In situations of captivity the perpetrator becomes the…

“Therapy requires a collaborative working relationship in which both partners act on the basis of their implicit confidence in the value and efficacy of…

— Judith Lewis Herman

Many abused children cling to the hope that growing up will bring escape and freedom. But the personality formed in an environment of coercive…

— Judith Lewis Herman

The guarantee of safety in a battering relationship can never be based upon a promise from the perpetrator, no matter how heartfelt. Rather, it…

— Judith Lewis Herman

“Psychological trauma is an affliction of the powerless. At the moment of trauma, the victim is rendered helpless by overwhelming force. When the force…

— Judith Lewis Herman

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

— Judith Lewis Herman

The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this…

— Judith Lewis Herman

“The study of psychological trauma has repeatedly led into realms of the unthinkable and foundered on fundamental questions of belief.”

— Judith Lewis Herman

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.

— Judith Lewis Herman

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

— Judith Lewis Herman

“Underlying the attack on psychotherapy, I believe, is a recognition of the potential power of any relationship of witnessing. The consulting room is a…

— Judith Lewis Herman

“when traumatic events are of human design, those who bear witness are caught in the conflict between victim and perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks…

— Judith Lewis Herman

... in practice the standard for what constitutes rape is set not at the level of women's experience of violation but just above the…

— Judith Lewis Herman

“In this climate of profoundly disrupted relationships the child faces a formidable developmental task. She must find a way to form primary attachments to…

— Judith Lewis Herman

“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…

— Judith Lewis Herman

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

— Judith Lewis Herman