Judith Lewis Herman Biography & Quotes

“when traumatic events are of human design, those who bear witness are caught in the conflict between victim and perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement and remembering.”

Evil Abuse Survivors Survivors Childhood Trauma Society Denial Child Abuse Prevention Hear No Evil

Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“It was Freud's ambition to discover the cause of hysteria, the archetypal female neurosis of his time. In his early investigations, he gained the trust and confidence of many women, who revealed their troubles to him.Time after time, Freud's patients, women from prosperous, conventional families, unburdened painful memories of childhood sexual encounters with men they had trusted: family friends, relatives, and fathers. Freud initially believed his patients and recognized the significance of their confessions. In 1896, with the publication of two works, The Aetiology of Hysteria and Studies on Hysteria, he announced that he had solved the mystery of the female neurosis. At the origin of every case of hysteria, Freud asserted, was a childhood sexual trauma. But Freud was never comfortable with this discovery, because of what it implied about the behavior of respectable family men. If his patients' reports were true, incest was not a rare abuse, confined to the poor and the mentally defective, but was endemic to the patriarchal family. Recognizing the implicit challenge to patriarchal values, Freud refused to identify fathers publicly as sexual aggressors. Though in his private correspondence he cited "seduction by the father" as the "essential point" in hysteria, he was never able to bring himself to make this statement in public. Scrupulously honest and courageous in other respects, Freud falsified his incest cases. In The Aetiology of Hysteria, Freud implausibly identified governessss, nurses, maids, and children of both sexes as the offenders. In Studies in Hysteria, he managed to name an uncle as the seducer in two cases. Many years later, Freud acknowledged that the "uncles" who had molested Rosaslia and Katharina were in fact their fathers. Though he had shown little reluctance to shock prudish sensibilities in other matters, Freud claimed that "discretion" had led him to suppress this essential information. Even though Freud had gone to such lengths to avoid publicly inculpating fathers, he remained so distressed by his seduction theory that within a year he repudiated it entirely. He concluded that his patients' numerous reports of sexual abuse were untrue. This conclusion was based not on any new evidence from patients, but rather on Freud's own growing unwillingness to believe that licentious behavior on the part of fathers could be so widespread. His correspondence of the period revealed that he was particularly troubled by awareness of his own incestuous wishes toward his daughter, and by suspicions of his father, who had died recently. p9-10”

Source: Father-Daughter Incest

“In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the perpetrator’s first line of defense. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure that no one listens. To this end, he marshals an impressive array of arguments, from the most blatant denial to the most sophisticated and elegant rationalization. After every atrocity one can expect to hear the same predictable apologies: it never happened; the victim lies; the victim exaggerates; the victim brought it upon herself; and in any case it is time to forget the past and move on. The more powerful the perpetrator, the greater is his prerogative to name and define reality, and the more completely his arguments prevail.”

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“Dissociation appears to be... the internal mechanism by which terrorized people are silenced.”

Silence Terror Dissociation Silence Speaks Traumatized Dissociative Disorders Silenced

Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“The ORDINARY RESPONSE TO ATROCITIES is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable. Atrocities, however, refuse to be buried. Equally as powerful as the desire to deny atrocities is the conviction that denial does not work. Folk wisdom is filled with ghosts who refuse to rest in their graves until their stories are told. Murder will out. Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims. The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma. People who have survived atrocities often tell their stories in a highly emotional, contradictory, and fragmented manner that undermines their credibility and thereby serves the twin imperatives of truth-telling and secrecy. When the truth is finally recognized, survivors can begin their recovery. But far too often secrecy prevails, and the story of the traumatic event surfaces not as a verbal narrative but as a symptom. The psychological distress symptoms of traumatized people simultaneously call attention to the existence of an unspeakable secret and deflect attention from it. This is most apparent in the way traumatized people alternate between feeling numb and reliving the event. The dialectic of trauma gives rise to complicated, sometimes uncanny alterations of consciousness, which George Orwell, one of the committed truth-tellers of our century, called "doublethink," and which mental health professionals, searching for calm, precise language, call "dissociation." It results in protean, dramatic, and often bizarre symptoms of hysteria which Freud recognized a century ago as disguised communications about sexual abuse in childhood. . . .”

