Sexual violence is any sexual act, actual or attempted, regardless of its nature, imposed on another person using violence, coercion, threats or surprise. Sexual assaults affect all social classes: more than 25% of the Western population are sexually assaulted during their lifetime, 80% of victims of sexual assault are female and among the victims 62% are under 18 years old (WHO, 2014). Committed by men in 95% of cases and by relatives in 80% of cases (this figure rises to 90% for assaults on children). They occur everywhere, but in more than half of cases, they occur within the family and within the couple (Jaspard et al, 2000). The safer the spaces are supposed to be, the safer the victims are supposed to be, the riskier the places are and the more people are supposed to be protected like children or vulnerable people, the more they are victims.
Identification with the aggressor was first introduced by the psychoanalyst Sandor Ferenczi in 1933, and then Anna Freud continued her analysis a few years later. According to Ferenczi, this mechanism is the consequence of a major trauma accomplished by a parent or a close relative in a dysfunctional family model where the child sacrifices himself to keep this loving relationship with the guilty adult and therefore not destroy the reciprocal love with his attachment figures. It is important to remember that the majority of acts of pedophilia are carried out by members of the child's family. During an abuse (incestuous or not), the child reacts by identifying and introjecting the one who attacks him to ensure his psychological survival.
The abused child obeys mechanically to protect his relationship with his abuser "The fear that children experience in these situations forces them to submit to the will of the aggressor and to obey by forgetting themselves completely and to identify themselves completely with the aggressor. The aggressor is introjected; he disappears as an external reality and becomes intrapsychic" (Ferenczi S., 1932). The child finds himself forced to accept the abuse, to forget his own emotions. By forgetting his own person, the predator is able to enter the child's psyche, to kill him internally without making him die. Identification with the aggressor is ultimately a defense mechanism that allows the child to escape, as in a dream, from a violent reality. *
On the psychoanalytic level, Anna Freud takes up the work of her father who, in 1920 in "Beyond the Pleasure Principle", noted that this passage from the passive role to the active role allowed the child to assimilate traumatic events. Freud demonstrates that by playing the role of the aggressor, by borrowing his attributes, by imitating his aggressions, the child transforms from threatened to threatening. There is a kind of regaining of control, of becoming the dominant one in this new scenario. The child feels powerless when he experiences the aggression and some may, to protect themselves from this feeling of powerlessness, seek to repair the situation by becoming the aggressor themselves, and therefore regain power over the situation.
It should also be remembered that a traumatic state of a sexual nature can also lead an aggressor to another register than sexuality, including all forms of violence. It is important to emphasize the role of the entourage and the therapist, following a sexual assault on a child, to prevent identification with the aggressor as a defense mechanism that can be a psychopathological mechanism. The child at his young age is not aware of the aggression of which he has just been a victim and does not know why, how, he cannot differentiate good from evil, normality from criminality. It is therefore essential for the entourage if he is aware to communicate and explain to the child that what he has experienced is not normal, that it is not good - although very difficult at this time, the child must manage to understand these notions in order not to introject this identification with the aggressor.
Enfant Bleu. (s. d.). Toutes les informations sur la maltraitance infantile | L'Enfant bleu. L'Enfant Bleu https://enfantbleu.org/lasideration/#:~:text=Celle%2Dci%20est%20un%20%C3%A9tat,ce%20soit%20physiquement%20ou%20%C3%A9motionnellement
Association Mémoire Traumatique et Victimologie Accueil. (s. d.). /https://www.memoiretraumatique.org/
· 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-justice-2018-1-page-69.htm · Ida Lounsky, Thierry Bastin (2018). L'identification à l'agresseur. Psychanalyse.be : https://www.psychanalyse.be/ressource/lidentification-a-lagresseur/ · James W. Hopper (Juin, 2023). Why many rape victims don't fight or yell. The Washington Post : https://jimhopper.com/pdf/hopper_whymanyrapevictimsdon'tfightoryell.pdf
· Roland Coutanceau, Carole Damiani (2018) Victimologie : Evaluation, traitement, résilience · Institut national de santé publique du Québec. (s. d.). Institut national de santé publique du Québec : https://www.inspq.qc.ca/agression-sexuelle/comprendre/consequences · Cutajar, M.C., Mullen, P.E., Ogloff, J.P., Thomas, S., Wells, D., Spataro, J. (2010). Psychopathology in a large cohort of sexually abused children followed up to 43-years. Child Abuse & Neglect, 34(11), 813-822.
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