If you pay attention to how harmful gurus behave, you’ll start to notice patterns that come up again and again.

Here’s my speculative attempt at categorizing harmful gurus based on their personalities, motivations, and persuasive styles (but not mental health conditions). Of course, not all harmful gurus are equally harmful (I’ll give a mix of very harmful and less harmful examples). My hope is that these categories may help you spot these patterns more easily:

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Type 1: Sociopathic Gurus – they strategically mix lies with truth to get your trust, promote a specific world view, and (eventually) extract value from you. Those who fail to spot their lies learn to trust them and may even see them as brave truth tellers. They lie to you knowingly and without remorse for personal gain.

Strategies they often rely on:

• Cherry picking: using selective (non-representative) examples that suggest the narrative they want you to believe.

• Paltering: making a series of true statements that purposely lead you to come to a false conclusion.

• Lie laundering: inserting key lies among a series of true statements so that the lies go unnoticed and they appear credible.

• Fabrication: they’re willing to completely make up things that very few people would ever blatantly lie about (such as inventing an experience they had with a specific person), leaving trusting people to assume they must be telling the truth.

Famous example:

Larry Ray

“Ray started a sex cult in which he presented himself to students as a former US Marine with training in psychological operations, as well as past work with the Central Intelligence Agency.[24] At first Ray ingratiated himself with his daughter’s friends, cooking dinners and ordering in delivery, and presenting himself as a father figure.”

A psychological examiner’s notes from the time said that Ray was “able to manipulate and control almost any situation in which he finds himself, including a psychological interview with a forensic examiner, no matter how experienced that examiner may be. Mr. Ray is very good at what he does … [He] can be utterly charming, and one can be disarmed by his childlike simplicity and smile. But Mr. Ray is no child; he is a calculating, manipulative and hostile man.”

(source of these quotes: Wikipedia)

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Type 2: Narcissistic Gurus – they’re delusionally convinced of the vast superiority of their ideas and qualities, and do whatever they can to get others to pay attention to and admire them. People end up entranced by their charisma, grandiose vision, and (apparent) confidence. Their huge (but fragile) ego makes it hard for them to learn from (and likely to lash out in response to) valid criticism.

Strategies they often rely on:

• Self-aggrandizement: they tell you how impressive they are or how impressive their ideas are, and some find this convincing.

• Endorsement: they get others to talk up their brilliance and accomplishments, making their claims seem more believable (which are also sometimes mutual exchanges where they talk each other up).

• Obfuscation: using obscure words, ambiguous, smart-seeming remarks, and technical phrases that are hard to understand to seem brilliant and to deflect from having to actually defend their ideas from head-on critiques.

Famous example:

Benny Hinn (prosperity gospel preacher)

Quotes:

“Where in the Bible does it say I have to drive a Honda?”

“When you don’t give money, it shows that you have the devil’s nature”

“The Bible warns us clearly that we must not attack men of God no matter how sinful they may have become or wicked in our eyes.”

“Sow a big seed.  When you confess it, you are activating the supernatural forces of God”

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Type 3: Apophenic Gurus – they read signals into noise, often in paranoid ways. Even though their theories are usually wrong, they are often interesting, novel, or surprising, which gets people to pay attention and leaves some people captivated. They see tenuous connections as deeply meaningful and are rarely persuaded by logical critiques. Some of them tip into genuine psychotic detachment from reality.

Strategies they often rely on:

• Mystery: they present their ideas as involving a deep understanding of hidden relationships or secret knowledge, and leave the impression that if you just spend enough time consuming their content, you’ll come to grasp these important truths that few understand.

• Web of connections: they talk about a wide range of unrelated ideas and events in rapid succession and treat these as deeply connected, making it difficult to pin down their points and giving them an easy escape valve (by diverting to tangential topics they claim are related) when their perspectives are challenged.

• Just asking questions: they’ll point to things that seem weird or surprising or that aren’t well understood, and imply they have deep significance and support their worldview, even though their proper interpretation is unclear.

• Yes And-ing: incorporating other popular false theories and appealing world-views (such as perspectives of other gurus) into their network of ideas, making them even more appealing, fascinating and familiar seeming.

Famous example:

David Icke (conspiracy theorist)

Quotes:

“The opening and closing ceremonies of the London Olympics are mass satanic rituals disguised as a celebration of Britain and sport. Their medium is the language of symbolism.”

