The Core Trauma of Incest: An Object Relations View

Many of the mysteries of the incest experience revolve around the perplexing nature of the attachment between victim and perpetrator. One purpose of this article is to further professional understanding of the internal psychological experience of the incest survivor. Another purpose is to elucidate the meaning of the incest survivors' attachment and/or passivity with the perpetrator in an effort to liberate victims from society's "blame the victim" attitude. It needs to be understood that much of the incest victim's behavior is a desperate effort to remain attached to her caretakers. The psychoanalytic developmental perspective used here draws from the British Object Relations school, specifically, the work of Winnicott, Fairbairn, Guntrip, and Ogden. The position advanced here is that there is a common core to the trauma of incest for all victims.