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“Traumatic events destroy the sustaining bonds between individual and community. Those who have survived learn that their sense of self, of worth, of humanity, depends upon a feeling of connection with others. The solidarity of a group provides the strongest protection against terror and despair, and the strongest antidote to traumatic experience. Trauma isolates; the group re-creates a sense of belonging. Trauma shames and stigmatizes; the group bears witness and affirms. Trauma degrades the victim; the group exalts her. Trauma dehumanizes the victim; the group restores her humanity. Repeatedly in the testimony of survivors there comes a moment when a sense of connection is restored by another person’s unaffected display of generosity. Something in herself that the victim believes to be irretrievably destroyed---faith, decency, courage---is reawakened by an example of common altruism. Mirrored in the actions of others, the survivor recognizes and reclaims a lost part of herself. At that moment, the survivor begins to rejoin the human commonality...”

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“Recovery unfolds in three stages. The central task of the first stage is the establishment of safety. The central task of the second stage is remembrance and mourning. The central focus of the third stage is reconnection with ordinary life.”

Loss Healing Safety Trauma Recovery Grieving Ptsd Sexual Abuse Rape Child Sexual Abuse Healing Process Complex Ptsd Complex Trauma

Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“First, the physiological symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder have been brought within manageable limits. Second, the person is able to bear the feelings associated with traumatic memories. Third, the person has authority over her memories; she can elect both to remember the trauma and to put memory aside. Fourth, the memory of the traumatic event is a coherent narrative, linked with feeling. Fifth, the person's damaged self-esteem has been restored. Sixth, the person's important relationships have been reestablished. Seventh and finally, the person has reconstructed a coherent system of meaning and belief that encompasses the story of trauma.”

Healing Trauma Recovery Therapy Ptsd Psychotherapy Healing Process Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Complex Ptsd Recovery From Abuse Healing Abuse Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Traumatic Stress Trauma Therapy

Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“In situations of captivity the perpetrator becomes the most powerful person in the life of the victim, and the psychology of the victim is shaped by the actions and beliefs of the perpetrator.”

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“As long as fathers rule but do not nurture, as long as mothers nurture but do not rule, the conditions favoring the development of father-daughter incest will prevail.”

Inequality Child Abuse Patriarchy Sexual Abuse Child Sexual Abuse Incest Abusive Men Abusive Father Abusive Parent Traditional Female Roles

Book:Father-Daughter Incest

Source: Father-Daughter Incest

“La respuesta habitual a las atrocidades es borrarlas de la conciencia. Ciertas violaciones de! orden social son demasiado terribles como para pronunciarlas en voz alta: ese es el significado de la palabra impronun~ ciable.”

Inspirational Psychology Criticism Critical Thinking

Book:Trauma and recovery

Source: Trauma and recovery

“La respuesta habitual a las atrocidades es borrarlas de la conciencia. Ciertas violaciones de! orden social son demasiado terribles como para pronunciarlas en voz alta: ese es el significado de la palabra impronunciable.”

Psychology

Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“By developing a contaminated, stigmatized identity, the child victim takes the evil of the abuser into herself and thereby preserves her primary attachments to her parents. Because the inner sense of badness preserves a relationship, it is not readily given up even after the abuse has stopped; rather, it becomes a stable part of the child's personality structure.”

Identity Personality Abuse Betrayal Attachment Child Abuse Incest Victims Complex Ptsd Betrayal Trauma Parental Abuse Personality Disorder Stigmatization Self Stigma

Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“In some instances, even when crisis intervention has been intensive and appropriate, the mother and daughter are already so deeply estranged at the time of disclosure that the bond between them seems irreparable. In this situation, no useful purpose is served by trying to separate the mother and father and keep the daughter at home. The daughter has already been emotionally expelled from her family; removing her to protective custody is simply the concrete expression of the family reality. These are the cases which many agencies call their “tragedies.” This report of a child protective worker illustrates a case where removing the child from the home was the only reasonable course of action: Division of Family and Children’s Services received an anonymous telephone call on Sept. 14 from a man who stated that he overheard Tracy W., age 8, of [address] tell his daughter of a forced oral-genital assault, allegedly perpetrated against this child by her mother’s boyfriend, one Raymond S. Two workers visited the W. home on Sept. 17. According to their report, Mrs. W. was heavily under the influence of alcohol at the time of the visit. Mrs. W. stated immediately that she was aware why the two workers wanted to see her, because Mr. S. had “hurt her little girl.” In the course of the interview, Mrs. W. acknowledged and described how Mr. S. had forced Tracy to have relations with him. Workers then interviewed Tracy and she verified what mother had stated. According to Mrs. W., Mr. S. admitted the sexual assault, claiming that he was drunk and not accountable for his actions. Mother then stated to workers that she banished Mr. S. from her home. I had my first contact with mother and child at their home on Sept. 20 and I subsequently saw this family once a week. Mother was usually intoxicated and drinking beer when I saw her. I met Mr. S. on my second visit. Mr. S. denied having had any sexual relations with Tracy. Mother explained that she had obtained a license and planned to marry Mr. S. On my third visit, Mrs. W. was again intoxicated and drinking despite my previous request that she not drink during my visit. Mother explained that Mr. S. had taken off to another state and she never wanted to see him again. On this visit mother demanded that Tracy tell me the details of her sexual involvement with Mr. S. On my fourth visit, Mr. S. and Mrs. S. were present. Mother explained that they had been married the previous Saturday. On my fifth visit, Mr. S. was not present. During our discussion, mother commented that “Bay was not the ﬁrst one who had Tracy.” After exploring this statement with mother and Tracy, it became clear that Tracy had been sexually exploited in the same manner at age six by another of Mrs. S.'s previous boyfriends. On my sixth visit, Mrs. S. stated that she could accept Tracy’s being placed with another family as long as it did not appear to Tracy that it was her mother’s decision to give her up. Mother also commented, “I wish the fuck I never had her.” It appears that Mrs. S. has had a number of other children all of whom have lived with other relatives or were in foster care for part of their lives. Tracy herself lived with a paternal aunt from birth to age ﬁve.”

Source: Father-Daughter Incest

“Father-daughter incest is not only the type of incest most frequently reported but also represents a paradigm of female sexual victimization. The relationship between father and daughter, adult male and female child, is one of the most unequal relationships imaginable. It is no accident that incest occurs most often precisely in the relationship where the female is most powerless. The actual sexual encounter may be brutal or tender, painful or pleasurable; but it is always, inevitably, destructive to the child. The father, in effect, forces the daughter to pay with her body for affection and care which should be freely given. p4”

Father Power Abuse Trauma Betrayal Child Abuse Powerless Betrayed Sexual Abuse Abuse Of Power Incest Victimization Patriarch Patriarchal Dysfunctional Relationship

Book:Father-Daughter Incest

Source: Father-Daughter Incest

“The vast majority of incest begins years before the earliest conceivable age of consent. p4”

Father Daughter Abuse Trauma Betrayal Child Abuse Adulthood Betrayed Sexual Abuse Incest Age Of Consent

Book:Father-Daughter Incest

Source: Father-Daughter Incest

“Underlying the attack on psychotherapy, I believe, is a recognition of the potential power of any relationship of witnessing. The consulting room is a privileged space dedicated to memory. Within that space, survivors gain the freedom to know and tell their stories. Even the most private and confidential disclosure of past abuses increases the likelihood of eventual public disclosure. And public disclosure is something that perpetrators are determined to prevent. As in the case of more overtly political crimes, perpetrators will fight tenaciously to ensure that their abuses remain unseen, unacknowledged, and consigned to oblivion. The dialectic of trauma is playing itself out once again. It is worth remembering that this is not the first time in history that those who have listened closely to trauma survivors have been subject to challenge. Nor will it be the last. In the past few years, many clinicians have had to learn to deal with the same tactics of harassment and intimidation that grassroots advocates for women, children and other oppressed groups have long endured. We, the bystanders, have had to look within ourselves to find some small portion of the courage that victims of violence must muster every day. Some attacks have been downright silly; many have been quite ugly. Though frightening, these attacks are an implicit tribute to the power of the healing relationship. They remind us that creating a protected space where survivors can speak their truth is an act of liberation. They remind us that bearing witness, even within the confines of that sanctuary, is an act of solidarity. They remind us also that moral neutrality in the conflict between victim and perpetrator is not an option. Like all other bystanders, therapists are sometimes forced to take sides. Those who stand with the victim will inevitably have to face the perpetrator's unmasked fury. For many of us, there can be no greater honor. p.246 - 247 Judith Lewis Herman, M.D. February, 1997”

