Several defense mechanisms are put in place when a person suffers sexual abuse - these mechanisms can persist over time, preventing the victim from living fully and serenely.
Psychic stupor
During an assault, a well-known reaction of victims is often described: stupor. Psychological stupor or tonic immobility is a defense mechanism put in place during the traumatic event, which due to its extreme violence, leads to an emotional outburst that will leave the person in a state of stupor. When the body is overwhelmed beyond its capacity to manage an event, it enters a state of shock (Levine, 1997). The victim, in a state of stupor, will freeze and will therefore be unable to oppose their attacker, to face or to flee. The person attacked is totally disconnected from their psychic apparatus and therefore cannot understand what is happening. This moment of "freezing" is explained by psychologist James W. Hopper (2015), who specializes in the neurobiology of trauma: "the amygdala is the area of the brain responsible for assessing danger. If it considers that resistance is futile, fear can cause tonic immobility, where the person is unable to scream, speak, or move, even if they try." The brain, which is in a state of extreme stress, considers that the danger is too great: stress hormones become too high and therefore create a state of emotional and physical anesthesia to protect itself and suppress the fear and pain encountered. Since abuse is incomprehensible and inconceivable, people find themselves mentally and physically paralyzed, unable to react, defend themselves, flee, or understand what is really happening.
Dissociation
Dissociation is nothing other than the consequence of being stunned. This defense mechanism can be described as the brain disconnecting (or switching off) in order to protect itself. "The brain disconnects, to avoid death or extreme neurological damage to the victim. An alarm will scream louder and louder inside and this is what causes traumatic dissociation, this impression for the victim of being a spectator of the event, as if disconnected from their body." Muriel Samona.
This defense mechanism causes a feeling of unreality, strangeness, absence, and which gives the person the impression of being a spectator of the events. This disconnection of the brain will isolate the cerebral amygdala from the hippocampus (structure that manages memory). The hippocampus therefore no longer does its job of encoding and storing sensory and emotional memory - the trauma of violence will remain trapped in the amygdala without being processed, nor encoded in the autobiographical memory. The traumatic event then becomes an experience as if lived in the 3rd person, the person has left their body and observed the scene externally, as if unreal. Dissociation is often considered a coping mechanism that a person uses to disconnect from a stressful or traumatic situation or to separate traumatic memories from their consciousness. It is a way for a person to break the connection with the outside world and distance themselves from what is happening. While a defense mechanism during the traumatic event, dissociation can remain in the person who is a victim of violence long after the traumatic event. The victim can remain dissociated and anesthetized from all feelings, which will put them in a position of confusion and unreality. With their emotions disconnected, the person will be indifferent to future and past events - this can lead to a total disconnection from the outside world and general confusion. Dissociation is a major risk factor for revictimization. It is important to remember that 70% of victims of sexual violence experience further sexual violence throughout their lives (IVSEA, 2015). Dissociated victims can be recognized and targeted by predators. The confusion and disorientation associated with dissociative symptoms lead to cognitive impairment, which makes a person more vulnerable. This mechanism can also leave lasting psychological after-effects such as impaired memory functions and therefore difficulty remembering facts in detail.
Traumatic amnesia
Due to dissociation at the time of the traumatic event, the violence suffered can be forgotten, buried. Complete or partial traumatic amnesia is a common memory disorder found in victims of violence and more frequently in victims of sexual violence that occurred in childhood. Many studies have described this phenomenon since the beginning of the 20th century, first highlighted in traumatized soldiers with amnesia from combat, then in victims of sexual violence, in whom nearly 40% of complete amnesia and 60% of partial amnesia were found when the violence occurred in childhood (Brière, 1993; Williams, 1994; IVSEA, 2015). In addition, the ‘Stop au déni’ collective conducted a significant study in 2015 among 1,214 victims of sexual violence: the results showed that 37% of minor victims reported periods of traumatic amnesia that lasted up to forty years. Their results highlighted that the younger the child at the time of the events, the greater the risk of amnesia, sometimes going as far as a total absence of memories for a period of life. The risk of amnesia is all the greater when the abuse took place within the family sphere and the link with the aggressor is close. The American psychologist Linda Meyer Williams also managed to demonstrate through a study (1994) that traumatic amnesia could even occur when the victim had confided in others at the time of the tragedy. The memory and confession of this can be erased from the victim's memory and 38% of the women interviewed did not remember the abuse that they had reported seventeen years earlier.
Although the trauma is buried and forgotten for a given moment, victims of traumatic amnesia often have a feeling of unease, a feeling of emptiness that cannot be explained by the person who has no memory and is unconscious for the moment of the trauma endured. Traumatic amnesia is frequently reactivated by a triggering stimulus or during therapy. The reactivation can often be very brutal, past violence resurfaces and can be experienced as at the time of the assault, with the same intensity, the same feelings and anxieties.
Traumatic memory
Traumatic memory is at the heart of psychotraumatic disorders because it contains the buried memory of this trauma. Unlike autobiographical memory, traumatic memory is not integrated by the hippocampus which was isolated during the trauma. The memory of the trauma remains unconscious and hidden in a part of the brain. Following a dissociation or traumatic amnesia, the brain prefers to bury the memory of this traumatic event rather than face it emotionally, being too violent. Traumatic memory contains the memory of the trauma and can be triggered at any time. The memory buried in the unconscious will come to manifest itself, sometimes months, sometimes years after the event. The memory can be triggered by a smell, a sound, an image, any link that reminds the victim of the moment of their aggression, without them necessarily being aware of it. The memory of the trauma will come back to the person's memory spontaneously, with the same sensations and emotions that the victim felt during the event. Like all unconscious things, traumatic memory will find a way to express itself; In many cases, the resurfacing of traumatic memory occurs through nightmares or flashbacks. These intrusive images are sometimes neither identified nor consciously linked to the trauma, which can cause the person to feel a total loss of control and trigger avoidance strategies to avoid feeling this loss of control again. The traumatic memory that resurfaces, however, is an end to dissociation and the beginning of the end of traumatic amnesia. Therapeutic work can only begin after the traumatic memory brings out the painful reality of the event.
Bibliographie :
· Association Mémoire Traumatique et Victimologie Accueil. (s. d.). /https://www.memoiretraumatique.org/
· Thibaud, C. (2020). Qu’est-ce que la sidération ? Doctissimo : https://www.doctissimo.fr/psychologie/surmonter-les-epreuves/sideration-traumatique
· Salmona, M (2018) Chapitre 7. L’amnésie traumatique : un mécanisme dissociatif pour survivre. Victimologie, pages 71 à 85 : https://www.cairn.info/victimologie--9782100784660-page71.htm#:~:text=L'amn%C3%A9sie%20traumatique%20se%20d%C3%A9finit,des%20informations%20 autobiographiques%20importantes%2C%20habituellement
· Alouti, F. (2017, 15 novembre). Qu’est-ce que l’amnésie traumatique ? Le Monde.fr : https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2017/11/09/trois-choses-a-savoir-sur-l-amnesietraumatique_5212819_3224.html
· Salmona, M (2008) La mémoire traumatique en bref. (s. d.).https://www.memoiretraumatique.org/psychotraumatismes/memoiretraumatique.html#:~:text=La%20m%C3%A9moire%20traumatique%2C%20trouble%20de,%C3%A0% 20l'identique%20tout%20ou
· Salmona, M (2018). La mémoire traumatique : violences sexuelles et psycho-trauma. Dans Les Cahiers de la Justice 2018/1 (N° 1), pages 69 à 87 : https://www.cairn.info/revue-les-cahiers-de-la-justice2018-1-page-69.htm
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