“ ... in practice the standard for what constitutes rape is set not at the level of women's experience of violation but just above the level of coercion acceptable to men. Judith Lewis Herman
“ To hold traumatic reality in consciousness requires a social context that affirms and protects the victim and that joins the victim and witness in a common alliance. For the individual victim, this so… Judith Lewis Herman
“ The traumatized person is often relieved simply to learn the true name of her condition. By ascertaining her diagnosis, she begins the process of mastery. No longer imprisoned in the wordlessness of t… Judith Lewis Herman
“ In order to gain their freedom, survivors may have to give up almost everything else. Battered women may lose their homes, their friends, and their livelihood. Survivors of childhood abuse may lose th… Judith Lewis Herman
“ As long as fathers rule but do not nurture, as long as mothers nurture but do not rule, the conditions favoring the development of father-daughter incest will prevail. Judith Lewis Herman
“ Maternal absence, in one form or another, is always found in the background of the incest romance. Womens literature on incest generally treats the theme of maternal absence tragically. Mens literatur… Judith Lewis Herman
“ For many people, the shock of sexual abuse pales before the shock of this mother’s statement, “I wish the fuck I never had her.” So thoroughly is motherhood sentimentalized that the mother who wishes… Judith Lewis Herman
“ ..[The] disclosure of the incest secret initiates a profound crisis for the family usually...the abuse has been going on for a number of years and has become an integral part of family life. Disclosur… Judith Lewis Herman
“ Many abused children cling to the hope that growing up will bring escape and freedom. But the personality formed in the environment of coercive control is not well adapted to adult life. The survivor… Judith Lewis Herman
“ Since most sexual abuse begins well before puberty, preventive education, if it is to have any effect at all, should begin early in grade school. Judith Lewis Herman
“ Since most sexual abuse begins well before puberty, preventive education, if it is to have any effect at all, should begin early in grade school. Ideally, information on sexual abuse should be integra… Judith Lewis Herman
“ People who have survived atrocities often tell their stories in a highly emotional, contradictory and fragmented manner. Judith Lewis Herman
“ Combat and rape, the public and private forms of organized social violence, are primarily experiences of adolescent and early adult life. The United States Army enlists young men at seventeen; the ave… Judith Lewis Herman
“ Implicit [in the psychiatric literature] is a set of normative assumptions regarding the father's prerogatives and the mother's obligations within the family, The father, like the children, is presume… Judith Lewis Herman
“ The mental health system is filled with survivors of prolonged, repeated childhood trauma. This is true even though most people who have been abused in childhood never come to psychiatric attention. T… Judith Lewis Herman
“ The vast majority of incest begins years before the earliest conceivable age of consent. p4 Judith Lewis Herman
“ The horror of incest is not in the sexual act. but in the exploitation of children and the corruption of parental love. p4 Judith Lewis Herman
“ Psychological trauma is an affliction of the powerless. At the moment of trauma, the victim is rendered helpless by overwhelming force. When the force is that of nature, we speak of disasters. When th… Judith Lewis Herman
“ This book appears at a time when public discussion of the common atrocities of sexual and domestic life has been made possible by the women’s movement, and when public discussion of the common atrocit… Judith Lewis Herman
“ I have tried to communicate my ideas in a language that preserves connections, a language that is faithful both to the dispassionate, reasoned traditions of my profession and to the passionate claims… Judith Lewis Herman