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“The traumatized person is often relieved simply to learn the true name of her condition. By ascertaining her diagnosis, she begins the process of mastery. No longer imprisoned in the wordlessness of the trauma, she discovers that there is a language for her experience. She discovers that she is not alone; others have suffered in similar ways. She discovers further that she is not crazy; the traumatic syndromes are normal human responses to extreme circumstances. And she discovers, finally, that she is not doomed to suffer this condition indefinitely; she can expect to recover, as others have recovered...”

Science Hope Trauma Recovery

Author:Judith Lewis Herman

“..[The] disclosure of the incest secret initiates a profound crisis for the family usually...the abuse has been going on for a number of years and has become an integral part of family life. Disclosure disrupts whatever fragile equilibrium has been maintained, jeopardizes the functioning of all family members, increases the likelihood of violent and desperate behavior, and places everyone, but particularly the daughter, at risk for retaliation.”

Crisis Child Abuse Sexual Abuse Secrecy Child Sexual Abuse Incest Dysfunctional Family Dysfunctional Families Child Rape Child Protection Family Secrets At Risk Youth Child Protective Services

Book:Father-Daughter Incest

Source: Father-Daughter Incest

“While in principle groups for survivors are a good idea, in practice it soon becomes apparent that to organize a successful group is no simple matter. Groups that start out with hope and promise can dissolve acrimoniously, causing pain and disappointment to all involved. The destructive potential of groups is equal to their therapeutic promise. The role of the group leader carries with it a risk of the irresponsible exercise of authority. Conflicts that erupt among group members can all too easily re-create the dynamics of the traumatic event, with group members assuming the roles of perpetrator, accomplice, bystander, victim, and rescuer. Such conflicts can be hurtful to individual participants and can lead to the group’s demise. In order to be successful, a group must have a clear and focused understanding of its therapeutic task and a structure that protects all participants adequately against the dangers of traumatic reenactment. Though groups may vary widely in composition and structure, these basic conditions must be fulfilled without exception. Commonality with other people carries with it all the meanings of the word common. It means belonging to a society, having a public role, being part of that which is universal. It means having a feeling of familiarity, of being known, of communion. It means taking part in the customary, the commonplace, the ordinary, and the everyday. It also carries with it a feeling of smallness, or insignificance, a sense that one’s own troubles are ‘as a drop of rain in the sea.’ The survivor who has achieved commonality with others can rest from her labors. Her recovery is accomplished; all that remains before her is her life.”

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“For many people, the shock of sexual abuse pales before the shock of this mother’s statement, “I wish the fuck I never had her.” So thoroughly is motherhood sentimentalized that the mother who wishes to be rid of her child is considered a monster. In reality, women have always greeted the burden of motherhood ambivalently, even in the best of circumstances, and many women bear children involuntarily. But the approbrium which attaches to any woman who willing gives up her child is so great that some mothers will keep and mistreat their children rather than admit that they cannot care for them. Sometimes, the revelation of maternal neglect constitutes a plea for outside intervention, signaling the fact that a mother wants to be relieved of the duty to care for her child.”

