From acted violence to fantasy: play

This article is based on a clinical observation: perpetrators of sexual violence often confront practitioners with subjects who may both deny their actions and acknowledge their existence, thus demonstrating the coexistence of several truths for the same fact and for the same subject. To understand this phenomenon, we will examine the early development of their psychic organisation and show the fundamental role played by the dysfunctionality of their families of origin, which prevented them from constructing functional symbolising processes, leading to a major defect in the identification of affects and therefore in fantasisation. Such a failure, which undermines their potential for empathy and psychic tact, transforms their victims into tools for their psychic survival. We will show how this failure ultimately leads them to pathological acts that can result in rape or even murder. On this basis, the primary function of therapy will be to reactivate, or even initiate, their ability to identify their emotions and fantasise.