Female Veterans’ Experiences With VHA Treatment for Military Sexual Trauma
Validation
Participants’ suggestions to improve MST treatment, including goal sharing, validation, knowledge, and support:
“They should have staff awareness groups, or focus groups to teach them the same thing that the patients are receiving as far as how to handle yourself, how to interact with others. Don’t bring your sh** from home into your job. You’re an employee, don’t take it personal.” (
The need for provider-level support and validation likely stems from the sense that many females expressed that MST was their fault. As one participant said,
“It wasn’t violent for me. I froze. So that’s another reason that I feel guilty because it’s like I didn’t fight. I just froze and put up with it, so I feel like jeez it was my fault. I didn’t... Somehow I am responsible for this.”
Thus, the groups concluded that the most powerful support was provider validation:
“The most important for me was that I was told it was not my fault. Over and over and over. That is the most important thing that us females need to know. Because that is such a relief and that opened up so much more.”
At all of the focus groups, female veterans reported that physician validation of the assault was essential to healing. When providers communicated validation, the women experienced the most improvement in symptoms.
Therapies for MST
A variety of modalities was recommended as helpful in coping with symptoms associated with MST. One female noted her therapy dog allowed her to get her first Papanicolaou (Pap) smear in years:
“Pelvic exams are like the seventh circle of hell. Like, God, you’d think I was being abducted by aliens or something. Last time, up here, they let me bring my little dog, which was extraordinarily helpful for me.”
For others, more traditional therapy such as prolonged exposure therapy or cognitive behavioral therapy, was helpful.
“After my prolonged exposure therapy; it saved my life. I’m not suicidal, and the only thing that’s really, really affected is sometimes I still have to sleep with a night light. Over 80% of the symptoms that I had and the problems that I had were alleviated with the therapy.”
Other veterans noted alternative therapies as beneficial for overcoming trauma:
“Yoga has really helped me with dealing with chronic pain and letting go of things that no longer serve me, and remembering about the inhale, the exhale, there’s a pause between the exhale and an inhale, where that’s where I make my choices, my thoughts, catch it, check it, change it, challenge my thoughts, that’s really, really helped me.”
From these concepts, and the specific suggestions female veterans provided for improvement in care,
