A refusal on the part of psychiatrists and therapists to validate the horrors of their patients' tortured past implies a refusal to take seriously the unconscious psychological mechanisms that individuals need to use to protect themselves from the unspeakable. Such a denial is, however, no longer ethical, for it is in the human capacity to dissociate that lies part of the secret of both childhood abuse and the horrors of the Nazi genocide, both forms of human violence so often carried out by 'respectable' men and women.

abuse deniers abuse survivors child abuse childhood abuse complex ptsd denial denial of child abuse dissociate dissociation dissociative dissociative disorders dissociative identity disorder genocide hidden pain horror of incest horror of war ignore what is wrong invalidation misdiagnosis mpd nazis not serious psychiatrists psychiatry psychological defence psychologists ptsd respectable men respectable women society denial survivors survivors of abuse therapists torture survivors traumatized unethical