Child Abuse Child Sexual Abuse Incest Child Rape Child Protection Abusive Mother Child Neglect Abusive Parent Abusive Women Child Protective Services Maternal Neglect

Book:Father-Daughter Incest

Source: Father-Daughter Incest

“In this climate of profoundly disrupted relationships the child faces a formidable developmental task. She must find a way to form primary attachments to caretakers who are either dangerous or, from her perspective, negligent. She must find a way to develop a sense of basic trust and safely with caretakers who are untrustworthy and unsafe. She must develop a sense of self in relation to others who are helpless, uncaring or cruel. She must develop a capacity for bodily self-regulation in an environinent in which her body is at the disposal of others' needs as well as a capacity for self-soothing in an environment without solace. She must develop the capacity for initiative in an environment which demands that she bring her will into complete conformity with that of her abuser. And ultimately, she must develop a capacity for intimacy out of an environment where all intimate relationships are corrupt, and an identity out of an environment which defines her as a whore and a slave.”

Child Sexual Abuse Abuse Survivors Traumatic Experiences Traumatized Complex Ptsd Abusive Parents Abused Children Abused Child Double Bind Disorganized Attachment

Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“Maternal absence, in one form or another, is always found in the background of the incest romance. Womens literature on incest generally treats the theme of maternal absence tragically. Mens literature trivializes it or treats it comically. And clinical literature tends to treat it judgmentally.”

Child Abuse Child Sexual Abuse Survivors Incest Child Rape Abusive Parents Parental Abuse Maternal Neglect

Book:Father-Daughter Incest

Source: Father-Daughter Incest

“Many survivors have such profound deficiencies in self-protection that they can barely imagine themselves in a position of agency or choice. The idea of saying no to the emotional demands of a parent, spouse, lover or authority figure may be practically inconceivable. Thus, it is not uncommon to find adult survivors who continue to minister to the needs of those who once abused them and who continue to permit major intrusions without boundaries or limits. Adult survivors may nurse their abusers in illness, defend them in adversity, and even, in extreme cases, continue to submit to their sexual demands.”

Saying No Child Sexual Abuse Abuse Survivors Survivors Abusive Parents Child Sexual Abuse Survivor Trauma Bonding Abusive Parent Boundary Issues

Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“To hold traumatic reality in consciousness requires a social context that affirms and protects the victim and that joins the victim and witness in a common alliance. For the individual victim, this social context is created by relationships with friends, lovers, and family. For the larger society, the social context is created by political movements that give voice to the disempowered.”

Abuse Victim Trauma Witness Ptsd Sexual Abuse Child Sexual Abuse Abuse Survivors Survivors Society Denial Perpetrator

Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“Because the child does not have the power to withhold consent, she does not have the power to grant it.”

Child Sexual Abuse Incest Child Rape Abusive Men Abusive Father Abusive Parent Age Of Consent Abusive Women

Book:Father-Daughter Incest

Source: Father-Daughter Incest

“It is regarded as axiomatic that parents have more power then children. This is an inescapable biological fact; young children are completely dependent on their parents or other caring adults for survival.”

Control Attachment Child Abuse Coercion Child Sexual Abuse Powerlessness Incest Parental Abuse Attachment Trauma Coercive Acts

Book:Father-Daughter Incest

Source: Father-Daughter Incest

“Since most sexual abuse begins well before puberty, preventive education, if it is to have any effect at all, should begin early in grade school. Ideally, information on sexual abuse should be integrated into a general curriculum of sex education. In those communities where the experiment has been tried, it has been shown conclusively that children can learn what they most need to know about sexual abuse, without becoming unduly frightened or developing generally negative sexual attitudes. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, for example, the Hennepin County Attorney's office developed an education program on sexual assault for elementary school children. The program was presented to all age groups in four different schools, some eight hundred children in all. The presentation opened with a performance by a children’s theater group, illustrating the difference between affectionate touching, and exploitative touching. The children’s responses to the skits indicated that they understood the distinction very well indeed. Following the presentation, about one child in six disclosed a sexual experience with an adult, ranging from an encounter with an exhibitionist to involvement in incest. Most of the children, both boys and girls, had not told anyone prior to the classroom discussion. In addition to basic information on sexual relations and sexual assault, children need to know that they have the right to their own bodily integity.”

