Mac McClelland ... staged her own sexual assault. Civil rights journalist Mac McClelland has written about asking a friend to have violent sex with her to help her recover, drawing outrage from rape victims and praise from others who call her "brave".
While on assignment in Haiti in September, McClelland was accompanying a gang rape victim named Sybille to hospital, when the woman saw one of her attackers and starting screaming, "her eyes wide and rolling in abject horror".
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In the days after, McClelland began showing signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, suffering nightmares and "daymares", which continued upon her return to San Francisco with constant crying and feeling physically sick.McClelland told her therapist that she felt like having "incredibly violent sex" and she was told it was not uncommon for trauma victims to move towards fear and not away from it.
So McClelland asked a former partner to have rough sex with her, which included being smothered with a pillow while he slammed his fist into her face.
"My body felt devastated but relieved; I'd lost, but survived," McClelland wrote in Good Magazine.
"After he climbed off me, he gathered me up in his arms. I broke into a thousand pieces on his chest, sobbing so hard that my ribs felt like they were coming loose."
McClelland wrote that she was later able to return to Haiti and work in the Congo, where she interviewed people affected by sexual violence and murder.
"I was not crazy," McClelland told ABCNews.com
"It was a way for me to deal in sort of a simulated, but controlled situation. I could say 'stop' at any time. But it was still awful, and the body doesn't understand when it's in a fight."
Professor Richard Bryant, from the University of New South Wales school of psychology, said treatment for post-traumatic disorder usually involved some form of "exposure", which requires the sufferer to repeatedly remember the trauma with a therapist, or be placed in safe situations reminiscent of the trauma.
Professor Bryant said he did not know the details of McClelland's case, but her technique would not be recommended.
"But to actually go back and go through an experience that is actually reliving the event in a way that re-enacts exactly what happened, even though there would be some reliving of it that might be beneficial, it would also have a lot of negative connotations, it could also be very destructive," Professor Bryant said.
"I would certainly not be recommending that sort of approach, because we have much safer and more effective ways of doing it."
Professor Bryant said it could be particularly damaging for a rape victim.
"It would probably give the person a sense of having sex is actually potentially dangerous.
"In that sense we want the person to learn that 'I can have sex or be in a close relationship with somebody and not get hurt'.
"That's the point."
McClelland's article had mixed responses, with many supporting her, while others accused her of using Haiti victims and the Third World for "white blogger navel gazing".
"As a victim of sexual abuse I cannot help but feel my experiences and those of other real victims are being minimised and exploited for McClelland's 15 minutes of fame," one reader wrote.
Another said: "Sure, whatever she needs to do to cope with what she's gone through, but are we (and particularly survivors of sexual violence) really expected to congratulate her for it?"
A supporter said: "Thank you for doing the work you do. And thank you for sharing your story and your life. This was deeply moving."
Elana Newman, research director for the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma, told ABCNews.com that reliving the situation that caused the breakdown, or "mastery", could work for sufferers, but self-treatment was not a good idea.
"People want to feel better and have the tendency, when they are feeling terrible, to attempt some way at mastery," Ms Newman said.
"People try to make sense of the experience in any way they can with the resources they've got."
"I don't know [McClelland] so I can't assess her.
"But mastery needs to be done in a safe, structured environment."
NSW Rape Crisis Centre provides counselling 24 hours a day, seven days a week: 1800 424 017 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 1800 424 017 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
Victorian Centre Against Sexual Assault (CASA House) 03 9635 3610 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 03 9635 3610 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/mixed-reaction-for-woman-who-chose-violent-sex-cure-20110706-1h1p0.html#ixzz1RJLkKeoz
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