“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… — Judith Lewis Herman Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“In situations of captivity the perpetrator becomes the most powerful person in the life of the victim, and the psychology of the victim is… — Judith Lewis Herman Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“The vast majority of incest begins years before the earliest conceivable age of consent. p4” — Judith Lewis Herman Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
“The study of psychological trauma has repeatedly led into realms of the unthinkable and foundered on fundamental questions of belief.” — Judith Lewis Herman Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
... 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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
