Schatzow E, Herman J L
Women's Mental Health Collective, Somerville, Massachusetts.
Psychiatr Clin North Am. 1989 Jun;12(2):337-49.
With families in which incest has occurred, secrecy is the organizing principle of all family relationships. Both the testimony of survivors and the clinical literature emphasize the central role of the incest secret. Children who have been sexually abused by adults outside the family also frequently keep this secret as a result of intimidation or shame. Secrecy compounds the trauma of the sexual abuse itself by isolating the victim from others, so that her perceptions can not be validated. Often, the victim comes to doubt her own experience of reality, which is at odds with the family's version of the truth. Many, if not most, victims of child sexual abuse reach adult life still preserving the rule of secrecy.
在发生乱伦的家庭中，秘密是所有家庭关系的组织原则。幸存者的证词和临床文献都强调了乱伦秘密的核心作用。那些遭受家庭外成年人性虐待的儿童也常常因恐吓或羞耻而对此守口如瓶。秘密通过将受害者与他人隔离开来，加重了性虐待本身所造成的创伤，致使她的认知无法得到证实。受害者常常开始怀疑自己对现实的体验，因为这与家庭所讲述的真相版本不一致。许多（即便不是大多数）遭受儿童性虐待的受害者成年后仍遵循着保密原则。