“I once had an extraordinary experience with former prime minister Ted Heath. Both of his eyes, including the whites, turned jet black, and I seemed to be looking into two black holes.”

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Type 4: Traumatized Gurus – due to being ostracized by a group or very painful life experiences, they’ve come to demonize a group of people or a set of ideas as the source of society’s ills. They’re on a mission to get others to demonize the same group or ideas. Their own pain and fear leads to black and white thinking and blocks their empathy.

Strategies they often rely on:

• Nutpicking: focusing on the most extreme (nutty) perspectives and people related to whatever it is they demonize to make it seem insane and dangerous.

• Catastrophizing on a slippery slope: claiming that some genuine problems related to a group or set of ideas are going to lead to a sequence of events with a cataclysmic or frightening outcome, causing their audience to fear that group or those ideas.

• Motte and bailey-ing: flip-flopping between reasonable criticisms and extreme conclusions based on those criticisms (which may depend on how emotionally disregulated they are at that moment, or what audience they are talking to), such that when their extreme conclusions are changed, they can easily retreat to “I was just saying that [reasonable criticism].”

Famous example:

Brigitte Gabriel

Her home was destroyed by Muslim militants when she was 10 years old, and she suffered injuries from shrapnel.

Quotes:

“The difference, my friends, between Israel and the Arab world is the difference between civilization and barbarism. It’s the difference between good and evil.. this is what we’re witnessing in the Arabic world, They have no soul, they are dead set on killing and destruction.”

“Every practicing Muslim is a radical Muslim.” (according to the NYT).

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Note that here with this terminology I am not talking about diagnosing mental disorders – I’m talking about how these gurus think, their motivations, and their persuasive styles.

What’s the key difference between these categories? I’d say it’s that they all mislead their audiences, but for different reasons, based on different motivations, and with different levels of self-awareness.

Sociopathic Gurus often mislead on purpose, knowingly, to gain something.

Narcissistic Gurus often mislead due to their egos, and an inflated sense of their own importance and the superiority of their ideas.

Apophenic Gurus often mislead due to seeing false connections, and due to jumping to paranoid conclusions.

And Traumatized Gurus often mislead due to the way their beliefs were shaped by pain or fear, which has caused them to oversimplify, mischaracterize and demonize a particular group or set of ideas.

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Of course, not all gurus can be classified in these ways – some are idiosyncratic.

And, in practice, many gurus combine multiple elements from the above categories, especially the most harmful gurus – for instance, I think that Sociopathic + Narcissistic, and Narcissistic + Apophenic are common combinations among cult leaders in particular. Perhaps having multiple of these tendencies rather than just one (or even having all of these tendencies, though likely to different degrees) is common among the most popular such gurus.

The reason I’m proposing these categories, despite their porousness, is that I think they are useful for thinking about different personalities and tactics common among gurus.

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Here are some examples of what I think are mixed type harmful gurus and how I’d classify them using this framework based on what I know about them (of course, it’s hard to be certain of their true traits beyond their public portrayal of their traits):

• Andrew Tate: Sociopathic + Narcissistic Guru – “Andrew Tate once called his sexually explicit webcam business a ‘total scam’ and boasted on his website that he lured women in by getting them to fall in love with him.  The 36-year-old influencer also boasted on a podcast that he broke a woman’s jaw in a bar fight and ‘got away with it.'” (NBC)

• Alex Jones (radio host): Narcissistic + Apophenic Guru – “We had floods in Texas like fifteen years ago, killed thirty-something people in one night. Turned out it was the Air Force.” and “The reason there’s so many gay people now is because it’s a chemical warfare operation, and I have the government documents where they said they’re going to encourage homosexuality with chemicals so that people don’t have children”.

• Elliot Rodger (mass murderer, became influential post-death): Traumatized + Narcissistic Guru – “All I have ever wanted was to love women, but their behavior has only earned my hatred. I want to have sex with them, and make them feel good, but they would be disgusted at the prospect. They have no sexual attraction towards me. It is such an injustice…Why do they have a perverted sexual attraction for the most brutish of men instead of gentlemen of intelligence? I concluded that women are flawed.”

