Irish Times - 02 April 2013 - CLICK TO READ
The destructive power of unjustified guilt in
sex abuse cases has been demonstrated again and again. Last month we saw
yet another example when a former priest, Patrick McCabe, was convicted
of sexually abusing two boys in the 1970s.
One of the telling aspects of the case was a
statement by one of the victims, now 50, who said that in the aftermath
of the abuse he felt he had failed his family.
I think it is of great importance for those who
are abused and for their relatives to understand that inappropriate
guilt is a feature of these acts of criminality both for abused children
and for adults who are sexually abused by other adults. The destructive effects of such emotions are
mentioned again and again in the aftermath of abuse cases. It may be
that sense of guilt and shame that drives some abused people towards
suicide or other self-destructive behaviours.
Sexual abuse is a shameful act and there is
something in us as humans that feels tainted even though we have been
the unwilling objects of a shameful act by another. This may be due to
our psychological defensive system. Imagine that you provide security
for a building and that the building is robbed. The guilt for this act
belongs to those who have planned and carried out the robbery. But a
focus of the inquiry that immediately begins will be, why didn’t the
defences work? One could even imagine the person who was in
charge of the security system feeling a certain amount of inappropriate
guilt about the robbery. This is an example of how being the victim of
abuse could actually lead a person to feel a sense of inappropriate
guilt.
Possible culprit
The other possible culprit for this sense of inappropriate guilt is that part of the mind which is so quick to go on the attack when anything goes wrong.
Notice some of the really harsh things you say
to yourself over the smallest mistakes or stumbles in your day. Most of
us, if we really listen to these things and reflect on them can be
astonished by the harshness of these self judgements. In my opinion, these harsh self judgements play
a role in depression and suicide – and indeed we very often hear of
suicidal thinking and suicidal behaviour as a feature of the damage done
by sexual abusers. That harsh critic in the mind will attack the person
who has been subjected to sexual abuse. This critic has nothing to do
with conscience or indeed with logic. It can be irrational and cruel and
all the more distressing for all of that. And because sexuality is at the very depth of our being that voice of guilt and of shame can be astonishingly deep.
One of the victims of McCabe said he had “experienced every emotion associated with self-loathing”. Even worse than that, perhaps, this man feels guilt for the deaths of his parents when they were only in their 50s and who seem to have suffered from that same poisonous, inappropriate guilt. “They had tried to give me a good foundation for my future and instead they felt responsible for sending me into a lion’s den,” he told the court in his victim impact statement. The part of the mind would attack you in this way was called by Freud “the superego”. It is terribly important to understand that the superego is an irrational, malfunctioning and dangerous part of the mind.
Painful feature
What is worth taking out of all this is the realisation that persons subjected to abuse, assault and especially sexual exploitation suffer enormously from inappropriate guilt and shame. It is important that the persons feeling this guilt and shame understand that it is inappropriate and that they should not allow this to stop them from seeking help. It is also very important that those who seek to support such persons be aware of this very destructive and very painful feature of abuse.
Padraig O’Morain (pomorain@yahoo.com) is a counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. His
Light Mind – Mindfulness for Daily Living
book is published by Veritas. His monthly mindfulness newsletter is available free by email
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for your comment on this blog entry, James