Female Victimizers
“Reenactment of one’s own victimization is a major cause of the cycle of violence”
Van der Kolk
An adolescent was referred to me following an investigation of child sexual abuse. This teen, who had come to live with a great aunt and her son and family, acted out sexually with a younger cousin. This adolescent is female. Through the hypnotic/abreactive process, it was discovered that she suffered terrible sexual abuse in her home country.
Two decades ago I began utilizing the hypnotic/abreactive techniques for the juvenile offenders with the premise that there was an underlying source of their acting out behavior. My first juvenile offender with this technique was abused at age five by the baby sitter’s twelve year old daughter. What I have discovered is all of the offenders were abused as children and that ninety percent were amnestic for their original trauma that usually occurred under the age of seven or eight. It is difficult for “humans” to comprehend that we can act out the very abuse that occurred to us, even though we have no recollection of that original trauma. In my practice, there has been a steady increase in treating female juvenile offenders over the last decade.
As I have discussed before, the major manifestations of childhood abuse are feeling powerlessness, helplessness, and loss of control. Our major defense against this powerlessness is “identification with the aggressor” which permits these feelings of powerlessness and helplessness to be replaced with feelings of power and omnipotence. Let me be clear, not all victims of child sexual abuse become victimizers. Many remain in victim roles. However, I have seen some victims play both roles. The female survivor, who repeats her victimization in risk taking sexual behaviors during early adolescence, will disclose to me that she had acted inappropriately with a younger sibling or cousin. Tolle writes in A New Earth, “pain-bodies want to both inflict and suffer pain, but some are predominately either perpetrators or victims.”
Although there appears to be an increase in female victimizers, this phenomenon has been quite prevalent in my work. Over fifty percent of my male victims of sexual abuse were abused by females; baby sitters, older siblings and cousins. All of my male clients who were being treated for indecent exposure, were abused by females. Interestingly, they acted out with teenage girls who were the same age as their female perpetrator. Many of my clients, both male and female, were sexually abused by their mothers.
The increase in female victimizers is certainly reflected in the news over the last few years. Female school teachers are having sex with minor adolescent male students who are the age of their perpetrator. A young adult female molests and murders a young child whom she knew and had babysat. Locally an adult female is currently under investigation for molesting young girls.
I attribute the increase in female offenders to the following: the unintended consequence with regard to the outward expression of feelings increases the possibility that female survivors will engage in more acting out behavior; and the current influence of the paradigm shift that is not allowing any human to deny their blocked off trauma. The bottom line is that blocked off primary emotions will continue to manifest in the victim remaining in a victim role and or becoming the victimizer, the later being a futile unconscious and involuntary attempt to “triumph” over the original trauma until it is uncovered and resolved. I heard a local Social Worker proclaim that it involves a different dynamic when females act out which for me plays into the double standard that I have seen with certain systems being more empathetic to the female offender’s own childhood abuse.
The psychology world needs to rise above treating symptoms and over diagnosing kids as ADHD, and teens and adults as bi-polar, and start assessing for early trauma. For those individuals who know that you experienced early trauma, courageously seek a therapeutic process that produces true healing.
Tolle, E. (2005). A new earth. New York: Penguin Group.
Van der Kolk, B. A. The compulsion to repeat the trauma. Psychiatric Clinics of North America. 12 (2), 389-411.
