By Krystal Delfino

Jessica Combs is someone who is willing to work for what she wants in life. After gaining admission into one of the most competitive doctoral programs in the country, she has more than exceeded expectations as a psychology graduate student here at the University of Kentucky. Already, Jessica has been a collaborator in the publication of 15 papers, as well as a few others still waiting to be put in ink. In addition to this, she was granted a Presidential Fellowship, an award that honors and provides financial support for a small number of outstanding doctoral students in the university. This year, she was also selected as the Mary Byron Fellow for 2011-2012. This fellowship is in honor of a woman who was killed by a former boyfriend and is awarded to a doctoral student who has shown strong interest and exceptional expertise in the study of violence against women.

Although this was not Jessica's initial area of interest, she became drawn to the subject during her experiences working with female clients who suffered from eating disorders. Many of them were victims of sexual assault. “I was astonished at how widespread it was and how little I knew about it.”

Now, in her fifth year as a doctoral student here at the university, Jessica has begun work on a project that will hopefully offer insight into what happens to a person after a sexual trauma, and ways in which they can be helped during the immediate aftermath of such an event. While prevention is the eventual goal for any negative occurrence, recognizing a problem and coming to an understanding of its effects is a key step in reaching that end.

“Our ways of helping people after such trauma are pretty limited right now. We have good, solid treatments for people after they’ve learned coping skills. There are still some discrepancies about what to do if somebody comes to you and says ‘I was just assaulted.’ I’m moving towards trying to figure that out based on what would be best for the person in that situation.”

This is a longitudinal study, which means participants will be evaluated more than once over a certain period of time, in order to gather a “big picture” kind of view of what’s really going on. For the initial stage of the project, information is being collected via survey. Currently the surveys focus on personality and various behaviors such as eating disorders, alcohol use, smoking, drug problems, etc. Jessica is hoping to re-write some of the surveys in order to make them better reflect the experience. It can be difficult to get answers to these kinds of questions, however, because “sexual assault is a really vulnerable topic.”

The project would not have been able to be put into action without the wholehearted support which the UK administration has offered. With their permission, incoming freshman females are being given the opportunity to anonymously fill out these surveys. The first round has already taken place this Fall semester. In return for filling out the surveys, students were offered a chance to win 1 of 8 Target gift cards. This initial survey will be followed up in November and May. The surveys are designed to be completely anonymous. However, if a student gives particularly alarming responses to any of the questions, it is in the agreement they sign that Jessica may reach out to them.

Research on sexual trauma is very important, as it affects many people; the statistic is that 1 in 3 women will be sexually assaulted. This was what Jessica found most shocking, and why she has chosen to dedicate her time to figuring out a way to help.

Another dismaying piece of information Jessica has come across is evidence of something called “re--victimization,” which shows that those who have already fallen prey to sexual assault are more likely to be sexually assaulted again. It is troubling news like this that keeps her interested in the field and determined to come up with a better way to help.

“My theory about sexual assault is that people have a certain personality before, and afterwards that personality determines how they will react to assault.” Basically, people with different personality types learn things in ways that are unique to them. Jessica views a sexual assault as a very traumatic learning experience, and therefore people react to assaults in different ways. People who had a tendency to externalize may act out more, and those who were already introverted may draw further within themselves. This is why it’s important to look at different ways of helping people who have been victimized.

There are many topics Jessica could choose to write her dissertation on, as she has worked with others on a variety of research projects, but this one is her “baby,” and she wouldn’t want to finish with anything else. Eventually, she would like to get down to the day-to-day effects a sexual trauma has on a woman, possibly getting into case studies if the opportunity presents itself down the line.

Once she completes her PhD, Jessica would like to continue working in this field, probably for the rest of her life. Her goal would be to see a decrease in the rate of sexual assaults that occur and an increase in the number of people who seek help after they have been victimized. Ideally, peoples’ attitudes could be changed to have a better understanding of the dynamics of sexually-charged situations. Jessica has a particular problem with the “no means no” slogan. “That means the default is apparently yes until the girl says no. […] What if they’re too scared to say no? The default assumption should be that she doesn’t want to have sex with you unless she says, specifically, yes.”

If you have ever been a victim of a sexual assault, please seek help. Know that you are not alone and there are people working to help you. To start, you can call UK’s Violence, Intervention and Prevention Center at 859-257-3564.