ABSTRACT
A tendency to regard the trauma experienced by people identified as victims and those identified as perpetrators in distinct ways is evident in cultural narratives. The distinction is challenged, however, by research as well as by clinical experience. For both victims and perpetrators of childhood sexual abuse, trauma is a relational experience, transmittable over time. Gender has a role to play in maintaining the binary distinction, and while good political reasons may exist to preserve it, it could lead to an over-emphasis on the super-ego in treatment. Working from an understanding that the development of the latter proceeds from an absence of an experience of safety, redresses a potential imbalance. The case examples in this article have been anonymised and altered so that they should not be recognisable to either the reader or individuals concerned. They have been included to illustrate the complexity of the intra- and interpersonal dynamics that emerge around relational trauma and have been drawn from clinical work in NHS mental health services and the Portman Clinic.
