|
II. ABOUT DENIAL AND THE MOTIVES OF ABUSERS
The origins of denial
9) Most people have repressed a lot of the emotional pain they suffered
when they were children. If they were to believe that incest survivors' memories are true, they would be at risk of remembering
their own lesser pain (for example, the pain of having been rejected).
The greater the repressed pain, the more numb people become to the pain
of others so as to avoid feeling their own hidden wounds. Denial of childhood pain is so common that even many therapists have not
sufficiently dealt with their own pain, which means that they are not
open to the truth of their clients' memories and therefore cannot help
them. Such a therapist, of course, cannot be a reliable judge of "false memories"
[9]. Denial of childhood pain is the chief force
behind the strong backlash against the incest survivor movement.
10) Society in general has a tendency to deny the existence of
horrendous acts of evil. The followers of the FMSF, in denying the reality of incest survivors' memories, are not unlike the growing
number of people who deny or minimize the reality of the Holocaust, people like neo-Nazi David Duke, the president of Croatia, and the
Republican columnist Patrick Buchanan, who assert, for example, that
only a few hundred thousand died in Nazi concentration camps [10].
Sexual abuse: the consequences of denial, the agony of recovery.
11) Consequences of denial: Dr. Richard Berendzen, the former president of American University, had always known that his mother had
sexually abused him as a child. He thought he had "handled" it. But in his fifties, not knowing why he was compelled to do it, he began
making obscene phone calls to women he knew were mothers. Dr. Berendzen had always overworked, but when his obsession hit him, he
began working 120 hours a week [11].
Denial of the emotional pain of sexual abuse results in many other kinds of life-defeating behaviors. For example, many sexually abused
children grow up to be as sexually obsessed as their abusers [12]. Some become prostitutes or in other ways are
easily sexually exploited. A minority become abusers themselves. Because their self-esteem is so damaged, many adults who were sexually
abused in childhood cannot properly assert themselves and use their talents. In order to run from the intense hidden pain that lurks just
below the surface, a great number of sexual abuse victims become alcoholics, drug addicts or workaholics. The pain is so unbearable for
many that they kill themselves. Some suffer from dangerous bouts of rage, some from chronic depression. Although a few have successful
careers, they remain numb and emotionally dead in large areas of their
lives.
The agony of recovery: For those who face the pain of their childhood
sexual abuse, recovery often means years of working through intense fear, grief and anger as they uncover their memories and relive what
happened to them. The process is so difficult that some can barely function for a long time. One of the worst pains suffered by survivors
who remember their abuse is exclusion by their family, who deny the truth of their memories.
The psychology of abusers: why they do it and why they cannot admit it.
12) At present, few people in our society understand that the very abuse of children is a form of denial. Child abusers (who are
themselves victims of child abuse) usually do not remember what happened to them. They repress the original abuse by means of a
psychological escape called fusion. When a child is molested, the trauma is often so unbearable that instead of remaining the helpless,
hurt victim, the child merges with the abuser and experiences his/her
sexual thrills and delight in power. Child abusers continue to handle
the pain of the original abuse in the same way. Whenever the pain begins to surface (and it always does), abusers pass on the pain to
another child, turning the child into the victim they once were and themselves into the powerful abuser.
(It is important to note that
only a small percentage of people who were molested become child abusers; most victims handle their pain in other ways.)
Instead of understanding the psychology of abusers, society prefers to
believe that abusers are examples of "original sin" or "bad seeds." Society is therefore unable to deal with the causes of abuse and is
unable to prevent its continuation. (Child molesters are let out of prison after short sentences because it is not understood that they are
unable to stop molesting children unless they remember their own abuse
and experience the pain of it.)
13) The FMSF does not understand why most abusers are compelled to deny
what they did (beyond wanting to escape prison and not wanting to face
the shame of what they did). If an abuser were simply to confess what
he did, the bald, plain facts would remind him of the pain of his original abuse, whereas when he is molesting a child, he is identified
with his abuser and feels only sexual arousal and power.
[9] An FMSF "expert," psychiatrist Harold Lief, reveals the following
opinions in ADDICTION & RECOVERY (May/June 1993): if a memory occurs after reading THE COURAGE TO HEAL, or if it concerns abuse by a woman, or deviant abuse, or very early abuse, then, in Dr. Lief's opinion, it is less likely to be true. (One must suppose that if someone remembered deviant early abuse by his mother, and had read COURAGE, then Lief would be **certain** it was false.) Lief also compares going into the details of childhood traumas to "exorcism for demonic possession." These illogical opinions seem more a result of denial than of reason.
[10] DENYING THE HOLOCAUST by Deborah Lipset (Free Press, 1993).
[11] COME HERE by Richard Berendzen (Villard, 1993).
[12] See page 14 for further discussion of why this happens.
[13] Pamela Freyd is the Executive Director of the FMSF; she and her
husband are the driving forces behind it. In a very real sense they
**are** the FMSF. The evidence strongly suggests that the FMSF grew
out of the Freyds' effort to discredit their daughter Jennifer. That
is why it is important to give some details of their story from the
daughter's viewpoint. Their daughter has never sued her father. She
did not make her side of the story public until after her parents sent
their account to her colleagues. See "Memories of a Disputed Past,"
The Sunday Oregonian, August 8, 1993. See also the paper "Theoretical
and Personal Perspectives on the Delayed Memory Debate" presented by
Jennifer J. Freyd at The Center for Mental Health at Foote Hospital's
Continuing Education Conference: Controversies around recovered
memories of incest and ritualistic abuse. August 7, 1993. Ann Arbor,
Michigan.
|