• L. Ron Hubbard: Sociopathic + Narcissistic Guru – “All women shall succumb to my charms! All mankind shall grovel at my feet and not know why!” (part of his “self-hypnosis”)

• Marshall Applewhite (Heaven’s Gate cult leader): Narcissistic + Apophenic Guru

• Charles Manson (Manson Family cult leader): Sociopathic + Apophenic Guru – “Total paranoia is just total awareness.” and ” I decide who does what and where they do it at. What am I gonna run around like some teeny bopper somewhere for someone elses money? I make the money man; I roll the nickels. The game is mine. I deal the cards.”

• Warren Jeffs (FLDS polygamous offshoot of Mormonism): Sociopathic + Narcissistic Guru

• Keith Raniere (NXIVM cult leader): Sociopathic + Narcissistic Guru

This piece was first written on March 4, 2026, and first appeared on my website on March 30, 2026.

There’s an increasing drift between how they get used colloquially in everyday language and the commonly accepted definitions among psychologists. There’s a sense in which the lay usage is “wrong” (in that it doesn’t match more scientific, precise, or technical usage), but of course, language has always been and always will be in flux. At the end of the day, a word does mean what people widely use it to mean. So I think it’s useful to be aware of both definitions for psychological concepts. The everyday concept helps us understand others, whereas the more technical definition is usually more helpful for helping us understand the way the world works. Here’s a list of examples:

1) Gaslighting

Everyday usage: Someone invalidating your perspective or lying to you in order to manipulate you

Precise usage: Manipulation that specifically causes someone to doubt their own senses or their ability to reason

2) Negative reinforcement

Everyday usage: Something bad happens when you do a behavior, so you do it less

Precise usage: Removal of an aversive stimulus after a behavior is engaged in, causing that behavior to increase (not a form of punishment). This is in contact with positive reinforcement, which adds a desirable stimulus after a behavior (which is a different way to get a behavior to increase).

3) OCD

Everyday usage: being a neat freak or someone who needs things done in a specific way

Precise usage: A disorder involving repetitive, intrusive obsessions and/or compulsions (behaviors performed to reduce anxiety) that are time‑consuming or impair function.

4) Depression

Everyday usage: feeling sad a lot

Precise usage: an ongoing near-daily pervasive depressed mood (sadness, emptiness, and/or hopelessness) or loss of interest or pleasure, that coincides with symptoms like fatigue, suicidality, poor concentration, weight change, or feelings of worthlessness.

5) Antisocial

Everyday usage: a desire to avoid being around other people

Precise usage: a personality disorder (ASPD) involving pervasive disregard for or violation of the rights of others, typically involving deceit, manipulativeness, aggression, and a lack of empathy/remorse.

6) Narcissist

Everyday usage: someone who is self-centered or very vain

Precise usage: a personality disorder (NPD) involving a grandiose sense of self-importance and superiority, need for admiration, and reduced empathy.

7) Trauma

Everyday usage: A very upsetting experience

Precise usage: Exposure to someone dying, serious injury, or sexual violence (DSM), or another extremely threatening or horrific event that has a long-lasting negative impact on a person’s mental function.

While there’s a time for going with the flow of culture, and using words however people casually use them, there’s an important role for more technically precise terminology as well. In the cases above, I believe the technical versions of these words are worth knowing about and understanding.

This piece was first written on November 7, 2025, and first appeared on my website on December 11, 2025.

There’s an increasing drift between how they get used colloquially in everyday language and the commonly accepted definitions among psychologists. There’s a sense in which the lay usage is “wrong” (in that it doesn’t match more scientific, precise, or technical usage), but of course, language has always been and always will be in flux. At the end of the day, a word does mean what people widely use it to mean. So I think it’s useful to be aware of both definitions for psychological concepts. The everyday concept helps us understand others, whereas the more technical definition is usually more helpful for helping us understand the way the world works. Here’s a list of examples:

1) Gaslighting

Everyday usage: Someone invalidating your perspective or lying to you in order to manipulate you

Precise usage: Manipulation that specifically causes someone to doubt their own senses or their ability to reason

2) Negative reinforcement

Everyday usage: Something bad happens when you do a behavior, so you do it less

Precise usage: Removal of an aversive stimulus after a behavior is engaged in, causing that behavior to increase (not a form of punishment). This is in contact with positive reinforcement, which adds a desirable stimulus after a behavior (which is a different way to get a behavior to increase).

3) OCD

Everyday usage: being a neat freak or someone who needs things done in a specific way

Precise usage: A disorder involving repetitive, intrusive obsessions and/or compulsions (behaviors performed to reduce anxiety) that are time‑consuming or impair function

4) Depression

Every day usage: feeling sad a lot

Precise usage: an ongoing near-daily pervasive depressed mood (sadness, emptiness, and/or hopelessness) or loss of interest or pleasure, that coincides with symptoms like fatigue, suicidality, poor concentration, weight change, or feelings of worthlessness.