Sexual Abuse Rape Child Sexual Abuse Sexual Assault Incest Rape Culture Sex Education Child Rape Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Rape Prevention Sexual Abuse Prevention Sexual Violance

Book:Father-Daughter Incest

Source: Father-Daughter Incest

“Since most sexual abuse begins well before puberty, preventive education, if it is to have any effect at all, should begin early in grade school.”

Sexual Abuse Rape Child Sexual Abuse Sexual Assault Incest Rape Culture Sex Education Child Rape Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Rape Prevention Sexual Abuse Prevention Sexual Violance

Book:Father-Daughter Incest

Source: Father-Daughter Incest

“Though all the daughters eventually succeeded in escaping from their families, they felt, even at this time of the interview (while in their 20s and 30s) that they would never be safe with their fathers, and that they would have to defend themselves as long as their fathers lived.”

Fear Sexual Abuse Child Sexual Abuse Incest Dysfunctional Family Child Rape Child Sexual Abuse Survivor Abusive Men Abusive Father Abusive Parent

Book:Father-Daughter Incest

Source: Father-Daughter Incest

“Recovery can take place only within then context of relationships; it cannot occur in isolation.”

Relationships Healing Trauma Recovery Isolation Ptsd Sexual Abuse Rape Child Sexual Abuse Healthy Relationships Complex Ptsd Complex Trauma

Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“Recovery can take place only within then context of relationships; it cannot occur in isolation. In her renewed connection with other people, the survivor re-creates the psychological facilities that were damaged or deformed by the traumatic experience. These faculties include the basic operations of trust, autonomy, initiative, competence, identity, and intimacy. Just as these capabilities are formed in relationships with other people, they must be reformed in such relationships. The first principle of recovery is empowerment of the survivor. She must be the author and arbiter of her own recovery. Others may offer advice, support, assistance, affection, and care, but not cure. Many benevolent and well-intentioned attempts to assist the survivor founder because this basic principle of empowerment is not observed. No intervention that takes power away from the survivor can possibly foster her recovery, no matter how much it appears to be in her immediate best interest.”

Relationships Healing Abuse Trauma Recovery Isolation Survivor Ptsd Sexual Abuse Rape Child Sexual Abuse Healthy Relationships Complex Ptsd Complex Trauma

Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“The mental health system is filled with survivors of prolonged, repeated childhood trauma. This is true even though most people who have been abused in childhood never come to psychiatric attention. To the extent that these people recover, they do so on their own.[21] While only a small minority of survivors, usually those with the most severe abuse histories, eventually become psychiatric patients, many or even most psychiatric patients are survivors of childhood abuse.[22] The data on this point are beyond contention. On careful questioning, 50-60 percent of psychiatric inpatients and 40-60 percent of outpatients report childhood histories of physical or sexual abuse or both.[23] In one study of psychiatric emergency room patients, 70 percent had abuse histories.[24] Thus abuse in childhood appears to be one of the main factors that lead a person to seek psychiatric treatment as an adult.[25]”

Mental Health Child Abuse Psychiatry Child Sexual Abuse Psychotherapy Survivors Childhood Trauma Physical Abuse Survivors Of Abuse Mental Health System Metal Illness

Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“The horror of incest is not in the sexual act. but in the exploitation of children and the corruption of parental love. p4”

Love Abuse Exploitation Sexual Abuse Child Sexual Abuse Parental Incest Parental Love Child Exploitation

Book:Father-Daughter Incest

Source: Father-Daughter Incest

“As recently as 1975, a basic American psychiatry textbook estimated that the frequency of all forms of incest as one case per million. [James Henderson, "Incest", in A. M. Freedman, H.I. Kaplan and B.J. Sadock, eds., Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, 2nd ed. 1975 p. 1532.]”

Sexual Abuse Psychiatry Child Sexual Abuse Incest Society Denial Child Rape Denial Of Child Abuse

Book:Father-Daughter Incest

Source: Father-Daughter Incest

“...some patients resist the diagnosis of a post-traumatic disorder. They may feel stigmatized by any psychiatric diagnosis or wish to deny their condition out of a sense of pride. Some people feel that acknowledging psychological harm grants a moral victory to the perpetrator, in a way that acknowledging physical harm does not.”

