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 In a large sample of women treated at a rape clinic in Stockholm,
about 70 percent reported an inability to move or resist during the
assault.
“Victims tend to blame themselves for not resisting, so the fact
that 7 out of 10 have paralysis is useful to know,” said lead study
author Dr. Anna Moller of Stockholm South General Hospital and the
Karolinska Institute.
In animals, this reaction, known as tonic immobility is an
evolutionary defensive response to a predatory attack, Moller’s team
writes in the journal Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica.
Past studies indicate that humans can similarly feel paralyzed when
under attack or in other life-threatening circumstances,
experiencing temporary, involuntary immobility that may also involve
a dissociated, catatonic-like mental state.
“In court situations, a lot of focus is given to whether the victim
consented to the intercourse or not,” Moller told Reuters Health by
email. “This paralysis and passiveness should not be considered
consent.”
Moller and colleagues surveyed 298 women who visited the Emergency
Clinic for Raped Women in Stockholm within one month of a sexual
assault. The clinic offers free services and sees about 600 patients
per year. The researchers interviewed participants using a
questionnaire called the Tonic Immobility Scale, which asks about
feeling frozen or paralyzed, the inability to move although not
restrained, the inability to call out or shout, numbness, feeling
cold and feeling detached from one’s self.
After six months, the research team also assessed 189 of those women
for PTSD and depression.
They found that 70 percent of women reported significant tonic
immobility and 48 percent reported extreme tonic immobility during
their assaults. Having had this experience more than doubled the
likelihood of PTSD at the six-month follow up and raised the
likelihood of severe depression by nearly four-fold.
Of the 189 women who completed the six-month assessment, more than
half of those who experienced tonic immobility during their assault
had developed PTSD, compared to 28 percent who didn't. Similarly, 34
percent of those who experienced tonic immobility were severely
depressed, compared to 14 percent of those who didn't.
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The research team also found that women with a history of sexual
assault - in childhood or adulthood - were twice as likely as others
to have experienced tonic immobility during the recent rape. Women
whose rape was part of a “more severe assault,” involving physical
violence or multiple attackers, for example, were also twice as
likely to have experienced tonic immobility during the attack.
One limitation of the study is that the emergency clinic only saw
female patients at the time of the interviews. Moller’s team would
also like to include larger, more diverse samples in several
geographic locations to better understand tonic immobility
generally, she said.
Future studies should also include levels of victim resistance, said
Jennifer Wong of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, who wasn’t
involved in the research.
“A victim may have felt frozen, detached or numb during some of the
assault but may have initially verbally or physically resisted her
attacker,” Wong said.
Tonic immobility research could provide major implications for court
cases and the psycho-education of rape victims, Moller said.
“Don’t blame rape victims for not resisting,” she said. “It’s a
normal biological reaction when exposed to an extreme threat.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2rIM4zI Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica
Scandinavica, online June 7, 2017.
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