All Judith Lewis Herman Quotes
- 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… Action
- 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. Alert
- The legal system is designed to protect men from the superior power of the state but not to protect women or children from the superior… Accused
- Many abused children cling to the hope that growing up will bring escape and freedom. But the personality formed in an environment of coercive control… Abused
- 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… Aloud
- In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the… Absolutely
- ... 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… Acceptable
- 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… Exacting
- The guarantee of safety in a battering relationship can never be based upon a promise from the perpetrator, no matter how heartfelt. Rather, it must… Ability
- The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma. Aloud