ABSTRACT
Family members subjected to such victimization, disorganization, and coercion will suffer traumatic stress effects. Victimization in various forms of abuse can take the form of terrorizing, spurning, isolating, corrupting, and denying responsiveness, hitting, beating, punching, burning, and stifling, sexual fondling and penetrative attempts, poisoning and illness induction. Traumatic stresses in family violence—whether physical, sexual, or emotional—are characteristically not one-off events, but are repeated and accumulate over time. Traumagenic dynamics effects can have long-term organizing effects on personality and on attributional and relationship styles. They form the matrix for a powerful "story" for the self and other, through enactments and re-enactments of the original experience. Feelings of stigmatization are linked to the contempt, blaming, and denigration so often associated with all forms of abuse, and are associated with self-blaming and poor self-image.
