Module 2: The Victim Experience
Factors Affecting Recovery
Factors aiding recovery
- Support from intimates
- Positive self-esteem
- Support from systems (police, prosecutors, medical providers, legal professionals, victim service providers)
- Opportunity to freely discuss the crime and the associated emotions
- Successful recovery from grief
- Insight
- Action-oriented behaviors
- Ability to identify and express emotions
- Realistic expectations of self and system
- Objective attribution of blame
Factors inhibiting recovery
- Prior victimization
- Negative self-esteem
- Poor social support
- Simultaneous problems (family, financial, work, school, etc.)
- Recurring problems, such as drug or alcohol abuse
- Degree of violence
- Relationship to perpetrator (stranger or acquaintance)
- Increased physical ailments, possibly psychosomatic
- Depression
- Suicidal behavior
- Psychotic behavior (including senile dementia)
- Misdiagnosis by therapist or physician