5) Antisocial

Everyday usage: a desire to avoid being around other people

Precise usage: a personality disorder (ASPD) involving pervasive disregard for or violation of the rights of others, typically involving deceit, manipulativeness, aggression, and a lack of empathy/remorse.

6) Narcissist

Everyday usage: someone who is self-centered or very vain

Precise usage: a personality disorder (NPD) involving a grandiose sense of self-importance and superiority, need for admiration, and reduced empathy.

7) Trauma

Everyday usage: A very upsetting experience

Precise usage: Exposure to someone dying, serious injury, or sexual violence (DSM), or another extremely threatening or horrific event that has a long-lasting negative impact on a person’s mental function

While there’s a time for going with the flow of culture, and using words however people casually use them, there’s an important role for more technically precise terminology as well. In the cases above, I believe the technical versions of these words are worth knowing about and understanding.

This piece was first written on November 7, 2025, and first appeared on my website on November 18, 2025.

It has been estimated that over 70% of adults in the world have experienced at least one traumatic event in their lifetime. Consequently, the majority of friendships and relationships will involve at least one person who has experienced trauma.

This article investigates how one person’s trauma can “clash” with another person’s trauma to cause relationship breakdown and what you can do to resolve conflicts like this if you experience them yourself. You might find it helpful to read if you…

• have some trauma in your past that sometimes gets triggered by other people’s behavior;
• find that your friends or romantic partners sometimes suddenly hurt you for inexplicable reasons;
• struggle to understand other people’s hostile reactions to actions you take;
• want a new model that might help you understand conflict with people close to you.

Let’s look at some specific examples of what we mean by Clashing Trauma: 

1. Trauma from anger and abuse 

Bob is sensitive to teasing because of a physically and emotionally abusive ex that used to tease him incessantly. Anne lightly teases him in what she thinks is a playful way, and he blows up in anger. Anne is sensitive to anger due to trauma in her childhood. She stops replying to Bob’s messages, which makes Bob even angrier. 

2. Trauma from abandonment and unwanted sexual advances 

Bob is physically affectionate with his close friend Anne. It starts to freak Anne out – when male friends have acted this way in the past, they have usually tried to initiate a sexual relationship with her in a way that she found traumatic. To prevent this, Anne stops being warm to Bob. Bob, however, regards Anne as a dear and platonic friend. Because Bob had a traumatic experience of abandonment in the past, he finds Anne’s sudden coldness very upsetting. The fear of abandonment causes Bob to be more affectionate toward Anne as he tries harder to reconnect. This triggers Anne further, causing her to withdraw even more, leading to Bob feeling even more hurt and confused. 

3. Trauma from substance abuse 

Anne has a history of alcoholism that Bob doesn’t know about. Years ago, she resolved to stop drinking when she realized she was becoming like her parents, whose drinking would often lead to physical fights that she found distressing. Bob drinks around her and encourages her to drink, which makes her angry. Bob has protected himself from people’s anger in the past using humor, so he tries to downplay Anne’s reaction by joking around and making light of the situation. Anne finds herself even more triggered and upset by Bob’s behavior – she wants her anger to be taken seriously because alcoholism was a huge challenge in her past.

In all three examples above, one person’s reaction to their trauma being triggered in turn triggers the other person’s trauma response. Clashing Trauma is an example of a broader pattern of Clashing Reactions, where one person’s reaction to an action that upsets them triggers the other person to become upset or angry, which in turn intensifies the first person’s negative emotions, and so on. We’ve noticed that a surprisingly high proportion of fights between people who care a lot about each other fit this basic pattern. The cases of Clashing Reactions on which this essay is focused involve reactions that have their foundations in trauma, but be mindful that trauma doesn’t have to be at the root for similar patterns to occur.

What is trauma?

Trauma refers to enduring changes in your emotional reactions or self-protective behaviors that are the result of painful or frightening incidents in your past. Examples of trauma that people are usually familiar with include experiences with war, abuse, or sexual assault. For example:

• A soldier who was shot at in combat may find that loud noises that sound like gunshots cause her to panic, even in completely safe environments.
• A man who was sexually assaulted by someone with an English accent may feel anxious around people with those same accents.

