ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how is it that a child becomes an abuser? We know that abusers have generally been abused in some way when they were children (Finkelhor, 1983; Beckett, 1999), though not necessarily sexually (Bentovim & Williams, 1998). But only some abused children go on to abuse, just as only some go on to develop self-destructive behaviours. Clearly there are individual differences in the way children deal with experiences of abuse, differences perhaps in the way they have processed their trauma. The author has proposed how this complex power structure has typically been internalised by the young abuser, and reproduced in action, not kept internal as it might be in the case of self-destructive psychopathology. The case presented demonstrates the interaction between these different facets of the child's experience, which can then be directed toward change.