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“Admitting the need for help may also compound the survivor's sense of defeat. The therapists Inger Agger and Soren Jensen, who work with political refugees, describe the case of K, a torture survivor with severe post-traumatic symptoms who adamantly insisted that he had no psychological problems: "K...did not understand why he was to talk with a therapist. His problems were medical: the reason why he did not sleep at night was due to the pain in his legs and feet. He was asked by the therapist...about his political background, and K told him that he was a Marxist and that he had read about Freud and he did not believe in any of that stuff: how could his pain go away by talking to a therapist?”

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“The traumatic moment becomes encoded in an abnormal form of memory, which breaks spontaneously into consciouness, both as flashbacks during waking states and as traumatic nightmares during sleep. Small, seemingly insignificant reminders can also evoke these memories, which often return with all the vividness and emotional force of the original event. Thus, even normally safe environments may come to feel dangerous, for the survivor can never be assured that she will not encounter some reminder of the trauma.”

Memory Trauma Ptsd Triggers Nightmares Traumatic Experiences Traumatized Repressed Memories Recovered Memories Trauma Memory Traumatic Stress Flashbacks Trauma Memories Traumatization

Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“Further evidence for the pathogenic role of dissociation has come from a largescale clinical and community study of traumatized people conducted by a task force of the American Psychiatric Association. In this study, people who reported having dissociative symptoms were also quite likely to develop persistent somatic symptoms for which no physical cause could be found. They also frequently engaged in self-destructive attacks on their own bodies. The results of these investigations validate the century-old insight that traumatized people relive in their bodies the moments of terror that they can not describe in words. Dissociation appears to be the mechanism by which intense sensory and emotional experiences are disconnected from the social domain of language and memory, the internal mechanism by which terrorized people are silenced.”

Terror Dissociation Self Harm Silence Speaks Traumatized Dissociative Self Injury Dissociative Disorders Silenced Somatic

Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“President Barack Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 November 29, 2016 Dear President Obama, We are writing to express our grave concern regarding the mental stability of our President-Elect. Professional standards do not permit us to venture a diagnosis for a public figure whom we have not evaluated personally. Nevertheless, his widely reported symptoms of mental instability — including grandiosity, impulsivity, hypersensitivity to slights or criticism, and an apparent inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality — lead us to question his fitness for the immense responsibilities of the office. We strongly recommend that, in preparation for assuming these responsibilities, he receive a full medical and neuropsychiatric evaluation by an impartial team of investigators. Sincerely, Judith Herman, M.D. Professor of Psychiatry Harvard Medical School Nanette Gartrell, M.D. Dee Mosbacher, M.D.”

Donald Trump Hypersensitivity Grandiosity Donald Trump President Donald J Trump Oversensitivity Fitness For Office Goldwater Rule Grandiose Delusional Disorder Grandiosw Mental Instability President Elect

Author:Judith Lewis Herman

“This book appears at a time when public discussion of the common atrocities of sexual and domestic life has been made possible by the women’s movement, and when public discussion of the common atrocities of political life has been made possible by the movement for human rights. I expect the book to be controversial—first, because it is written from a feminist perspective; second, because it challenges established diagnostic concepts; but third and perhaps most importantly, because it speaks about horrible things, things that no one really wants to hear about.”

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“It has become clear that, as Janet observed one hundred years ago, dissociation lies at the heart of the traumatic stress disorders. Studies of survivors of disasters, terrorist attacks, and combat have demonstrated that people who enter a dissociative state at the time of the traumatic event are among most likely to develop long-lasting PTSD.”

Ptsd Dissociation Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Traumatic Stress Dissociative States

Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“In the absence of strong political movements for human rights, the active process of bearing witness inevitably gives way to the active process of forgetting. Repression, dissociation, and denial are phenomena of social as well as individual consciousness.”

Human Rights Repression Dissociation Society Denial Selective Amnesia

Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims. The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma. People who have survived atrocities often tell their stories in a highly emotional, contradictory, and fragmented manner which undermines their credibility and thereby serves the twin imperatives of truth-telling and secrecy.”