But it is important to remember that trauma occurs on a spectrum; many people have emotional reactions to reminders of upsetting experiences in their past, even when those experiences were not life-threatening or severely upsetting. For instance:

• Someone who received bad news over the phone may experience a sense of dread and anxiety when they receive a call from an unknown number.
• Someone who was teased by a school teacher for stuttering during a class presentation may find that they get nervous when asked to speak in front of people.

Trauma is the result of a mechanism your brain uses to protect you. This mechanism is often helpful – by sensitizing you to patterns that are similar to ones where you were hurt or frightened in the past, your brain tries to protect you from getting hurt again. Unfortunately, this protective mechanism sometimes goes too far, leading to reactions that can seriously impact people’s welfare (at which point we call it “trauma”).

The soldier, who is now in essentially no danger of getting shot, may have recurring panic attacks that reduce her quality of life and avoid places she used to love just because there are loud noises there. Trauma can manifest in relationships, too; many people are hurt by those close to them (unintentionally or not), and this can make us extra vigilant about avoiding similar painful experiences in the future.

What is going on when people’s trauma clashes?

Here is what we think is going on in situations where friendships or relationships break down due to Clashing Trauma:

1. Anne takes an action that seems normal and reasonable to her. Anne doesn’t know it, but her close friend (or partner) Bob is sensitive to this kind of action due to trauma in his past. Consequently, Bob experiences intense negative emotions as a result of her action.

2. Bob instinctively tries to protect himself from this negative emotion using whatever approaches seemed to help him during past traumatic events (e.g., by avoiding Anne, yelling at her, getting very distraught, or trying to control her behavior). But he doesn’t explain clearly to Anne what is happening. Anne is caught off guard by Bob’s reaction—she doesn’t understand why he’s behaving this way. Even worse, due to trauma in her own past, she gets triggered by Bob’s reaction and starts experiencing intense negative emotions of her own.

3. Anne now acts instinctively to try to protect herself from the way that Bob is making her feel (e.g., by lashing back out at him, avoiding him, shutting down, or trying to control him). This reaction results in Bob feeling even more upset, causing him to intensify his self-protective behavior.

You can now see how Clashing Trauma works:

• From Bob’s perspective, Anne suddenly did something that triggered his trauma, and when he tried to protect himself, she doubled down and hurt him more.
• From Anne’s perspective, Bob suddenly started acting in a strange and hurtful manner, and when she acted to protect herself, he hurt her even further.
• From the outside view, it’s clear that neither person intended to hurt the other, yet both feel hurt, and the relationship suffers.

Incidentally, if you think that you might be Anne or Bob, you’re not alone. When we shared a draft of this article, one friend of the author reached out asking if Anne represented them, and another reached out asking if they were Bob. But the post wasn’t actually about either of them! We are trying to describe a general pattern that we’ve observed many times. Or, put another way: if you think you are Anne or Bob, then this post may well apply to you, but it’s also about lots of other people as well.

How can you prevent Clashing Trauma?

Strategy 1: Prevention

The best way to prevent this pattern of conflict is to discuss in advance with trusted friends and romantic partners what triggers you each have, how to avoid these triggers, and what the best actions to take are if you trigger each other by accident.

For instance, Bob could have told Anne in advance that he can feel very attacked when someone is critical of him and that he tends to lash out in anger as a defense mechanism. Then Bob and Anne can work together to plan how Anne can give Bob feedback in ways that won’t trigger him.

Strategy 2: Interception

Barring Prevention, upon being triggered the first time, Bob would ideally wait until he’s calm and then tell Anne (without blaming her) that her action triggered negative emotions for him, explaining what the trigger was and how to avoid it. (See our post on non-violent communication for advice on how to communicate this kind of thing without making the other person feel bad.)

Then, Anne, caring about Bob, would ideally apologize for inadvertently hurting him and commit to trying to avoid those triggering actions in the future. But behaviors can take time to alter—Anne should set realistic expectations about how quickly she can make that change.

Interception is hard, but appreciating the negative consequences of unresolved Clashing Trauma might help motivate you to implement this strategy.

Strategy 3: Repair

If it’s too late for Interception, try Repair: once Anne is hurt by Bob’s response to her behavior, Anne could wait until she feels calm and then initiate a conversation with Bob.

