La violence et son devenir chez l’enfant témoin de violences conjugales

Abstract: Violence is inherent to human beings, it is even essential for the creation of a link with the other one, in the process of the psychological birth of the subject. The family is the place of prohibition of incest and murder where the child can learn how to manage his destructive impulses, but it is sometimes the place of his overflowing. At this point, it is about the destruction of the subject and the psychopathology of the link. Domestic violence prevails when the law of the strongest, exercised by one of the members of the family, replaces the common law of the exchange which is the basic foundation of the family as well as of the society. Child witness to marital violence attends with helplessness and thus with passivity, marital alarming scenes. It affects his psychic construction because these acting-outs meet his own destructive fantasies. Consequently, the anguishes are inescapable, but they differ according to the psychological maturity of the child, that is to say according to whether the scenes occur before, during, or after the oedipian stage. The future of the anguish will join or not to a trauma, in front of a situation that cannot be assimilated. “Identification with the aggressor” appears as the most frequent mechanism of defense, and will have long-term effects sometimes as generational repetitions, as we will show it in a clinical illustration revealing all the devastating impact of marital violence. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]