Understanding the Survivor
Common Reactions to Sexual Violence
- Survivors suffer a great deal of physical and emotional trauma as a result of a sexual assault. Responses to a sexual assault can be immediate or delayed.
- Each survivor of sexual assault responds uniquely, and the recovery process is different for each individual. While there are individual differences to survivors’ experiences of sexual assault, there are common patterns to trauma recovery that are normative and natural.
- The following is a list of reactions to sexual assault. It is not a comprehensive list but rather a sampling of common post-assault symptoms. Survivors can expect to experience some or many of these symptoms in varying degrees during the recovery process.
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Physical |
Emotional |
Cognitive |
Social |
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