was left feeling more despair about it.” In this case, closeness and “strength” of the victim appeared to be relevant in distinguishing this participant’s reactions between multiple exposures.
Several women who reported feeling responsible for their friend’s assault noted they were (physically) with the victim prior to her being attacked. In this way, they experienced a “proximity” to the traumatic event, which by their report, they had not experienced before.
Though there were no consistent patterns, all women who indicated multiple exposures noted the relationship in question as the “closest” of their friendships to female victims of sexual assault.
Distance in time from the traumatic stimulus and phase of life: Distance in time from the traumatic event did not appear to drastically shape reactions overall. As noted in the previous discussion, most participants reported a decrease in the acuity of their initial emotional responses after several months. Distance in time from the event did not appear relevant for participants who reported continuation of intense emotional experiences.
Phase of life (with reference to age and/or developmental life stage) seemed at times to overlap with distance in time from the event, additively influencing participant reaction. The youngest participant, a 19-year-old freshman in college, encountered the traumatic event 5 years earlier. The participant remarked, “I don’t feel really impacted now because it was so long ago. I would probably be more likely to notice if something like that happened to me, but I was so young.” It seems reasonable to assume that distance in time from the event, coupled with the participant’s age and the reported nature of the assault, shaped her subjective perception that she was not significantly impacted.
In other ways, phase of life seemed an important factor in the life experience of the participant. Participants aged 25 and older were more likely to report multiple exposures to sexual assault. They were also more likely to be engaged in advanced education or established careers. As noted elsewhere in discussion, single women were more likely to report distrust of men than were women who identified as partnered or married.
Closeness to victim: As noted in the preceding discussion, participants indicating closeness to the primary victim were more likely to recount details of the traumatic story during the interview. They were more likely to admire/idealize the victim, reporting concordant feelings of helplessness and despair. Closeness with the primary victim was likewise qualitatively associated with feelings of sameness/identification. Correspondingly, of the two women who obtained the lowest closeness coefficients, one engaged in victim blaming, and the other reported her feelings of closeness to the primary victim decreased on account of the victim’s psychological struggle following the incident.
Revisiting personal trauma. Ninety-two percent of participants endorsed prior trauma exposure and 1 participant indicated a personal history of sexual assault. She acknowledged her previous traumatic experience as “triggered” by her friend’s victimization. In describing her reaction to the vicarious incident occurring two years prior, she stated:
After my friend’s incident, things became triggered in me as well. I became hypervigilant as well. So in addition to trying to be there for her, I was struggling with some of the same reactions like walking down the street and being very hypervigilant and things like that. That has lessened much since then.
Her candid report of conscious impact strongly suggests the re-surfacing of her former traumatic experience, though with less reported intensity than when she was in a primary victim role. For this participant, her previous experience of sexual victimization cannot be separated from her reaction in the present.
Concluding Thoughts and Suggestions for Exploration
The participants in this study described their experiences serving as “witnesses” to their friends’ experiences of sexual violence. They frequently began their narratives by recounting the traumatic event, giving voice to the primary traumatic stimulus. Their descriptions incorporated dynamic and often, complex emotional responses including various manifestations of anger and guilt directed towards themselves, the perpetrator and/or the victim. Their stories spoke to the changes that occurred over time in their emotional responses, perceptions of themselves and view of the world around them.
Within these descriptions, the theme of helplessness emerged alongside a longing for control/protection. The strength and/or admired qualities in the victim served as a source of struggle for the group overall, as they wrestled to reconcile their illusions of safety with their feelings of sameness and/or idealization towards the victim. The group made connections to their personal feelings of safety and danger as women, the majority identifying decreases in their feelings of safety following the traumatic event. While the group varied in their responses to perceived reductions in safety, they tended to struggle with the idea that “nothing they could do” could keep them completely protected. A small number of women appeared to deal with this ambiguity by aligning themselves with rape myths and blaming the victim. Shifts in worldview were associated with long-term changes for some women in the sample including increases in social consciousness and/or feelings of hopelessness/disillusionment. Finally, factors of influence (multiple relationships with victims, participant phase of life, closeness to the victim, and personal history of trauma) were spoken to as they seemed to emerge in participant descriptions.