Traumatic Memories

Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“Implicit [in the psychiatric literature] is a set of normative assumptions regarding the father's prerogatives and the mother's obligations within the family, The father, like the children, is presumed to be entitled to the mother's love, nurturance, and care. In fact, his dependent needs actually supersede those of the children, for if a mother falls to provide the accustomed intentions, it is taken for granted that some other female must be found to take her place. The oldest daughter is a frequent choice... The father's wish, indeed his right, to continue to receive female nurturance, whatever the circumstances, is accepted without question.”

Father Prejudice Injustice Bias Patriarchy Fatherhood Psychiatry Biased Incest Dysfunctional Families Fathers And Daughters Abusive Men Abusive Father Psychiatric Community Father S Rights

Book:Father-Daughter Incest

Source: Father-Daughter Incest

“It is morally impossible to remain neutral in this conflict. The bystander is forced to take sides. It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement and remembering... In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the perpetrator's first line of defense. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure that no one listens. To this end, he marshals an impressive array of arguments, from the most blatant denial to the most sophisticated and elegant rationalization. After every atrocity one can expect to hear the same predictable apologies: it never happened, the victim lies, the victim exaggerates, the victim brought it upon herself; and in any case it is time to forget the past and move on. The more powerful the perpetrator, the greater is his prerogative to name and define reality, and the more completely his arguments prevail.”

Trauma Ptsd Abusers Perpetrators Rapists Batterers Chuld Abusers

Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“Authoritarian, secretive, sometimes grandiose, and even paranoid, the perpetrator is nevertheless exquisitely sensitive to the realities of power and to social norms. Only rarely does he get into difficulties with the law; rather, he seeks out situations where his tyrannical behavior will be tolerated, condoned, or admired. His demeanor provides an excellent camouflage, for few people believe that extraordinary crimes can be committed by men of such conventional appearance.”

Abuse Tyranny Authoritarianism Domestic Abusers

Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“HYPERAROUSAL After a traumatic experience, the human system of self-preservation seems to go onto permanent alert, as if the danger might return at any moment. Physiological arousal continues unabated. In this state of hyerarousal, which is the first cardinal symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder, the traumatized person startles easily, reacts irritably to small provocations, and sleeps poorly. Kardiner propsed that "the nucleus of the [traumatic] neurosis is physioneurosis."8 He believed that many of the symptoms observed in combat veterans of the First World War-startle reactions, hyperalertness, vigilance for the return of danger, nightmares, and psychosomatic complaints-could be understood as resulting from chronic arousal of the autonomic nervous system. He also interpreted the irritability and explosively aggressive behavior of traumatized men as disorganized fragments of a shattered "fight or flight" response to overwhelming danger.”

Military Trauma Aggression Ptsd Neurosis Traumatized World War 1 Post Traumatic Stress Disorder World War One Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Fight Or Flight Combat Ptsd Irritability Hypervigilance Aggressive Behavior Fight Or Flight Response Hyperarousal

Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“I have tried to communicate my ideas in a language that preserves connections, a language that is faithful both to the dispassionate, reasoned traditions of my profession and to the passionate claims of people who have been violated and outraged. I have tried to find a language that can withstand the imperatives of doublethink and allows all of us to come a little closer to facing the unspeakable.”

Abuse Trauma Recovery Rape Unspeakable Traumatic Experiences Complex Ptsd Horror Of War Doublethink Violations Violated Double Think Horror Of Rape Violations Of Human Rights Horror Of Incest Atrocitis Trauma And Recovery

Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“...repeated trauma in childhood forms and deforms the personality. The child trapped in an abusive environment is faced with formidable tasks of adaptation. She must find a way to preserve a sense of trust in people who are untrustworthy, safety in a situation that is unsafe, control in a situation that is terrifyingly unpredictable, power in a situation of helplessness. Unable to care for or protect herself, she must compensate for the failures of adult care and protection with the only means at her disposal, an immature system of psychological defenses.”

Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Judith Lewis Herman Biography

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