CBS News correspondent Lara Logan is recovering from injuries sustained in a vicious attack by a mob while she was reporting in Cairo last Friday (Feb. 11, 2011), according to a the network.
The Washington Post reported that CBS said Logan is in a U.S. hospital, but a source said she has returned to her home.
Logan “suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating,” CBS said.
Victims of sexual assault trying to recover need to address their mental health as well as physical health, experts say.
Elana Newman, a psychology professor at the University of Tulsa and research director for the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, said it’s common for reporters who have sustained sexual assaults to have mental health aftereffects, although some “do just fine.”
She said that too often journalists who have been sexually assaulted while working just “go get some counseling and come back to work. It’s helpful for news organizations to give people a rest, not just therapy.”
But therapy for sexual assault can be “very effective” and some of the most effective treatments – exposure treatments or cognitive behavorial therapy — take only six to 12 weeks, Newman said.
Those therapies, however, are quite difficult “because it involves going over the event in detail, remembering the worst” so the reporter’s body stops going into “alarm state,” she said.
Co-workers also should be briefed on how to interact with the assault victim. Keep it neutral – supportive but not intrusive, she advised.
A comment like, “I heard about what happened. I’m sorry. I’m here for you if you need anything” would be appropriate. “Journalists tend to go for the story, but they need to take the middle ground” when talking to a colleague who has been attacked, said Newman.