During the conversation, she could explain how Bob’s behavior seemed (to her) to suddenly and mysteriously change and how this had hurt her, while expressing interest in hearing Bob’s experience of the situation. She would try to genuinely understand Bob’s experience (non-violent communication could also be a helpful way to employ this strategy).

Bob could then explain what he experienced in the situation and what made him react that way towards Anne. They could each commit to new behaviors to reduce the chance they trigger each other in the future.

Understanding trauma

Each of the Prevention, Interception, and Repair strategies involve Anne or Bob explaining their triggers (and/or the trauma that underlies them) to each other. These strategies will therefore be harder to implement if you don’t understand your own trauma or what can trigger it. One way to build an understanding of your trauma and triggers is to discuss it with a trained therapist or trusted friend (or partner). Conveniently, this is a great segue into setting up Prevention strategies with a trusted friend or partner so that you can avoid triggering each other!

Did you find this model of relationship breakdown helpful?

The next time you feel suddenly and unexpectedly hurt by a close friend or romantic partner, it may be worth asking yourself – could this be an instance of Clashing Trauma? Or, more generally, could it be a case of Clashing Reactions? In either case, consider the strategies of (1) Prevention, (2) Interception, and (3) Repair. A lot of great friendships and romantic relationships end for preventable reasons. We hope you can use these strategies to stay close to the people that you love.

This essay was first written on April 17, 2022, was turned into an article on Clearer Thinking (coauthored with Holly Muir) on May 5, 2022, and first appeared on this site on May 6, 2022.

To help clear them up, I’d like to share with you some statistics, followed by what I’ve witnessed regarding sexual assault and rape (in my personal networks).

Here are some helpful statistics about the rates of victimization in general:

• According to RAINN, about 1 in 6 American women and 1 in 33 American men have been the victim of an attempted or completed rape (source). 

• According to the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) survey, 1 in 5 American women experienced completed or attempted rape during her lifetime, and 1 in 14 American men had been made to penetrate someone (completed or attempted) during his lifetime (source). Among women, 13.5% experienced completed forced penetration during their lifetime, 6.3% experienced attempted forced penetration, and 11.0% experienced completed alcohol/drug-facilitated penetration at some point in their lifetime. Among men, approximately 1.6% were made to penetrate through completed forced penetration, 1.4% experienced situations where attempts were made to make them penetrate someone else through the use of force, and 5.5% were made to penetrate someone else through completed alcohol/drug facilitation at some point in their lifetime.

Note that these estimates can vary quite a bit due to (a) different definitions being used/different question wording and (b) precisely who is being surveyed. I wouldn’t be surprised if anywhere from 1 in 2 to 1 in 6 women in the US have been raped and/or sexually assaulted (depending on who is asked and with which wording).

• According to RAINN, about 20% of sexual violence is committed by a stranger, 40% by acquaintances, 33% by a current or former romantic partner, and 3% by a non-spouse relative (source).

• According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, only about 1 in 3 rapes/sexual assaults are reported to the police (source).

In my networks:

• Twelve people that I know have told me about being raped or sexually assaulted (11 women and one man) – note that I’m only talking here about one-on-one conversations I’ve had where the person told me some details about what happened. If you’re wondering, none of these were cases where consensual sexual activity was occurring, and then, in the heat of the moment, the perpetrator did something that they didn’t know the victim didn’t want. These cases are all very clear violations.

• In only three cases (i.e., 25%), the perpetrator was a stranger.

• Of the 12 people, only one of them (i.e., 8%) reported what happened to authorities or publicly named the perpetrator.

To see how common sexual assault experiences are among my Twitter followers, I posted two (anonymous) polls, both shown below. Of the respondents, more than 1 in 2 women and more than 1 in 7 men reported that they had experienced sexual assault, defined here as a situation they found very distressing where (1) they were forced to engage in a sexual act OR (2) a sexual act was performed on them against their will. These proportions were similar regardless of if it was (or wasn’t) specified that a reasonable person would have predicted they didn’t want the act to be done (this specification was added in the second poll).

This raises the question – why did victims so rarely report such cases to authorities?

The reasons I’m aware of for why people don’t report are that they…

• don’t think they’ll be believed

• feel shame or embarrassment

• don’t want their attacker (e.g., an ex-boyfriend) to go to jail or be harshly punished

• don’t want more people to know about the event

• are too young to know what to do

• are trying to avoid reliving the trauma or being retraumatized (since reporting it will require talking about the event extensively)

• are scared of retaliation by the perpetrator

• don’t believe that reporting it will lead to justice

Claire Z, who commented on an earlier version of this post, also pointed out the following additional reasons that people sometimes don’t report (which I don’t believe were major factors in the 12 cases I’m referring to above, but which I think can be important in other situations).

