The abuser and the abused: Sources of resistance to resolving splits in the countertransference in the treatment of adults who were sexually abused as children.

Abstract

A primary challenge encountered in treating adult patients who were sexually abused as children is the experience of being divided between feelings of empathy for the patient as an abused person versus feelings that this person is sometimes being abusive and foiling or hurting us. This article examines some of the sources of what is seen as the collective difficulty of therapists in resolving the recurrent conflict between identifications with the abused and the abuser in Countertransference toward these patients.One of the primary challenges in working with adult patients who were sexually abused as children is the recurrent experience of being divided: within ourselves, from our patients, and from our colleagues. These divisions or splits are clearly systematic. More often than not the schism is between feelings of empathy for the patient as an abused person, a victim, versus other less holy sentiments, feelings that this person is an abuser, willfully foiling or hurting us.Let me describe a clinical situation that exemplifies the kind of division I am talking about. Libby, a 30-year-old woman, was referred to our extended partial hospitalization program in an effort to interrupt a dramatically worsening course of self-starvation, injury, and suicide attempts. As a child, Libby had been left unprotected and at the mercy of a psychotic older sister whose

Trauma and the transference‐countertransference: working with the bad object and the wounded self

“…I reminded her that she had said that she wanted to get through to me and ‘make (me) suffer' and that she didn't want to stop doing that. Daskovsky () and Shengold (, pp. 195–96) describe the conflict between seeing the patient as the one who has been abused and experiencing them first hand as the abuser.…”

Posttraumatic Stress and Substance Use Disorders: A Biological and Clinical Summary

“…Psychodynamic issues such as transference, countertransference, defenses, and projections are considered in both therapies. Because of the strong (often contradictory) feelings that traumatized and substance-abusing clients evoke in therapists, awareness of dynamic issues is critical (Daskovsky, 1998). However, both make the distinction that dynamic interpretations are not appropriate or productive for this type of treatment.…”

A group therapist's (analyst's) lament.

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The author critically responds to an earlier article by David Daskovsky (1998) regarding analytic group psychotherapy.The recent article by David Daskovsky, "The Abuser and the Abused" (Daskovsky, 1998), left me in great dismay and confusion. This article adds weight to the perception among uninformed psychologists and psychoanalysts that analytic group psychotherapy (analytically informed) is the unrecognized offspring of psychoanalysis in the United States.

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“…The author critically responds to an earlier article by David Daskovsky (1998) regarding analytic group psychotherapy.…”