ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses an imbalance that has evolved in the literature of child abuse trauma downplaying the role of fantasy that predates the abuse. It argues that a child’s reactions to sexual abuse are pivotally forged by unconscious erotic and aggressive fantasies that he/she imports to the trauma from earlier phases of development, which may themselves have been problematic for the child’s growth trajectory. When trauma theory is extended to child abuse considerations the notions of overdetermination and condensation of psychic events over time often lose their way, as investigators tend to focus more heavily on the psychic consequences of sexual abuse while minimizing the antecedent mental state of the child. To summarize, the unconscious meaning which the child gives to its precocious sexual experience, that is, his/her construal of what is happening to him/her at the time of the abuse, usually is ignored.
