I love the comparison she makes there between the personal and the political, between the stages we go through of both of denial and recovery happening on the social level as well. Honoring and recognizing survivors of sexualized violence with a statue and event would be similar to the stage of recognition Herman talks about...but her first stage of recovery was of restoring a sense of safety. How do we bring that one to a social context? Or to an individual one, for that matter? How do we learn to trust people again, and how do people learn to be trustworthy (that as a collective society we will act in the face of an atrocity and not try to deny it it/lok the other way). What measures can we as a society take to make our world safer?

" Stop blaming the victims of abuse for their abuse and acknowledge the REAL reasons that that it happens. A sick society."

I agree! and I feel like this happens more than is admitted-pathologizing the the recipient of violence rather than those that act it out or allow it to go on. Its like the psych pros themselves are experiencing a group episode of dissociation, where in they are caught in the phenomenon of the survivor- Herman mentions that george orwel calls it "double think". Which is " the conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them out loud". page 1 of the Intro.

Sarsha