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Judith Lewis Herman

Judith Lewis Herman Quotes

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Famous Judith Lewis Herman 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.”

EvilAbuse SurvivorsSurvivorsChildhood TraumaSociety DenialChild Abuse PreventionHear No Evil
Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“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.”

SilencePowerAbuseCriminalsChild AbuseSexual AbuseRapeSecrecyAttackingCredibilityAbuse SurvivorsSurvivorsAbuse Of PowerAbusersPerpetratorsSociety DenialBacklashAllegationsSurvivors Of AbuseRepressed MemoriesRecovered MemoriesRapistsTrauma MemoriesSilencing DissentSurvivor Of AbuseAttacking PeopleFalse Memory Syndrome MythLack Of AccountabilitySilencing Children
Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“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. . . .”

MindWisdomTruthHumanityHealingConsciousnessPowerPsychologySocietyCrimeAbuseMurderMemoryTraumaGravesHorribleRecoveryDenialGhostsPtsdRapeRestorationDissociationAtrocitiesUnspeakableSurvivorsVictimsSociety DenialFreudDissociativePosttraumatic Stress DisorderRepressed MemoryPsychological TraumaSigmund FreudTrauma TherapyRecovered MemoryViolations
Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“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...”

FaithHumanityCommunityHealingCourageSocietyAbuseVictimAffectionRecoveryGenerosityConnectionBelongingSurvivorIsolatedRejectedAltruismPtsdDecencyAbuse SurvivorsOutcastInhumanSurvivorsBondingInhumanityBondHealing InsightsTraumatic ExperiencesBondsTraumatizedDehumanizationInhumaneRecovery From AbuseHealing AbuseConnection With PeopleDehumanisationLoss Of SelfVictimizedNo Longer HumanDehumanizeDehumanizedInhumane TreatmentFeeling HumanLoss Of Social InteractionReclaiming DignityReclaiming Your Life
Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“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.”

HealingAbuseVictimTraumaPrisonerPowerlessPtsdDomestic ViolenceAbuse SurvivorsSurvivorsPowerlessnessCaptivityHealing InsightsBelief SystemComplex PtsdHealing From AbuseRecovery From AbuseAbuserCore BeliefsStockholm SyndromeTraumatic StressIntimate Partner ViolencePerpetratorBelie
Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“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”

FearHealingPowerCourageHonorAbuseBraveryVictimRecoveryTherapySurvivorOppressedPsychotherapySurvivorsAbuse Of PowerVictimsVictimizationTrauma SurvivorsVictim BlamingAbused WomenFalse MemoryAttacksSurvivorship
Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“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.”

HealingGroupsConflictAuthorityVictimTraumaRecoveryTherapyConnectionBelongingFamiliarityAbuse SurvivorsSurvivorsHealing The PastConflict ResolutionHealing InsightsCommonalityTraumatizedGroupSupporting OthersHealing From AbuseHealing TraumaRecovery From AbuseGroup DynamicsGroup TherapyTrauma TherapyAuthority And AttitudeBystanderPerpetratorGroup MentalitySupport GroupSupportivenessDrama TriangleRescuerAccompliceRe Enact TraumaGroup ConflictKarpman
Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“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 NoChild Sexual AbuseAbuse SurvivorsSurvivorsAbusive ParentsChild Sexual Abuse SurvivorTrauma BondingAbusive ParentBoundary Issues
Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“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.”

AbuseVictimTraumaWitnessPtsdSexual AbuseChild Sexual AbuseAbuse SurvivorsSurvivorsSociety DenialPerpetrator
Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“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 HealthChild AbusePsychiatryChild Sexual AbusePsychotherapySurvivorsChildhood TraumaPhysical AbuseSurvivors Of AbuseMental Health SystemMetal Illness
Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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