ABSTRACT
The symptoms most often associated with incestuous abuse and that guide psychoanalytic diagnostic assumptions include disturbance in reality testing; psychotic manifestations; dissociation; fear of seduction by the analyst; lack of trust in interpersonal relationships; panic attacks; somatization, including somatic memory; cognitive deficits, such as inability to concentrate or to remember; specific learning blocks; object-coercive doubting; symbolic enactment of conflict; motoric discharge patterns; and lack of orgasmic response (Kramer, 1983; Dewald, 1989; Levine, 1990; Laufer, 1994). While some or all of these symptoms can occur in a person who has experienced incest, I did not find that they reliably predict absence or presence of incestuous trauma in analysands. The distribution of symptoms among my group of incestuously abused patients is of interest: disturbance of reality testing: 3 psychotic manifestations: 4 dissociation: 4 fear of seduction by the analyst: 4 lack of trust in interpersonal relationships: 6 panic attacks: 0 somatization including somatic memory: 5 cognitive deficits, such as inability to concentrate or to remember: 3 specific learning blocks: 1 object-coercive doubting: 3 symbolic enactment of conflict: 4 motoric discharge patterns: 6 lack of orgasmic response: 1
