The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma.
Over time as most people fail the survivor’s exacting test of trustworthiness, she tends to withdraw from relationships. The isolation of the survivor thus persists even after she is free.
… in practice the standard for what constitutes rape is set not at the level of women’s experience of violation but just above the level of coercion acceptable to men.
The study of psychological trauma has repeatedly led into realms of the unthinkable and foundered on fundamental questions of belief.
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.
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.
Dissociation appears to be… the internal mechanism by which terrorized people are silenced.
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.
The horror of incest is not in the sexual act. but in the exploitation of children and the corruption of parental love. p4
The vast majority of incest begins years before the earliest conceivable age of consent. p4
People who have survived atrocities often tell their stories in a highly emotional, contradictory and fragmented manner.
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.
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.