We are excited to announce another episode of History. Culture. Trauma.! Our next conversation is with VictimFocus CEO & Sunday Times Bestselling author, Dr. Jessica Taylor.
Late last year, the World Health Organization and the United Nations acknowledged that environmental factors played a large role in the current mental health epidemic. Also, with a new understanding of scientific colonialism and scientific racism, the question is... "Is anti pathology the next frontier for the worldwide PACEs Movement?"
Our host, Ingrid Cockhren, will talk with Dr. Jessica Taylor about what anti-pathology means and how trauma is often left out of the conversation concerning mental health. This leads to a larger conversation about the impact of colonialism and racism on the social sciences, especially psychology and mental health-related fields.
Dr. Taylor is an anti-pathology trauma-informed advocate for women and girls. Jessica often credits her approaches and perspectives to the roles she has held in supporting victims. Her first role was voluntary, working in domestic abuse criminal cases to prepare and support women and girls before giving evidence. From there, her roles included service and area management of vulnerable and intimidated witness programmes, victim support services, management of rape centre services and therapist training, and management in research and training in child sex trafficking and child sexual exploitation services.
Jessica graduated from The Open University in 2015 and immediately started a PhD in Psychology at University of Birmingham Forensic and Criminological Centre. Whilst completing her undergraduate degree, she had written to professors and academics to submit her ideas and research proposals on the psychology of victim blaming of women and girls. Academics at University of Birmingham accepted her preliminary literature reviews and research proposals and offered Jessica an opportunity to study a PhD beginning in October 2015, at the age of 25.
During the PhD, Jessica explored emerging perspectives and critical approaches to understanding victim blaming. She also studied advanced psychometric theory and created the BOWSVA Scale (a validated psychometric which has the ability to measure victim blaming attitudes of women subjected to sexual violence and abuse).
It was this specialism which led Jessica to become publicly critical of psychometrics and screening tools being used with teenage girls subjected to sex trafficking and exploitation. In 2016, wrote several articles and speeches about the oppressive use of screening tools and measurements which led to widespread anger and backlash from leading services, academics and authorities.
Jessica had a vision for an independent organisation that could challenge, change and influence millions of people to understand that victim blaming, misogyny and pathologisation was embedded into every system in the world, and so in April 2017, she launched VictimFocus.
Dr Jessica Taylor has since written several bestselling books and been featured in many documentaries, news programmes and discussion shows, focussing on misogyny, male violence against women, victim blaming and trauma of women and girls including Sky, BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and MTV.
In May 2021, Jessica and Jaimi released a report on the largest UK sample of women surveyed about their experiences of violence against women since birth. ‘I thought it was just a part of life’ was downloaded tens of thousands of times and was shared across TV, radio, newspapers and magazines. The findings suggested that 99.7% of the 22,419 women who took part had been subjected to violence and abuse, with each woman being subjected to 37 crimes each during the lifespan. The novel methodology and item construction, influenced by Jessica’s approaches to psychometry, has inspired several top universities to change their own methodological approaches to VAWG studies. Jessica and Jaimi have since been commissioned to replicate the study in different areas.
In April 2023, Jessica co-authored and released the Indicative Trauma Impact Manual (ITIM) which became a #1 Amazon Bestseller in USA, UK, Australia and Canada in the first week. The ITIM was developed and written by Dr Jessica Taylor and Jaimi Shrive in order to provide an anti-pathology, trauma-informed alternative to the DSM which explained trauma responses and coping mechanisms without the use of psychiatric language or labelling.
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