An important theme that was explored in the present qualitative analysis was worldview. Results indicated that this theme emerged as an important aspect of women’s conscious reaction to the traumatic incident. In the aforementioned study by Banyard and colleagues (2010), female friends were described as experiencing “anger at society” in response to the sexual assault of a friend. This can be discussed in light of worldview shifts in the current study. Shifts in worldview were often associated with the adoption of a “realistic” stance and loss of naiveté, including increased social awareness of gender violence or dynamics of power. It was not uncommon for women in the sample to report feelings of anger in accordance with this “newfound” knowledge. Worldview shifts of participants were likewise observed to include hopelessness, disillusionment and/or disappointment. These experiences alluded to a kind of resignation and despondency towards the world, accentuating a cognitive and emotional dissonance that for some women, negated experiences of hope and optimism.
Constructivist Self-in-Development theory views frame of reference (worldview) as a necessary structural force through which one organizes and understands their experience in the world (McCann & Pearlman, 1995). Disruption of this central psychological force is one manifestation of trauma to the self, resulting in confusion, fragmentation and disruption in the perception of a secure reality (Kohut, 1977; Herman 1992; Pearlman, 1998). Women in the study demonstrated interruption of cohesion (by virtue of self-report and the Inventory of Altered Self-Capacities), further suggesting that dialogue is warranted to fully understand the implications of this life change.
Many participants in this study recounted strong emotions the traumatic details of their friends’ assaults, linking themselves emotionally to the pain and suffering of the victim. Identification and empathy emerged as processes by which women seemed to feel the anguish of their friends. Given their various shifts in worldview and strong emotional ties to the victim, participants struggled to organize and make meaning of witnessing such violence and destruction first-hand.

In our book A Womb of Her Own (Routledge, 2017) author Kristen Davisson writes the following:
As alluded to in the previous discussion, approximately half of the sample spoke to modifications in their worldview. According to McCann and Pearlman (1995), vicarious trauma can alter one’s view and sense of themselves in the world. Participant statements corresponding to worldview generally reflected two themes: an increase in social awareness and/or a perception of hopelessness/disillusionment towards the world. Conscious shifts in worldview were consistently associated with multiple elevations on the IASC in all but one case.
Increase in social awareness. Four (31%) women spoke about a shift in their social awareness following their friend’s assault, such that they better understood and were cognizant of power dynamics, the likelihood of sexual assault for women, and/or socio-political factors influencing gender violence. One woman sought a volunteer position at a domestic violence shelter a year following her friend’s assault. She shared the following related to her experience:
That experience (volunteering) made me capable of examining the relationship and what had been going on with her. Like the power cycle of it all. I became very aware and educated about how common this is. It didn’t make the pain go away, but it helped to understand.
Of her academic work in liberal arts, another woman remarked:
It made real some of the things that I read. The statistics, the cycles of violence. It reminded me it is so easy to get taken advantage of and so easy to get frustrated with the victim. And that these cycles are so real. So powerful.
Other participants referenced gains in their understanding of power and gender dynamics in an overarching way. Two women reflected on this below:
There are so many subtle ways that women are overpowered and taken advantage of. Like little ways like women who just want to please their boyfriends and they don’t even realize there is a power differential and that they’re playing to it. It makes me angry a lot.
It makes it real, that you hear on the radio that one in so many women get raped, or so many are hurt by violence. You know as a woman, that’s you…that’s us. Like, my heart goes out to them and me, and I really know how common it is now. The gender dynamics of it all, the power of it. It’s really sad. I look at every relationship differently now.
Both women above were between the ages of 25 and 32, identified previous “sheltered” lifestyles, and reported decreases in their perception of personal safety. Their responses suggest that in addition to feeling less safe, some women may undergo drastic changes in their view of gender interactions. Women were not directly questioned about the influence of this change on their personal relationships or sense of themselves, but one wonders about the continued impact on their lives.
