Rexistir: a relevância da função materna na clínica da vítima do abuso sexual infantil

Abstract

This work reflects on some of the outcomes that can emerge from the dynamic created between the victim of child sexual abuse and the subsequent disavowal they may experience. We sought to expand on the understanding of this trauma beyond the purely sexual aspect to prioritize the feelings of unprotection and submission related to notions of abandonment. This approach focuses the disavowal, using Sandor Ferenczi’s proposition that it is a centerpiece of the trauma, enabling new identification possibilities for our clinical understanding of the patient. Considering child sexual abuse a violation of the incest taboo, we recognize that the victim suffers symbolic losses which are ineligible for grief, reminding us of Freud’s descriptions of melancholy. Understanding the concept of disavowal through the lenses of a perceptual deauthorization, as coined by Luís Claudio Figueiredo, we acknowledge that it can cause deadly angst, leading to reliance on archaic defense mechanisms that put his/her narcissistic integrity and psychic functioning at risk, and contributing to a force that strives for de-subjectivation of the ego. Thus, attempting to preserve some form of narcissistic coherence, the child’s fragile personality regresses to a primitive stage consisting of complete submission and a melancholic identification with the mother of the pre-Oedipal period. Given this subject often encounters significant social and clinical resistance, we use an artwork to fill the gap that exists between the traumatic event and its representation. The opera Prism highlights the regression to the mother-infant dyad configuration following child sexual abuse. The interplay between dramatic piece and psychoanalytic theory offers rich psychic material to explore the internal processes of individuals that arrive at the clinic oftentimes years after the occurrence