Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the phenomenology of rape among US military male veterans. Drawing upon 2 years of clinical treatment data, this paper explores rape victimhood as an instance of racial and moral trauma, and reviews the relevance of ethnographic methods in the clinical sphere.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the phenomenology of rape among US military male veterans. Drawing upon 2 years of clinical treatment data collected by the author, this paper explores rape victimhood as an instance of racial and moral trauma. Through analysis of PTSD symptom presentation and supplemental qualitative interview data, this paper reviews the lived experience of shame, loneliness, and anger, and considers how these experiences are simultaneously efforts to maintain and impede masculinity, human dignity, and cultural belonging. It reviews literature from the Recovery Movement as an alternative conceptualization to standard treatment models, and questions what recovery means in the context of sexual and racial trauma. The paper will conclude to explore the limits clinical psychology faces in its capacity to respond to trauma (that focus on symptom reduction is insufficient to respond to the distress that brings veterans to treatment) and highlights the utility of mobilizing ethnographic methods for the purposes of psychological healing (facilitating a healing environment centered on meaning-making).