The Prosecution of Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Therapy

A grand jury indicted Dominique Strauss-Kahn last May over allegations that he had sexually assaulted a Sofital Hotel housekeeper.  Few people doubt that Nafissatou Diallo performed some kind of sexual act in the guest's hotel room that evening in New York.

A judge has finally dismissed the charges. Rape charges, you should know, rarely hold up in court.

Cyrus Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, made the move to dismiss the case because he believed his client, Ms. Diallo could not be trusted as a witness.  She had lied about so many things that it was difficult to believe anything she said, hard to tell fact from fiction. She reported, for example, being gang-raped by soldiers in her native country, then, recanted. Never mind.  We would call one of those a whoppers.

Mr. Vance is saying that his client is devastated, has been crying all night, and that it is only because Mr. Strauss-Kahn is rich and powerful that the charges had to be dropped. If Strauss-Kahn drove a bus, Diallo would have a fair trial. 

We disagree, not with that history of deception, but nobody asked us.  And in this country, the rich and powerful do go to jail.  Sometimes. Illinois has incarcerated three ex-governors: Otto Kerner, Dan Walker, and George Ryan.  Governors swing some power, but not enough when they break the law to escape successful proscecution.

Strauss-Kahn is the former head of the International Monetary Fund and is known in France as a womanizer.  It is easy to see how he might be easily framed for rape.

The story about a sexual attack, Nafissatou Diallois accusing  the head of International Monetary Fund, is really about proof, not truth, according to Jeffrey Toobin, senior CNN legal analyst. 

Nafissatou Diallois's lawyer, Cyrus Vance, believes she was raped, but that her credibility has been compromised.  Too many mistakes under pressure, too many mis-truths about the chronology of events, and then, those whoppers.   Vance believes that in a jury trial, Benjamin Brafman, Strauss-Kahn's defense attorney, will tear his client apart. 

Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin reminds us that the object of the defense is just that, to poke holes in the prosecution's case.  It is the task of the prosecutor to build that case.  Journalists, he suggests, get at the truth.  Lawyers are there to poke the holes, discredit witnesses.

In other words, it is up to Ms. Diallo's lawyer to present her story, to make her narrative sing, to make it believable.  It is what therapists accomplish every day, with every patient, encourage an honest narrative.  Patients tell a story, their life story, and it unfolds slowly, over days, sometimes weeks, in a context that is quiet, accepting, and free of judgement.  Telling the story is liberating, takes away the pain, at least some of it, anesthetizes.  Leave it here, with me, we say.  We take raw material, what hurts, and add oil.

Very few people ever lie in good therapy. 

Maybe before anyone interviews a victim of a felony, or a crime, certainly one that is high profile, surely every one of them that involves an alleged sexual assault, the precinct psychiatrist should do the questioning first.  Reduce the anxiety, eliminate the lies.  Sort out the truth before it goes public and discredits the victim.

Linda Freedman, PhD, LCSW, LMFT

College Rape Accusations and the Presumption of Male Guilt

About this time of year many educators are encouraging new students to please, please, go to student orientation on campus. Skip the bars for a couple of hours and learn something that will matter.  Attend a sexual assault workshop.  Know the definition of informed consent. Don't take it for granted that what you do on a date won't come back to haunt you.

And then there are people like Peter Berkowitz bemoaning that schools literally legislate what students should think and say. These rules, originally there to combat sex discrimination, are direct from the federal government. Schools that benefit from federal funding (i.e., almost all of them) must comply to the statutes and amendments of Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. Institutions receiving federal funding must: (1) educate both students and teachers about the law;
(2) report all incidences of known sexual assault on campus to the U.S. Department of Education; and (3) adjudicate complaints.

Mr. Berkowitz believes that the campus adjudication process unfairly favors the victim, unjustly leads to the expulsion of the perpetrator. Ruins his life.

Interesting to those of us who see the victims in therapy, when they should be in school. They are young men and women who have dropped out, who never even thought to tell over their experiences as rape victims, not to the schools, certainly, not even to parents or friends. They dropped out, dropped off the map. Just couldn't concentrate, you know.

But unfair, unjust things happen to young perpetrators of acquaintance rape, don't you know, because, according to Mr. Berkowitz,

On campus, where casual sex is celebrated and is frequently fueled by alcohol, the ambiguity that often attends sexual encounters is heightened and the risk of error in rape cases is increased.

