November 3, 2021 WebEx with Dr. Rocchio

November 3, 2021 WebEx with Dr. Rocchio • Reviewed logistics • Prepared for hearing • Pimps/traffickers groom people to engage in sexual conduct with third parties, so that's a useful area of literature • Has some parallel resume lines to Dietz • As a clinician, does more presentations than publishing • Education o Masters/PhD papers are not about trauma o Doctoral program — 6 years, Masters was a component of it o During coursework, focused on: eating disorders, forensic psychology, trauma psychology, hostility and violence in the lives of women o Spent coursework in various practicum, maybe 10 hrs/week between coursework and supervision, and did two 20 hr/week placements — Brown college counseling center and URI college counseling center. There are requirements to do certain number of hours of practice before can advance. o Postdoc in Rhode Island for 1.5-2 years, but hour-equivalent of a year. Placement at outpatient private practice where worked with self-injure-ers, mostly people who survived childhood trauma. Also at a day hospital that provided care for the same population at higher level, and taught at Providence College. o At the time (early 1990s), part of a monthly informal research group to discuss trauma psychology. Review lit, discussed implications of debates of the time about memory. Multidisciplinary group — attorneys, psychologists, social workers, etc. Some worked with offenders. Did some informal surveys about what local therapists were doing, populations of patients, how informed therapists were about assessment and treatment of trauma in general practice. • One thing LR does is tell GPs about the importance of assessing and treating trauma o After post-doc, founded a group psychotherapy practice and hired one therapist. Treated patients and did diagnostic assessments of juvenile offenders, consultations with elementary schools about education-related clinical issues. Shortly thereafter, began her firm. • Six months of her pre-doctoral training was with adolescents and six months was with adults. Has continued to work with ages 13+. When did assessments, that was primarily elementary school students. Juvenile offenders were primarily adolescents. Last 15 years: focus primarily on 18+. • Professional presentations: peer-reviewed presentations given at conferences. Submits a proposal to a call for proposals. Peer-reviewed, often blindly, then asked to present on that topic. The ones in that category on her resume are all peer-reviewed, unlike "invited addresses," which are ones she's been asked to give. o Peer review: typically, there is a program chair who is soliciting presentations, and a program committee. Committee reviews all the presentations that have been 3502-035 Page I of 4 SUBJECT TO PROTECTIVE ORDER PARAGRAPHS 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, and 17 EFIA_00001698 EFTA00157039 submitted. Usually get far more proposals than hours to allocate, so they are rated, and those that are best by the metric are selected and asked to present. o As the President-Elect of the division of trauma psychology, has had to put together a program committee and is doing a call for proposals to fill 15 hours of presentations. o Vast majority in primary areas of expertise: traumatic stress and interpersonal violence (both clinical and forensic), ethical and professional issues in both of those areas • Publications section: some are peer-reviewed, some are not o First two were peer reviewed (i.e. accepted after review by subject-matter experts) • Address forensic considerations in assessing people with complex trauma o Special issue — invited guest editor with Dr. Baily, but presentation was also blind peer reviewed o Ethics corner commentary was not, written as member of ethics committee for RI Psychological Association o Book chapters are professionally edited but were invited • CV is from 02121; LR has a few more presentations from August, and she's been promoted at Brown from clinical instructor to assistant clinical professor. • Invited addresses: generally about educating general practitioners about trauma psychology; forensic and clinical work with trauma populations; vicarious traumatization; ethical considerations • LR has served as an invited peer reviewer for articles in trauma psychology. Has done for a number of journals, including Psychological Trauma, Psychological Injury and the Law, and others. Started doing this approximately 10-15 years ago • On the editorial review board for J. Psychological Trauma, which means she agrees to do a certain number of reviews per year. This journal is published through the Division of Trauma Psychology. • President-Elect of Div. Trauma Psychology: it's a three-year stint as president-elect, president, past president. As president, plans editorial committee, annual convention. Theme during LR's year is interpersonal violence and diversity, bringing in a DEI expert. • LR is on the national ethics committee of the APA, and serving on the forensic slate. • Attends specialized trainings, certified in EMDR (treatment for trauma), training in dialectical and behavior therapy (developed for suicidal and self-injurious women with borderline personality disorder, but has numerous other applications for people with complex trauma) • Provides training and consultation to other therapists • Keeps up with literature through peer consultations, review of listservs, review of the scientific literature/reading the journals • Qualified as an expert on traumatic stress and interpersonal violence both times she has testified • Has been forensic psychologist for 15 years — does evaluations to help inform legal questions in civil and criminal cases. Works for both sides. • Works with survivors of interpersonal violence and other types of violence. Wide range of individuals. Women and men who have experienced childhood sexual abuse; college and adult women who are victims of rape and sexual assault; batterers and victims of intimate partner violence; traumatic grief; people presenting life adjustment. 