Considerations in Treating Victims of Sexual Abuse:  Two Case Studies
       by Lisa Buell Piemont, MSW

Patients who experience sexual trauma early and often utilize primitive defenses that are intensified by the analytic experience.  This paper investigates the underlying motivations for the defenses employed by two such patients.  Literature concerning similar cases indicates that patients who experience early psychic trauma defend themselves from primitive conflicts surrounding the very core of the emerging ego.  This study of two survivors of earlysexual abuse finds that the patients' defenses appear to be motivated primarily by conflicts between incorporation and expulsion of early psychic experiences, and secondly, by conflicts between separation and merger with the analyst.  The technical method offered by Modern Psychoanalysis is recommended in order to prepare the patient for a productive approach to working through the traumatized core.

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