Well yes, if they're not up to speed. Getting there is the point of the workshops Berkowitz feels are so intrusive, so likely to hamstring free thought, this illiberal education the kids are getting these days, the one about sexual violence. Oh, dear. Perhaps we shouldn't teach them to look both ways crossing the streets, either, or not to shoot people, to obey walk signs. All restrictions of freedoms.

Mr. Berkowitz believes that when schools try the accused, that guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the standard of civil jurisprudence, is diluted, replaced by the preponderance of evidence standard.

That may be true. But my understanding is different (the picture above with all those book, represents some of my understanding).

Procedures vary from school to school. In many schools the jury is a board composed of peers, or students who are impartial, and the accused and the one accusing, have a say in its composition. Rarely is a young man who has committed acquaintance rape and been through the process expelled. Rather, he learns definitions, laws. He is changed for the better, more empathetic. He has had a little sorely needed psychotherapy, and found that it didn't hurt, and to preserve his future and his self-respect, is sure to restrain himself the next time.

Poor guy. Doesn't even realize he's suffered an illiberal education!

Well before school begins, to add insult to injury, all incoming students receive student handbooks in the mail, or are encouraged to read them online. Their parents are encouraged, even psychologically pressured, to read the handbook (talk about riling up our founding fathers), as well. And these very same parents are encouraged to reinforce the rules of the institution. Should students break certain rules, i.e., commit felonies, they might be asked to leave.

Sexual assault orientation is generally conducted by students, themselves young people familiar with the matter. They reinforce awareness, recognition and treatment, what to do when someone you know has confided a rape. The engaging programs educate about the other Title IX laws that protect against ethnic harassment, racial and gender discrimination. The protected classes keep growing, dependent upon jurisdiction.

When it comes to sex, however, it is all about informed consent. It isn't that one cannot have sex while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, which precludes informed consent. Most everyone's judgement is compromised under the influence. To be sure that sex is what both partners want, that both will be happy with the decision the morning after, the question of whether or not we'll have sex tonight is something that might be discussed before the real partying begins, before one loses one faculties. (Uh, oh, there goes that free will.)

Speaking of faculties, Mr. Berkowitz wants to know,

Where are the professors of literature who will patiently point out that, particularly when erotic desire is involved, intentions can be obscure, passions conflicting, the heart murky and the soul divided?

Where are the professors of science . . .the professors of political science . . . law, . . .

They're writing books, sir, like the ones above. And they have spent a good deal of time at work, on campus, and have already attended a workshop.

Or perhaps they know someone who has been raped. Maybe a sister, a niece, a daughter. Most of us know someone.

Linda Freedman, LCSW, LMFT, PhD

Empathy Training

It's becoming more and more important, social intelligence, and empathy is the active ingredient.  Success in business, success in politics, success in family and friendship-- it all depends upon this.

I promise I'll fill in the blanks in a week or two, talk more about it, but it isn't natural, mind-reading.  It is a skill and it rides upon words, not divination.

You would think that reading people's feelings is easy.  Some of us wear our emotions on our sleeves, but even these are misinterpreted.  Many of us do a fairly good job, intuiting what others are feeling.  We can tell when we have upset someone, we can tell when someone is angry.  We can feel the anxiety of a spouse who wants to leave earlier for the airport. 

Some of us care more than others, is the truth.  We tune in better, more often.  We're the ones who teach others how to do it, because we're the ones who see that it works.  We need it, no question, to be successful (depending, granted, upon one's definition of success).

You can teach people to empathize in therapy and in group training sessions, because they want to learn.  They already care.  There is no beginning, it is a homeostatic system. Caring people empathize and empathetic people care.  They watch their words, how their actions affect others.  Most of couples therapy is founded upon this principle:  If you care, you'll feel your partner's worries and you won't like how it feels.

Another way to say it is that if one of you has a problem, the other has a problem, too.

So how do we do this, empathy training?  A grown man will cry when his favorite team loses, will bang the table when the ball is fumbled. But he might call his kid a cry baby for crying over a lost toy.

So one way is to say, Your team lost a game and you felt bad.  The kid lost a toy.  Same feeling.  Why would you want him to feel bad?

When we run groups, when we teach a room full of people to become empaths, the procedure is a little different, more provocative.  But the idea is the same.  The job is getting inside someone's head, reading someone's feelings implies feeling our own, making comparisons.

Empathy training is a little more complicated than that, but there are tricks, and we have to begin to talk about it. 

Linda Freedman, LCSW, LMFT, PhD