Hopelessness/disillusionment. Five women (38%) identified a shift in worldview that corresponded to feelings of hopelessness, disillusionment, or disappointment. Time span from the event ranged from 2-5 years for the women in this category, speaking to continued impact of the traumatic event. Two women speak to their changed worldview:
It reminded me of what people are willing to do to other people without regard of how it will affect them. I think I am more aware of that now. How people can hurt other people. And they’re going to do it no matter what- I mean, there’s nothing I can do about that; I just have to watch out for me…. So in that way, I think my worldview more realistic than before.
It just feels so hopeless now. I mean in the age of match.com and speed dating…you can’t know you are protected from this. It is everywhere. I don’t know how to deal with that…. Just an overall sense of sadness I think. I feel like maybe I have been down since and can’t shake it. It’s disappointing and I don’t think it will ever change.
In these reaction statements, we can discern a kind of resignation in the face of a perceived “harsh” reality. In describing the impact of rape, Herman (1992) writes, “Thus women discover an appalling disjunction between their actual experience and the social construction of reality” (p. 67). It seems possible that in addition to holding true for primary victims of sexual assault, this experience of dissonance can be true for her close friends as well. The five women who identified these sorts of worldview changes seemed to view social realities quite differently following their exposure to the traumatic stimulus. Correspondingly, a 55-year-old woman spoke of her experience:
It’s more of a resigned sadness. Disappointment with the world. I want things to change, but I don’t think they will in my life. I hope they will in my daughter’s life. I hope she will see difference…I mean, the sadness with the world… maybe that’s part of a realism? Maybe when I was younger, I would try to see the world through rose-colored glasses. This event definitely reminded me that is not the truth.
This woman was the only participant to endorse changes in worldview in the absence of clinical elevations on the IASC and/or TSI. She seemed to differ from other participants in both her phase of life and her hope for her daughter’s generation. She appeared less despondent than she was realistic and hopeful. This may be a tentative suggestion that experiences of hope are important adaptive responses to trauma exposure.
Experiences of disillusionment and hopelessness echoed in participant statements (implicit and explicit) seem linked to the subjective perception that things may never improve and that the world is a sad, dark place. Disillusionment and hopelessness are experiences linked to suffering and trauma in the work of Viktor Frankl. Frankl (1959) underscored the importance of what he termed “tragic optimism,” the capacity to retain the meaning of life despite its “tragic aspects” (p. 137). The participant quoted above seems to speak from this vantage point. Frankl’s idea that absence of “tragic optimism” intensifies or maintains suffering seems consistent with IASC results strongly associating (conscious) statements of worldview shifts with multiple clinical elevations. Of the clinical scales on the IASC, Idealization-Disillusionment was elevated in 3 out of the 5 women who denoted hopelessness in worldview. These results suggest that a percentage of secondary victims experience worldview modifications, and that such dramatic frame of reference shifts are not limited to primary victims of sexual assault.
Factors
Shifts in Worldview
As alluded to in previous discussion, approximately half of the sample spoke to modifications in their worldview. According to McCann and Pearlman (1995), vicarious trauma can alter one’s view and sense of themselves in the world. Participant statements corresponding to worldview generally reflected two themes: an increase in social awareness and/or a perception of hopelessness/disillusionment towards the world. Conscious shifts in worldview were consistently associated with multiple elevations on the IASC in all but one case.
Increase in social awareness. Four (31%) women spoke about a shift in their social awareness following their friend’s assault, such that they better understood and were cognizant of power dynamics, the likelihood of sexual assault for women, and/or socio-political factors influencing gender violence. One woman sought a volunteer position at a domestic violence shelter a year following her friend’s assault. She shared the following related to her experience:
That experience (volunteering) made me capable of examining the relationship and what had been going on with her. Like the power cycle of it all. I became very aware and educated about how common this is. It didn’t make the pain go away, but it helped to understand.
Of her academic work in liberal arts, another woman remarked:
It made real some of the things that I read. The statistics, the cycles of violence. It reminded me it is so easy to get taken advantage of and so easy to get frustrated with the victim. And that these cycles are so real. So powerful.
