The Necessary Elements: The Interactive Matrix of Abusive Relationships

ABSTRACT This essay uses the film The Tale to illuminate the interactive matrix of abusive relationships, highlighting (a) the ways that perpetrators use offers of love and concern, and gaslighting and threats to establish a relationship with a child that, from its outset, is designed to the gratify perpetrators’ own sexual desires and (b) the characteristics that contribute to the child’s susceptibility to seduction trauma, including unmet needs—for attention, to be valued, seen, chosen, loved—as well as intrapsychic concerns, including defensive requirements and unconscious fantasies (e.g., primal scene and family romance fantasies). Additionally, the repercussions of seduction trauma are considered in relation to the self and object relationships that are configured through the interactions between the perpetrator and the survivor of abuse. These interactions include a mystifying intermingling of attuned, sensitive responsiveness, and manipulative control, as well as the simultaneous presence of threats and offers of love. These contribute to the way that childhood sexual abuse is experienced, represented internally, and remembered later.