Rape Prevention: The Study & Prevention of Rape in Psychoanalysis and Psychology

Research into the social and psychological “causes” of rape was once so meager that one had to assume that rape was either uncommon or so successfully hidden that it could escape the notice of psychologists and other concerned professionals. It was not until Susan Brownmiller's pioneering feminist work on rape, Against Our Will, that a large number of psychologists specifically addressed the significance of rape or its startling prevalence in the United States. Since Brownmiller's text in the 1970s, a plethora of psychological studies has appeared. Some simply gather epidemiological data (e.g., Koss 35-49). Others attempt to characterize the perpetrators of rape or to assess its effects on victims (Scully and Marolla 63-70; Pollard 60-64; Warshaw 65-82). There is also abundant literature on the development and implementation of rape prevention programs, most especially in secondary and post secondary education (Berkowitz 35-36). In concert with feminist initiatives in the development of rape crisis centers, in the theorization of rape, and in changes in the legal system, psychological research and applications presently make critical contributions to contemporary discourses and programs that address rape.

With respect to the study of rape, the relationship between psychoanalysis and psychology replicates the more general relationship between the two fields. Although psychology owes much to psychoanalysis, both clinically and conceptually, the discipline is quite suspicious of psychoanalytic approaches. Traditional experimental psychologists disparage psychoanalysis as empirically