Why Sexual Abuse Survivors Struggle With the Stockholm Syndrome
These inbuilt attachment dynamics help us understand paradox emotional states survivors of sexual abuse experience - especially when their perpetrator is a family member or parent. When abused by a person close to them, victims struggle to integrate the fundamental human task of attachment with the instinctive recoiling from pain through withdrawal or shutdown, which causes huge emotional conflict. We've see that also in the form of the Stockholm Syndrome: when a person's physical and/or mental survival it at stake, they are drawn to attach to the perpetrator in an unconscious attempt to elicit a caring response and to minimize the threat to their lives. It's nature overruling what could be called otherwise 'common sense'.
The dilemma occurs when the child has to attach to the parent or person that then is hurtful to him or her. The child can't turn away ... otherwise it'll die, and struggles to attach, because the person to attach to is abusive. That dilemma is solved by the child taking on responsibility for the abuse. For reasons that make perfect sense to the child, it comes to believe that it deserved to be abused or even has caused the abuse. With this shift in thinking the child protects the attachment to the perpetrator. It also ends up having a sense of control over changing the situation. For example, by being extra 'good', the child might now be able to elicit a caring response from the perpetrator . For some victims of sexual abuse 'being good' becomes a life position of being over accommodating and over compliant with the people around them.
We often see that survivors are unable to get angry at their perpetrator ... the closer the perpetrator is, the harder it gets to express anger. Although designed to assure survival, this attachment dynamic creates havoc with survivors. They struggle with shame, guilt, low self-confidence, and ....all the rest of it. To reverse this dynamic is terribly difficult and not doing so keeps many people stuck in a place of hurting and discounting themselves. However, it (knowing that you are ok, it wasn't your fault, it was wrong what he/she did, you are loveable....) has to be the core of the healing process.
What happens when survivors do address this attachment to the perpetrator dynamic, they often become suicidal or fall into deep depression. Actually, often survivors strongly defended against addressing it. Why? It appears that the self-preservative instinct (here comes nature again throwing a curve ball) to attach is reactivated by starting to view the perpetrator as bad and hurtful and the more people are able to loosen their attachment to the perpetrator, they have intense feelings of loss, isolation, abandonment, or even impending death. Nature takes over again and the survivor of abuse might revisit the feeling " you have to attach or you die"!
Dr. Gudrun Frerichs is a trainer, psychotherapist, and researcher who has researched for the last 9 years how people recover from the impact of abuse. She has dedicated herself to assisting survivors of sexual abuse to grow strong and fulfil their potential and their dreams. Read on http://gudrunfrerichs.com Is your relationship in distress? Get her free mini course Successful Relationships http://gfrerichs.typepad.com/psychological_resolutions/2008/08/the-secret-of-successful-relationships-7-day-mini-course.html
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Labels: Stockholm Syndrome, survivors
