ABSTRACT
Chronic abuse causes serious psychological harm. Instead of analysing the consequences of the abusive situation, however, a tendency to blame the victim has sometimes influenced the direction of psychological inquiry, as it has the general public of our own society for long. Psychogenic amnesia or inability to recall trauma related topics are among the most prominent symptoms, while the person's general fund of knowledge remains intact. Despite the client's own overt silence regarding traumatic events, knowledge nevertheless does occur on some level, although in a restricted and defensive form, as manifested by its clinical symptomatology. Trauma causes the mental apparatus to be flooded to the extent that it cannot master the situation. Its psychic content involves a feeling of helplessness in the face of overwhelming danger. Traumatic experiences are thus repeatedly reactualised in the survivors' lives and narratives with the purpose of trying to master the helpless situation.
