Abuse, Trauma, and Torture - Their Consequences and Effects by Sam Vaknin Page B

Executing Your
Getaway
    21a. Should You Get the Police
Involved?
    21b. Restraining Orders and
Peace Bonds
    22. The Dynamics of 
Spousal Abuse
    23. The Mind of the
Abuser
    24. Condoning
Abuse
    25. The Anomaly of
Abuse
    26. Reconditioning the
Abuser
    27. Reforming the
Abuser
    28. Contracting with Your
Abuser
    29. Your Abuser in
Therapy
    30. Testing the
Abuser
    31. Conning the
System
    32. Befriending the
System
    33. Working with
Professionals
    34. Interacting with Your
Abuser
    35. Coping with Your
Stalker
    36. Statistics of Abuse
and Stalking
    37. The Stalker as
Antisocial Bully
     
    38. Coping with Various
Types of Stalkers
     
    39. The Erotomanic
Stalker
     
    40. The Narcissistic
Stalker
     
    41. The Psychopathic
(Antisocial) Stalker
     
    42. How Victims are
Affected by Abuse
     
    43. Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder (PTSD)
     
    44. Recovery and Healing
from Trauma and Abuse
     
    45. The Conflicts of
Therapy

    Toxic Relationships
    with Malignant Narcissists and
Psychopaths

    How to Recognize a Narcissist
Before It is Too Late?

    http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/narcissisticabuse/message/4976

    Narcissists and Personality
disordered Mates, Spouses, and Partners

    http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/narcissisticabuse/message/5013

    Narcissists, psychopaths, sex, and
marital fidelity

    http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/narcissisticabuse/message/4920

    Narcissistic and Psychopathic
Parents and Their Children

    http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/narcissisticabuse/message/4727

    Projection and Projective
Identification - Abuser in Denial

    http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/narcissisticabuse/message/5002

    Approach-Avoidance Repetition
Complex and Fear of Intimacy

    http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/narcissisticabuse/message/5000

    The Narcissist or Psychopath Hates
your Independence and Personal Autonomy

    http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/narcissisticabuse/message/4959

    I miss him so much - I want him
back!

    http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/narcissisticabuse/message/4934

    Guilt? What guilt?

    http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/narcissisticabuse/message/4931

    How Victims are Pathologized and
re-abused by the System

    http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/narcissisticabuse/message/5068

    Return

Traumas as
Social Interactions

    ("He" in this text - to mean "He" or
"She").
    We react to serious mishaps, life altering
setbacks, disasters, abuse, and death by going through the phases
of grieving. Traumas are the complex outcomes of psychodynamic and
biochemical processes. But the particulars of traumas depend
heavily on the interaction between the victim and his social
milieu.
    It would seem that while the victim progresses
from denial to helplessness, rage, depression and thence to
acceptance of the traumatizing events - society demonstrates a
diametrically opposed progression. This incompatibility, this
mismatch of psychological phases is what leads to the formation and
crystallization of trauma.
    PHASE I
    Victim phase I - DENIAL
    The magnitude of such unfortunate events is
often so overwhelming, their nature so alien, and their message so
menacing - that denial sets in as a defence mechanism aimed at self
preservation. The victim denies that the event occurred, that he or
she is being abused, that a loved one passed away.

Society phase I - ACCEPTANCE,
MOVING ON
    The victim's nearest ("Society") - his
colleagues, his employees, his clients, even his spouse, children,
and friends - rarely experience the events with the same shattering
intensity. They are likely to accept the bad news and move on. Even
at their most considerate and empathic, they are likely to lose
patience with the victim's state of mind. They tend to ignore the
victim, or chastise him, to mock, or to deride his feelings or
behaviour, to collude to repress the painful memories, or to
trivialize them.
    Summary Phase I
    The mismatch between the victim's reactive
patterns and emotional needs and society's matter-of-fact attitude
hinders growth