If She Is Not a Victim, Does That Mean She Was Not Traumatized?

The issue of whether individuals can be traumatized by the experience of rape if they do not label the experience a victimization remains controversial. Indeed, there are conflicting findings with regard to the extent to which such unacknowledged victims experience posttraumatic symptoms. The goal of the current study was to evaluate acknowledgment status as a predictor of posttraumatic stress disorder symptomatology using structural equation modeling among a sample of 346 college rape victims. Results showed that whereas acknowledged victims reported more symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, acknowledgment status did not add to the prediction of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms in a model including assault violence and other important predictors of these symptoms.