Welcome to PEP Web! Viewing the full text of this document requires a subscription to PEP Web. If you are coming in from a university from a registered IP address or secure referral page you should not need to log in. Contact your university librarian in the event of problems. If you have a personal subscription on your own account or through a Society or Institute please put your username and password in the box below. Any difficulties should be reported to your group administrator. Username: Password: Can't remember your username and/or password? If you have forgotten your username and/or password please click here and log in to the PaDS database. Once there you need to fill in your email address (this must be the email address that PEP has on record for you) and click "Send." Your username and password will be sent to this email address within a few minutes. If this does not work for you please contact your group organizer. Athens user? Login here. Not already a subscriber? Order a subscription today.

(1994). Journal of American Academy of Psychoanalysis, 22:211-229

Incest: Transference and Countertransference Implications

Michelle Price, C.S.W.

The incest trauma has increasingly been receiving attention and is the subject of scientific inquiry in many professional and academic circles. The focus of analytic interest and treatment lies in the understanding of the impact of this childhood trauma on identity formation, sense of self, and internal self and object representations (Price, 1993). Recent inquiries and speculations regarding the role of incest in determining borderline personality organization (Herman and van der Kolk, 1987; Stone, 1989, 1992) and multiple personality is an outgrowth of this development.

Incest involves the betrayal of a child by those who are entrusted with his or her care. “After abuse, the victim's view of self and the world can never be the same again, it must be reconstructed to incorporate the abuse experience (van der Kolk, 1989, p. 393).” It inevitably affects the victim's sense of self and others leading to the potential to obscure and distort interpersonal relationship

[This is a summary or excerpt from the full text of the book or article. The full text of the document is available to subscribers.]