Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Double-Edged Sword Of Diagnosis: Medical Neoliberalism In Rape Crisis Center Counseling, Shannon M. Peters

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

The prevalence of sexual violence in the United States is a critical issue and the aftermath of sexual assault can have profound effects on psychological well-being. Rape Crisis Centers play a vital role in supporting sexual violence survivors. The framework through which Rape Crisis Center clinicians understand the experiences of survivors has a substantial impact on the course of counseling, how survivors interpret their own experiences, and survivors’ psychological health. A neoliberal medicalized framework conceptualizes distress post-sexual assault as a disease or disorder and places the responsibility on an individual to ‘fix’ themselves, situating the problem within the person, rather …