The Cornell Sexual Assault Case: A Therapist on Trauma, Bystanders & Accountability

There are real people at the center of the sexual assault allegations involving Cornell University, and I don't want to lose sight of that.

There is a young woman whose allegations are now being discussed by millions of strangers. There are men who have been accused of extraordinarily serious acts. There are families, friends, witnesses and an entire university community living with the consequences of what happened, what is alleged to have happened, and what happens next.

This isn't a blog about deciding the Cornell case.

That's not my job.

I'm a therapist, not a judge or a jury.

What I keep thinking about are all the people reading these headlines who aren't in them.

Because somewhere, someone is reading this story and recognizing a piece of their own.

The Jane Does Everywhere

There are people walking around with stories nobody knows.

Stories that never became police reports.

Stories that never became lawsuits.

Stories that never made the news.

Some of them aren't even sure what to call what happened to them.

Maybe you remember pieces.

Maybe substances were involved and your memories aren't linear.

Maybe you agreed to one thing and not another.

Maybe you froze.

Maybe you went along with something because you didn't know how to get out of the situation.

Maybe you didn't understand until much later why the experience continued to bother you.

Maybe you told someone and weren't believed.

Maybe you have spent years wondering whether what happened was "bad enough" to count.

And maybe watching a case like this play out publicly is stirring up something you thought you had successfully packed away.

You don't need a verdict before you're allowed to need support.

You don't even need to know exactly what you want to call your experience.

You are allowed to walk into a therapist's office and say, "Something happened to me and I don't know what to do with it."

That's enough of a place to start.

And Then There Are the People Who Have Caused Harm

This is the part we don't talk about nearly enough.

Therapy isn't only for people who have been harmed.

If you have violated someone's boundaries, ignored someone's inability to consent, pressured someone after they said no, continued until they finally stopped resisting, participated in something because your friends were doing it, or otherwise caused sexual harm to another person, therapy can be a place for you, too.

That doesn't mean therapy absolves you.

It doesn't erase consequences.

It doesn't obligate the person you hurt to forgive you.

And "I feel terrible about myself" is not the same thing as accountability.

Sometimes shame actually becomes another way of avoiding accountability because the conversation becomes entirely about how awful you feel rather than what happened to the person you harmed.

Real accountability asks harder questions.

What did I do?

Who did it affect?

What have I been minimizing?

What have I been telling myself so I don't have to look directly at it?

What would taking responsibility actually require of me?

And what needs to change in me so I never do this to another human being again?

You cannot undo harm that has already happened.

You can decide what kind of person you are going to be from this point forward.

What About the Person Who Was There?

This may be the person I've been thinking about the most.

The person who didn't participate but also didn't intervene.

The person who walked into the room and knew something didn't feel right.

The person who saw the text or group chat.

The friend who laughed because everyone else was laughing.

The person who thought, "This is messed up," and then went home.

The person who froze.

The person who didn't know what to do.

The person who has spent years reassuring themselves:

"But I didn't do anything."

Sometimes that's exactly what we have to reckon with.

Doing nothing can feel very different years later than it did in the moment.

And if you're that person, I don't think the answer is to spend the rest of your life drowning in shame either.

The answer is to look at it.

Why didn't you intervene?

Were you scared?

Did you think someone else would?

Were you afraid of losing your friends?

Did you convince yourself it wasn't as bad as it looked?

Did you know it was wrong but not know what to do?

And most importantly:

Who do you want to be the next time?

There is still time to tell the truth about something you witnessed.

There is still time to acknowledge that you should have done something differently.

There is still time to learn how to be the person who says, "Stop."

Accountability isn't limited to the person who directly caused the harm.

There Is Another Uncomfortable Conversation We Need to Be Able to Have

There are also people who knowingly make false accusations of sexual assault.

That sentence can make people uncomfortable because we worry that acknowledging false allegations somehow undermines people who report sexual violence.

It shouldn't.

We should be capable of holding two truths at the same time.

People experience sexual violence and deserve to be taken seriously when they come forward.

And knowingly accusing someone of sexual violence that did not occur can cause devastating harm.

I want to be extremely clear about what I mean by "false accusation."

I do not mean an allegation that couldn't be proven.

I don't mean a prosecutor deciding there isn't enough evidence to bring charges.

I don't mean two people remembering an encounter differently.

I don't mean someone whose memories are fragmented.

And I certainly don't mean someone who takes time to understand or find language for what happened to them.

I mean knowingly accusing another person of something you know did not happen.

If you have done that, there is accountability for you here, too.

Someone else's reputation, relationships, education, career, family and emotional well-being can be profoundly affected by an allegation of sexual violence.

Therapy can also be the room where you finally tell the truth about that.

Why did you do it?

What were you trying to accomplish?

Who was harmed?

What would taking responsibility look like now?

Again, therapy isn't absolution.

It is a place where you can stop lying to everyone, including yourself.

Therapy Is Not a Courtroom

This may be the most important distinction in this entire conversation.

A therapist doesn't have to determine someone's criminal guilt or innocence before helping the person sitting in front of them.

Therapy isn't a trial.

I don't need you to arrive with exhibits and witnesses and a perfectly chronological account of the worst thing that has ever happened to you.

I also don't believe that accountability requires deciding that a human being is permanently irredeemable because of the worst thing they have ever done.

People can cause tremendous harm and still have a responsibility to change.

People can witness something terrible and freeze.

People can spend years avoiding something they know they need to face.

People can carry trauma they haven't even found words for yet.

And yes, people can lie.

None of those realities cancels out the others.

Maybe That's What These Headlines Can Do

We will continue learning more about the Cornell case. Investigators, attorneys and ultimately the legal system will determine what happens in that particular case.

But thousands of people reading about it will never have their stories examined in a courtroom.

That's who I'm thinking about.

The person who was harmed.

The person who caused harm.

The person who witnessed something and stayed silent.

The person carrying something they know isn't true.

These aren't equivalent experiences, and they don't carry equivalent responsibility.

But every one of those people may be sitting somewhere tonight reading the same headline and feeling something in the pit of their stomach.

If that's you, pay attention to it.

You don't have to resolve your entire story tonight.

But maybe you stop running from it.

Maybe you tell someone.

Maybe you ask for help.

Maybe you finally tell the truth.

Maybe you take responsibility.

Maybe you learn what you should have done so that you're prepared to do it next time.

Support does not mean absolution.

Accountability does not mean hopelessness.

And silence does not have to be permanent.

There is still time to ask for help.

There is still time to tell the truth.

There is still time to do something different.