Some people don’t report because they…

• are too busy and don’t want to take the time to report, follow up, and possibly be a witness in a trial

• have fear related to admitting to the use of illegal substances during the assault

• don’t want specific people to find out about the assault (e.g., parents they think would react counterproductively)

• don’t think what happened to them was very bad or important

• don’t think what was done would be considered very bad or important (or even think people would consider it good – especially in the case of men assaulted by women)

• are genuinely uncertain what happened, e.g., because of substance use

In a nutshell, I think victims of rape and sexual assault usually believe that (all consequences considered) they will be worse off reporting the event to authorities. So, after an extremely upsetting and often traumatic event, they are in a situation where reporting it may make things even worse for them. Under such circumstances, is it any wonder that these events would often go unreported?

Another thing I’ve seen baffle people is that victims sometimes stay in touch with a perpetrator or even continue being nice or friendly to them. Such behavior sometimes leads people to think that the alleged event was consensual or fabricated. Yet, there are good explanations for why this sometimes happens.

Here are the reasons I’ve seen for victims staying in touch with (or even acting friendly with) the perpetrator afterward:

• they don’t want the perpetrator to slander them to people they both know

• they don’t want to come across as a threat to the perpetrator, which could raise their future level of danger (especially if the perpetrator has power over them or comes across as someone who may hurt them even worse if angered)

• there are additional negative consequences associated with not speaking to the perpetrator, or it is difficult to avoid talking to them (e.g., the perpetrator is a work colleague, a family member, tightly woven in their social circles, or has some kind of power over them)

• they want to hide from the perpetrator how negatively impacted they were by the event

• they have a strong emotional attachment to the perpetrator (or are even in love with them), and the terrible event doesn’t remove that attachment (e.g., it’s a situation of an abusive boyfriend/close family member)

• the perpetrator (or other people in the victim’s life) make the victim feel like they are to blame for the event, or at least that they are as much to blame as the perpetrator

• they feel some uncertainty about what happened because they were willingly (or unknowingly) consuming drugs before the event transpired

Thankfully, the norms around reporting rape and sexual assault appear to be shifting. It’s getting easier to report these events. That being said, I think the incentive structures still are such that victims often feel it is not in their interest to report.

In my opinion, shifting incentives so that victims benefit more from reporting rape and sexual assault (ideally without significantly increasing incentives for false reporting) is one promising approach to make outcomes more just and reduce how often these crimes are committed.

This essay was first written on January 9th, 2022, and first appeared on this site on January 21st, 2022.

(1) Noticing: paying close attention to your negative thoughts instead of pushing them away or trying to ignore the bad feelings. What are the EXACT words running through your mind? How does it feel right now to be you? What do your body and mind feel like?

(2) Allowing: letting go of negative thoughts or feelings ABOUT your emotional response. Be loving to yourself, like you would a friend. Remember, emotions are there to help you. It’s not bad to feel sad. You don’t have to be anxious (or angry at yourself) for these emotions.

(3) Observing: making observations about your thoughts (rather than only noticing them). Which of these upsetting thoughts are true and helpful? Which are false or unhelpful? It may help to write out upsetting thoughts you’re having, which you can then read later (when feeling a little better).

(4) Explaining: trying to clarify why, precisely, you are experiencing what you are feeling. Of course, a person is sad when their pet dies – but why, precisely, are you sad that Snowball died? Can you explain what is now lost that is making you so sad? What will you miss?

(5) Understanding: trying to make sense of the event (especially when it was a surprise or shock). What exactly occurred? How much was due to chance? What caused it? What role did you play, and what should you take responsibility for? What role did others play? What can you learn from it?

(6) Accepting: accepting that the event has happened and acknowledging the new state the world is in – not denying the way things are now or mentally rebelling against reality. This involves filling in mental details about what’s true from now on instead of refusing to update your mental map.

(7) Concluding: [eventually] taking actions that help give a sense of closure. This might be saying “goodbye,” performing a ritual, severing a tie, taking a symbolic action, etc. What can help you recover or move on?

This piece was first written on December 20, 2020, and first appeared on this site on March 11, 2022.