Victims of abuse

Victims of Abuse addresses the growing trivialization of psychic trauma by such concepts as co-dependency or "the adult children of...," which seem to blame all adult problems on the external environment. Certainly the growing awareness that certain forms of abuse are more common than may have been realized in the past makes the temptation to fall back on such cliches understandable. But psychoanalysis as a theory and technique that attempts to integrate concepts of inner and outer reality has much to offer toward clarifying the clinical and conceptual problems that afflict the phenomena of trauma and abuse. The psychoanalysts contributing to Victims of Abuse include many of the most eminent clinicians in this area. They offer many practical as well as innovative perspectives to help therapists grappling with the many obstacles to helping traumatized patients transcend their difficulties. This volume is not meant to be the final answer to the array of problems posed by the traumatized patient; instead it aims to be heuristic and to expand on recent psychoanalytic attempts to integrate such psychopathology into a theoretical framework that usually emphasizes the internal determinant