Other participants referenced gains in their understanding of power and gender dynamics in an overarching way. Two women reflected on this below:
There are so many subtle ways that women are overpowered and taken advantage of. Like little ways like women who just want to please their boyfriends and they don’t even realize there is a power differential and that they’re playing to it. It makes me angry a lot.
It makes it real, that you hear on the radio that one in so many women get raped, or so many are hurt by violence. You know as a woman, that’s you…that’s us. Like, my heart goes out to them and me, and I really know how common it is now. The gender dynamics of it all, the power of it. It’s really sad. I look at every relationship differently now.
Both women above were between the ages of 25 and 32, identified previous “sheltered” lifestyles, and reported decreases in their perception of personal safety. Their responses suggest that in addition to feeling less safe, some women may undergo drastic changes in their view of gender interactions. Women were not directly questioned about the influence of this change on their personal relationships or sense of themselves, but one wonders about the continued impact on their lives.
Hopelessness/disillusionment. Five women (38%) identified a shift in worldview that corresponded to feelings of hopelessness, disillusionment, or disappointment. Time span from the event ranged from 2-5 years for the women in this category, speaking to continued impact of the traumatic event. Two women speak to their changed worldview:
It reminded me of what people are willing to do to other people without regard to how it will affect them. I think I am more aware of that now. How people can hurt other people. And they’re going to do it no matter what- I mean, there’s nothing I can do about that; I just have to watch out for me…. So in that way, I think my worldview more realistic than before.
It just feels so hopeless now. I mean in the age of match.com and speed dating…you can’t know you are protected from this. It is everywhere. I don’t know how to deal with that…. Just an overall sense of sadness I think. I feel like maybe I have been down since and can’t shake it. It’s disappointing and I don’t think it will ever change.
In these reaction statements, we can discern a kind of resignation in the face of a perceived “harsh” reality. In describing the impact of rape, Herman (1992) writes, “Thus women discover an appalling disjunction between their actual experience and the social construction of reality” (p. 67). It seems possible that in addition to holding true for primary victims of sexual assault, this experience of dissonance can be true for her close friends as well. The five women who identified these sorts of worldview changes seemed to view social realities quite differently following their exposure to the traumatic stimulus. Correspondingly, a 55-year-old woman spoke of her experience:
It’s more of a resigned sadness. Disappointment with the world. I want things to change, but I don’t think they will in my life. I hope they will in my daughter’s life. I hope she will see difference…I mean, the sadness with the world… maybe that’s part of a realism? Maybe when I was younger, I would try to see the world through rose-colored glasses. This event definitely reminded me that is not the truth.
This woman was the only participant to endorse changes in worldview in the absence of clinical elevations on the IASC and/or TSI. She seemed to differ from other participants in both her phase of life and her hope for her daughter’s generation. She appeared less despondent than she was realistic and hopeful. This may be a tentative suggestion that experiences of hope are important adaptive responses to trauma exposure.
Experiences of disillusionment and hopelessness echoed in participant statements (implicit and explicit) seem linked to the subjective perception that things may never improve and that the world is a sad, dark place. Disillusionment and hopelessness are experiences linked to suffering and trauma in the work of Viktor Frankl. Frankl (1959) underscored the importance of what he termed “tragic optimism,” the capacity to retain the meaning of life despite its “tragic aspects” (p. 137). The participant quoted above seems to speak from this vantage point. Frankl’s idea that absence of “tragic optimism” intensifies or maintains suffering seems consistent with IASC results strongly associating (conscious) statements of worldview shifts with multiple clinical elevations. Of the clinical scales on the IASC, Idealization-Disillusionment was elevated in 3 out of the 5 women who denoted hopelessness in worldview. These results suggest that a percentage of secondary victims experience worldview modifications and that such dramatic frame of reference shifts are not limited to primary victims of sexual assault.

