Cyberviolence et cyberharcèlement. Une violence fantasmatique pour l’agresseur,une violence traumatique pour la victime

In France, we estimate that 6% of Internet users have been victims of cyberbullying and 42% of cyberviolence. After recalling the traumatic implications of this kind of violence, the author describes the different forms of cyberbullying (flaming, harassment, denigration, masquerade, happy slapping, outing and exclusion), as well as the three mechanisms that underlie it: 1. The extimacy that allows adolescents to share parts of themselves online, which can equally have positive and negative valence; 2. The online disinhibition effect, which implies that Internet users say things in cyberspace that they would not say in the physical world; 3. Finally, cyberviolence as the expression of a fantasmatic violence, which allows the surfer/user to live out a paradoxical form of intimacy on social networks: outside his physical self and whilst simultaneously being inside his own sense of self. In other words, in a digital era, one can at the same time be outside one's body while remaining (in one's imagination) within one's own self, which constitutes a major upheaval in the expression of one's self, which happens as a cyborg-Ego (“Moi-cyborg”) (Tordo, 2019). This would explain in particular two sets of data found in scientific literature concerning the cyber-stalker: on the one hand, that one does not find a psychological profile of the stalker but rather a profile of situation which would foster the harassment; on the other hand, that the observation of the mental health of the stalker does not differ from that of the uninvolved pupil, all other things being equal. In view of this evolution of the ego, the author proposes that to consider a new perspective on cyberviolence, and correspondingly on cyberbullying. However, as the author argues, this process of extension of the ego cannot be exclusively attached to social networks but to all forms of technological relations. In other words, this violence has less to do with social networks than with the basic psychological relationship of the individual with all technologies. However, social networks would make visible what other technologies cannot: the fantasmatic violence as it exists inside the ego of each individual (to the exclusion of any pathology), this one being able to possibly more concerned with cyberviolence. Two clinical vignettes will illustrate these phenomena.     

Increased Risk of HIV in Women Experiencing Physical Partner Violence in Nairobi,Kenya

As part of a study on etiology of sexually transmitted infections (STI) among 520 women presenting at the STI clinic in Nairobi, data on partner violence and its correlates were analyzed. Prevalence of lifetime physical violence was 26%, mainly by an intimate partner (74%). HIV seropositive women had an almost twofold increase in lifetime partner violence. Women with more risky sexual behavior such as early sexual debut, number of sex partners, history of condom use and of STI, experienced more partner violence. Parity and miscarriage were associated with a history of lifetime violence. We found an inverse association between schooling and level of violence. Six percent of the women had been raped. Gender-based violence screening and services should be integrated into voluntary counseling and testing programs as well as in reproductive health programs. Multi-sector approaches are needed to change prevailing attitudes towards violence against women. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Interventions to support recovery after domestic and sexual violence in primary care

Abstract

Experiences of domestic and sexual violence are common in patients attending primary care. Most often they are not identified due to barriers to asking by health practitioners and disclosure by patients. Women are more likely than men to experience such violence and present with mental and physical health symptoms to health practitioners. If identified through screening or case finding as experiencing violence they need to be supported to recover from these traumas. This paper draws on systematic reviews published in 2013–2015 and a further literature search undertaken to identify recent intervention studies relevant to recovery from domestic and sexual violence in primary care. There is limited evidence as to what interventions in primary care assist with recovery from domestic violence; however, they can be categorized into the following areas: first line response and referral, psychological treatments, safety planning and advocacy, including through home visitation and peer support programmes, and parenting and mother–child interventions. Sexual violence interventions usually include trauma informed care and models to support recovery. The most promising results have been from nurse home visiting advocacy programmes, mother–child psychotherapeutic interventions, and specific psychological treatments (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Trauma informed Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and, for sexual assault, Exposure and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Interventions). Holistic healing models have not been formally tested by randomized controlled trials, but show some promise. Further research into what supports women and their children on their trajectory of recovery from domestic and sexual violence is urgently needed.