Understanding and Treating Military Sexual Trauma

This thorough analysis of sexual assault in the military examines the scope of this long-neglected issue using a lens informed by modern day attachment and trauma theories. Starting with an overview of sexual violence during wartime, it details the cultural and organizational aspects of military life--and entrenched ideas about war and masculinity--that compound military sexual trauma (MST) and reinforce barriers to treatment for women and men. The book's second half reviews empirically-supported interventions for MST survivors, recommending therapy that attends to somatic, implicit, relational based aspects of trauma processing rather than the conventional cognitive therapies currently funded in many military mental health programs. This powerful presentation, which includes sobering quotes from survivors, also raises serious questions about meeting veterans' needs, training for on- and off-base clinicians, and government funding.

Included in the coverage:

• The history of sexual violence in war.
• Trauma and recovery in military culture.
• The neurobiology of trauma.
• A military rape sub-culture hypothesis about the hidden sexual assault epidemic.
• How military culture and military law affect the immediate aftermath of MST.
• Treating the trauma and not just the memory.
• Questions the “one size fits all” approach of many trauma therapies for MST.
• Top-down cognitive-based treatment for MST.
• Body-based bottom-up psychotherapy for MST.

Understanding and Treating Military Sexual Trauma belongs in the libraries of private practice clinicians and government psychologists. It provides cutting edge knowledge to practitioners in training, such as graduate-level students studying psychology and social work. Its dual emphasis on military culture and women's lives will appeal to students in gender studies, sociology and program planning disciplines.

KRISTEN ZALESKI is a sexual assault victim advocate, researcher, professor and psychotherapist in Southern California. Her decade-long work with sexual assault survivors spans inpatient and outpatient settings, and she has a dual specialty in civilian and military sexual trauma. Dr. Zaleski has published research on treatment for sexual assault-related PTSD and was the first to ever publish on the psychological effects of pregnancy that results from a sexual assault. Dr. Zaleski continues to explore clinical phenomena in the areas of rape culture, health social work, LGBTQI experiences, empathy, mothering, vicarious trauma and attachment-related trauma through a neurobiological lens. She also maintains a private practice in Los Angeles.