In our book A Womb of Her Own (Routledge 2017) author Kristin Davisson writes as follows:
Of the 13 women sampled, two reacted unlike the rest of the sample in a few key ways. They did not reference feelings of helplessness and directed anger (almost) exclusively toward the victim. As outliers, their responses are included for relevance and for the significant questions they suggest. Both women endorsed numerous experiences of personal trauma in their backgrounds and are aged in their 20’s, respectively. In various respects, both women appeared to harbor current myths about sexual assault and blame the victim for her assault.
Both women shared their reactions to their friend’s assaults below:
She puts herself in a lot of risky situations and she’s a very flirtatious individual. And when she described the story, it’s not that I didn’t believe her, but she puts herself in these situations. I’ve known her to. I felt bad for her, I wanted to be there for her, but then there was this voice in the back of my head saying, “this girl…she puts herself in these situations that I don’t and my friends don’t, so she is different in that sense.” So I didn’t. I felt for her and I believed her, but I think there were things she did. How long did she flirt with the guy before she said no? I mean she still said stop, but she has to take accountability.
I just can’t believe she would let that happen and not say anything. I guess I don’t think she’s that strong of a person. She kinda comes off as brash and argumentative and she dyes her hair black. I think she hides her emotions a lot. I mean, how could she let this happen? Especially if she’s that kind of a person. Wouldn’t you push him off- be loud? I would. Why wouldn’t she want to do that? Does she like that? (Interviewer: “What’s it like for you to wonder that?”) I don’t know. It’s weird. I feel guilty, but I don’t at the same time. I think she should stand up for herself and be less passive. That’s how I feel.
Sex-role stereotyping as described by Burt (1980) appears in the excerpts above. When asked about feelings of safety, both women denied current or previous concern and/or fluctuation in their feelings of personal safety. In response to this, one female remarked:
I would say I felt safe before. I still feel safe because I’m not the kind of person that would let someone do that. I’ll kick his ass. I mean, yeah, it can happen, but I know myself, I would take care of it. I’m not gonna let someone do that to me. (Interviewer: “What do you mean by ‘take care of it?’”) Like get him of me. Fight. Hit him and get away and report him of course. Call the police.
This participant expressed intense frustration and anger towards her friend for not actively defending herself. In fact, she believed her friend to have “lied there” while the rape occurred. One wonders if her attributions about the incident are adaptive or protective for her in some way. This participant reported three previous traumatic experiences and it seems reasonable to assume that “fighting back” and/or identifying with a personal feeling of strength was an important resource for her in overcoming her past. Interestingly, she attained fewer elevations on the IASC and TSI than most women sampled. Consistent with her self-report, she did not appear to experience conscious distress and/or symptoms associated with primary or vicarious trauma. Her self-concept did not include feelings of fear and/or danger, seeming to provide her with a sense of control.
Though these two women differ in their responses and present with varied personal histories, their stories suggest that holding the victim accountable for her assault may foster a sense of personal safety, offering insulation from feelings of helplessness and maintaining a sense of control.

From our book A Womb of Her Own (Routledge 2017) author Kristin Davisson writes:
Nine of thirteen participants (69%) identified a noticeable decrease in their personal sense of safety following their exposure to the traumatic stimulus. In all nine cases, women reported current impact in their lives. For these women, time from the event ranged from 6 months to 5 years and did not appear be a factor of significant influence in their reaction (that is, women who were closer in time to the traumatic event did not generally report heightened concerns of safety in comparison to other women). Though many women endorsed alterations in their perceptions of safety, the depiction of their experiences varied, as did their responses.
Hypervigilance and decreased sense of trust. Five women (38% of the sample) identified enhanced awareness of their surroundings, often manifesting as hypervigilance and collectively relating to feelings of discomfort. This was occasionally spoken to in conjunction with a hesitance to trust men. To this, one woman remarked, “I wish I could get to that place where I have a ‘healthy’ sense of awareness. Instead, I freak out. I look at every man who walks by. Is he a rapist? Is he capable of this? My nervousness has skyrocketed.” Like this participant, several women spoke of increased vigilance and distrust towards men. One factor of influence here appeared to be the relationship status of the participant. Generally, single women appeared more likely to struggle with diminished trust towards men, and women in established relationships were less likely to endorse this specific concern.