3502-035 Page 2 of 4 SUBJECT TO PROTECTIVE ORDER PARAGRAPHS 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, and 17 EFTA_00001699 EFTA00157040 • Grooming is a term that has been used to refer to the process by which a perpetrator both identifies and isolates an intended victim for purposes of sexual assault and gradually builds a relationship that typically also then involves desensitization. Other terms: tactics, strategies, modus operandi. These are used to get compliance. • From the 1980s until now, literature has been highly consistent in the strategies, even if use different names. • Most perpetrators use manipulation and coercion and non-violent strategies to attain and maintain power. Always a big power differential • Article by Winters (well respected author): growing body of literature comparing perpetrators of childhood sexual abuse with strategies used by sex traffickers and pimps when they engage in coercion/procurement. Ready access, pick inducement based on child's needs to get compliance • Patients have reported grooming, and self-blame/confusion about what happened because they have attachment with the abuser, including because perpetrator has told them. Have psychological defenses to minimize/deny. May have enjoyed certain aspects of the relationship, like gifts or feeling of being wanted, that leads to self-blame/shame. • Also evaluated for grooming pattern and its effects as part of forensic practice, including b/c it relates to damages. • Child sexual abuse occurs over time in a relationship. There is a commonality in the patients she's seen, from early in her career to various parts of practice now. Patterns are highly consistent with literature. • Literature looks at what victims report AND offender qualitative literature (e.g. Melissa Farley in area of prostitution and human trafficking). Research that does content analysis -> high level of consistency. • Note: forensic role is much more investigatory than clinical role. Will look beyond patient reports. • Opinions on grooming based on totality of education, training, experience, consults with colleagues, and review of the scientific literature — very much not just her clinical experience, notwithstanding Gov brief. When reviewing the literature, looks at quality of literature critically, evaluates scientific literature, and then compares and uses in practice, and vice versa. • Error rate not useful here. Consistency across studies, replicability, consistency across populations are better. • Has reviewed literature on perpetrators • There's a grooming literature, there's literature on patterns of behavior of offenders, there's literature on victim experiences, and there's a body of literature on betrayal trauma (specific experiences of traumatized individual and impact of trauma that occurs in a trusted relationship, e.g. by Jennifer Tilde (sp?)) • Taught to assess for the victim-perpetrator dynamic. Strategies, tactics, and behaviors utilized by predators and offenders is part of that. • Can't study trauma without studying memory. Difficulties with memory is a symptom of PTSD and dissociative disorders. Absolutely trained and expert in memory. • Neither Loftus nor Dietz treat patients • Loftus: an expert on memory, but her area is proving that you can get people to believe things that didn't happen and misremember/not remember details for which they had no 3502-035 Page 3 of 4 SUBJECT TO PROTECTIVE ORDER PARAGRAPHS 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, and 17 EFIA_00001700 EFTA00157041 memory. Creates a misperception of the overall validity of memory. There's a specific article that addresses that exact point — Nicholas Diamond, "The Truth Is Out There: Accuracy in Recall of Verifiable Real World Events." Also a few articles by Allen Batolet — memory researchers are overly preoccupied with memory flaws they can create in a lab, but they differ significantly from naturally occurring studies. LR will send. • She's right that memory is not like a video, but it's still reliable, especially for core issues, especially for trauma. Core structure of traumatic event is often the very piece they remember, even if they mess up exact timeline or details. Whatever is salient to the victim at the time is remembered. Memory of that over time is highly reliable. For example, victim may not remember whether they were eating ice cream or pizza, but remember the weight of a body, naked body, etc. • All of Loftus's work takes place in a lab because it's not ethical to try to convince people they have been sexually abused. No evidence to suggest this is necessarily applicable. • Her point doesn't contradict anything. Memory can be impacted by later events. • The study Dietz focuses on relating to core details — based on a study for written narratives. • There are scientific studies that look for pediatric populations where there's physical evidence of sexual abuse and their memory or willingness to report is not there — they deny or don't remember. • We know that perpetrators go to extreme lengths to hide • Dietz does a good job talking about the traumatic consequences of childhood sexual abuse. Wrong where he says that it makes them unreliable later — where is the evidence of that. • Dietz is circular re grooming: only called grooming when the behavior is for the intent of abuse. Research says there are objective indicia that can be reliably reported by victims, offenders, and experts. o Winters articles from 2021 who pulls together literature • Vulnerable victims — he is wrong about "clinical lore." Well replicated fact that individuals victimized at very young age are at significantly higher risk for future victimization. Offender reports say the same thing. States also punish sex crimes more if perpetrator targets vulnerable victims. 3502-035 Page 4 of 4 SUBJECT TO PROTECTIVE ORDER PARAGRAPHS 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, and 17 EFTA_00001701 EFTA00157042