The overall objective of this research is to test hypotheses about the effects of different counseling environments on rape victims. The hypotheses, derived from the theoretical literature on peer support self-help groups, from concerns expressed by staff in many rape crisis centers, and from the Urban Institute's current research on victim services, can be summarized as: (1) Variation in counseling environment structure (open or closed membership, time period, qualifications of facilitator) will affect client outcomes; (2) Variations in counseling environment culture (extent to which self-help treatment conditions exist, extent of use of feminist analyses of rape) will affect client outcomes; (3) Pre-counseling goals and expectations of facilitators/counselors and client will affect client outcomes; (4) Group counseling will produce stronger effects on client outcomes than individual counseling; both will have more effect than no counseling. The design will use rape crisis center clients in three categories; (1) 80 group counseling participants, (2) 40 individual counseling users, and (3) 20 no-treatment clients and will interview them prospectively at four time points during one year. The experiences of these three types of clients will provide all the comparisons necessary to answer the research questions at a depth and level of detail not yet available in the therapeutic literature. Participation of 6-7 local RCCs and appropriate others in Pennsylvania and New York assures adequate access to center staff and clients. Because virtually no effectiveness evaluations have been done for peer support groups for sexual assault victims, this research is planned as an exploratory project, albeit an ambitious one. It will contribute to both the theoretical and empirical literature on mutual support groups, on the effectiveness of mental health treatments, and on rape impact and services.