One 31 year-old single women with an MBA shared:
I am a single woman. And it’s hard enough to meet a man when you are a successful woman in your early 30s. Who’s to say I can ever meet a man and feel safe, trusting or protected? It’s like I have to sum up all my courage just to think about it. Not a great feeling. So I think what has replaced hope about my relationship future is sadness and fear. Maybe women can’t have it all… maybe I was foolish to think I could.
In this woman’s response, we can discern a sort of resignation and hopelessness alongside her questions about safety, trust and protection. It seems she is referencing the difficulty successful, educated women can encounter in the heterosexual dating world, joined with (or complicated by) her newfound feelings of distrust related to her friend’s assault (occurring 6 months prior to the interview).
There also appeared to be subtle differences relating to trust in relation to victims that were brutally assaulted within a “trusting” relationship. A 29-year old, unlabeled female reported that her friend was assaulted in a dating relationship. The participant recalled her friend confiding in her that she was tied up and anally raped by her boyfriend at the time. In regards to her personal safety, the participant shared:
I definitely feel less safe. I feel like my eyes are open to it now. It’s really sad. And what am I going to do about it? Live my life in fear? Or have fun and hope that I don’t get raped? I guess I don’t have the answer. I try to ignore all my fears and feelings of distrust, but inside, I’m terrified.
This brings up a dilemma that several women alluded to, the idea that following their exposure to the traumatic event, they seem at times, unsure of how to live their lives. When asked how this dilemma made her feel, this participant responded, “It makes me uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable.”
A 29-year old woman whose friend experienced physical and sexual violence inside a committed relationship shared:
I think it makes you understand that sexual assault is not the serial rapist, or the person in the shadows, it’s the person you know. And it reminds you that you can never be safe. You can’t trust anyone completely. People who do those things and act in those ways are very good actors.

In our book A Womb of Her Own (Routledge, 2017) Kristin Davisson writes as follows:
Identification
A sense of sameness. Of women sampled, many indicated feelings of closeness to the female victim, informing a felt sense of “sameness” between them. As the literature reviewing empathy in women suggests, this kind of “identification” in close female relationships is common (Surrey, 1991). Interestingly, approximately 50% of participants seemed to link (in discussion) their feelings of “sameness” to a personal fear or vulnerability following their friend’s assault. This might suggest that identification with a female victim can extend to identification with her traumatic event. Two women make this connection below:
It just makes you feel really vulnerable. If this can happen to her, it can happen to anyone…and I see so much of myself in her. I’m afraid I could be in a situation like that. This is so close to home. It’s very troubling.
Realizing this could happen to her- a girl from a small town- you know, a girl who’s pretty much just like me. That really scared me.
For the two women above, the realization of “sameness” (“I see myself in her”) is intimately linked with recognition of risk to the self. In psychoanalytic theory, secondary identification is defined as “an automatic, unconscious, mental process whereby an individual becomes like another person in one or several aspects. It is a natural accompaniment of maturation and mental development and aids in the learning process as well as in the acquisition of interests, ideals, mannerisms, etc.” (Moore & Fine, 1968, as cited in Basch, 1983, p. 104). As one might expect, the closer the woman interviewed was to the victim, the more likely she was to speak of this felt sense of sameness. Identification is also considered to be a mechanism in providing satisfaction to the self via adoption of aspects of a loved person, ultimately making separation or loss more tolerable (Basch, 1983; Freud 1917). The frequency with which these feelings were reported may suggest that identification with the traumatic event may serve to maintain a “needed” connection between two women (victim and “witness”).
