Engendered Self-States: Dissociated Affect, Social Discourse, and the Forfeiture of Agency in Battered Women

Inspired by work with a private client, I began a research project aimed at investigating the psychological development of victim self-states, not just as a product of interpersonal trauma but in the broader context of cultural demands for women to dissociate feelings that have been labeled antithetical to accepted gender norms for heterosexual behavior. As part of the Emotional Empowerment Project, I interviewed women who had been in long-term relationships characterized by verbal and emotional abuse as well as serious physical violence. Using a psychoanalytically oriented interview format, I collected more than 24 hours of narrative about the women's experiences. The analysis led me to hypothesize significant links among experiences of child abuse, the absence of gender-dystonic emotions along an aggressive continuum, masochistic self-states in adulthood, and the surrender of agency during intimate relationships. The work brings up important questions regarding the intersection of psychoanalytic psychotherapy and society, such as whether the integration of dissociated aggression would be facilitated by the incorporation of techniques aimed at raising consciousness around gender inequities, and whether it is incumbent on therapists treating battered women to confront more systematically their own participation in systems of oppression, as those attitudes insinuate themselves in the countertransference.