Identification or empathy? In reacting to her friend’s violent sexual assault, one woman commented, “If it could happen to her, then who among us are safe?” She goes on to say, “I felt sad, like a part of it happened to me.” Certainly, feeling the pain of another can be likened to the experience of empathy, an important and desired quality in a close relationship. This proposes the inquiry, for these women, where is the line between empathizing with the victims and identifying with them? Which of these experiences makes it more likely that they will exhibit symptoms of secondary trauma? In differentiating between these two (often similar) states, Basch (1983) makes reference to the temporary nature of empathy, sometimes called “trial identification” (Reich, 1960) versus the more enduring transformation of identification. Presumably then, empathy by itself does not imply adoption of the victim’s traumatic feelings.
Correspondingly, one participant shared, “It was very sad for me to think that she experienced that intrusion, and she kept it inside. And then sad like a part of it happened to me…the second I knew she had been hurt like that, I felt hurt.” Another remarked, “I certainly hurt for her (begins to cry) and I hurt for myself and other women.”
Perhaps a function of identification, the two women above obtained the most profound elevations on the Inventory of Altered Self-Capacities (IASC), suggesting significant dysregulation of affect, relatedness, and identity in their lives in the six months preceding their interviews.

In A Womb of Her Own (Routledge, 2017) Dr. Kristin Davisson describes the changes in identity following rape or witnessing rape. She quotes a participant in her study as follows:
Another participant stated:
“She’s a very strong person. She’s strong spoken and demands respect…it’s really troubling to me because I look up to her and how much she can demand respect and take control of a situation. And I feel like I can be that way too, but she is so much more so- like that’s something that defined her. That was her identity.”
Once more, the implication of loss is embedded in this person’s comment with specific reference to the last phrase, “that was her identity.” This same participant spoke of witnessing her friend struggle for several years following the assault, striving to “let go of” the incident and eventually, turning to substances to cope. Several women echoed similar experiences, emphasizing difficulty in “watching” their friends’ psychological turmoil following the assault(s). Perhaps the perception of strength and resolve of the primary victim is impacted by their contextual resiliency, and as we understand psychological trauma, their access to resources (both external and internal) to cope with their situation (Pearlman & Saakvitne, 1995.)
Admiration and idealization. An additional point of interest from the last quote is the introduction of admiration (referenced in the phrase, “I look up to her and how she can demand respect.”) Similarly, another participant stated, “She is that girl who wears the pants, takes control. She is not passive at all the way I can be. She is adventurous and bold, and really when we were close, I wanted to be her.”
Wanting to be someone may be analogous to the concept of idealization, derived from self-psychology. Through idealization, one is able to nourish the self by merging (in fantasy) with an object of strength, power, omnipotence, and wisdom (Kohut, 1977). In this way, idealization becomes a vehicle for self-worth- we “want to be” like those we respect. Both participants quoted above to acknowledge the quality they respect in her friend(s) to be their ability to “wear the pants,” “demand respect,” or “take control” of a situation. In this way, “strength” (for lack of a better term) seems to be a characteristic widely admired among women sampled. This alone may suggest that women tend to covet strength as a protective factor against violence.
This brings up a question of relevance, that is, what is the impact of an “idealized other” being victimized and further, if women “idealize” the primary victim, are they more likely to experience secondary trauma? Twenty-three percent of women sampled obtained clinical elevations on the IASC scale, “Idealization-Disillusionment.” This result, in conjunction with conscious impact reported by women sampled, seems to suggest that idealization of the victim can be an important factor in development of vicarious trauma. Over half the sample had a specific reaction to reconciling the “strength” and “victimhood” of an admired friend. To this effect, one participant stated:
“She is such a strong woman though…which is funny that is something that even stands out to me, like as if someone weak is the only person this would affect. But there is something so sad about seeing her strength overcome by pain. By pain that someone took advantage of her- of her ability to say yes. Now she will be haunted by it…so will I, I suppose.”
If we were to describe this in a masculine context, we might use the term “emasculate” to speak to the quality of strength or control being stricken away. Webster’s Dictionary defines “emasculate” as “to deprive of strength, vigor or spirit” or “to deprive of virility or procreative power” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, 2010). Certainly, this definition seems to fit with women’s depictions of their reactions to “strength” of other women being overcome by sexual assault. Unfortunately, there is a not a term denoted to the female corollary of this experience.