In the aftermath of Mackenzie Phillip's shocking revelations of long term incest with her father, "Papa" John Phillips of the sixties' singing group, the Mamas and the Papas, some people are wondering why the actress allowed the incest to continue for ten years-- into her twenties.
The assumption is that since she was a young adult, she could have stopped it. The reality is that she was not able to due what is known as the Stockholm Syndrome, in which people form what is called a "trauma bond" with their oppressors. Because survival depends upon the good will of the oppressor, the abused become infatuated with and bonded to them. The kidnapped heiress Patricia Hearst was a notable example of this. The trauma bond is common to victims of abuse, be they incested children or battered wives, as well as among prisoners of war, cult members, and victims of torture to name a few.
Traumatized people have traumatized brains which Phillips described on the Oprah show when she alluded to having "flashbacks," unwanted, repeating inner images, which she attempted to compartmentalize and block out. A traumatized brain does not respond or bounce back so easily. Drug use, also part of her family's behavior helped to annihilate awareness of the sexual episodes, the resulting emotional pain and the unwanted, intrusive memories-- that occurred later.
In the book, Traumatic Experiende and the Brain, author David Ziegler, the director of a treatment program for abused children, writes that "I have often noticed that the degree of loyalty from a child to an abusive parent seems to be in direct proportion to the seriousness of the abuse the child received. In this counterintuitive way, the stronger or more life-threatening the treatment, the stronger the loyalty from the child."
This is due to the way trauma imprints the brain. It's a misunderstanding when people with normal development and limited experience of abuse, incest, or drugs assume that someone with a very different experience would be able to think, function, or act as they do. In addition, a child, who like Mackenzie Phillips is initiated into brain distorting drug use at an early age will have different brain development than a person whose brain has not been tainted by drugs early in life. Moreover, in the Phillips family it appears that drug use was a kind of family pastime. Craving the sense of belonging that most people, and certainly all children feel, a child like Mackenzie was inducted early on into a unique family culture, one that was inherently isolating and further increased the dependency on powerful parents since neither their values, lifestyle, nor behavior were shared by other people.
Further, Mackenzie Phillips reported that John Phillips' philosophy was that he and his family were somehow special and beyond the normal rules of behavior to which others adhered. Until she began her long hard climb to independence and maturity, this was the only frame of reference, young Mackenzie had. Until she began that climb, the distorted, possibly sociopathic mindset she learned from her father was part of her entrapment.
Although I'm concerned that recounting her trauma on Oprah could potentially retraumatize Mackenzie and threaten her fragile discovery, I would hope that the rest of us can accord her the respect she deserves for her courage, and take to heart the implications of the morality tales she offers-- that abuse should be acknowledged even when the abuser is powerful, charismatic, and famous.
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Mackenzie is a very troubled, very damaged person. She needs to face her own demons at this point and really work on healing and loving herself.
So deos it mean that a child who expresses healthy anger against the abuser was not abused with the same severity?In other words, do all abused children/victims suffer from this Stockholm syndrome?Surely some people have a healthy non-bonding "I hate your guts" kind of response?
I agree that healthy anger is an appropriate step in the process of healing, but by definition, in certain abuse environments, it not may be safe or possible to experience it. Either too dangerous or, the family may share a culture, judgment, or agreement to suppress it.
A lot depends on the stance of the non-perpetrating parent, the one who abandons, denies, or enables the abuse to occur. In MacKenzie's case, it appears that the biological mother was absent, while the two stepmothers were either unsupportive, competitive, or preoccupied with their own drama with the father. As such, an unhealthy bond is at least a bond-- and that is the dilemma.
On the other hand, in other situations, the mother may silently and tacitly support the child in expressing the anger, which she is unable to express. In that case, the ongoing cycle of anger can become toxic to the child, and at some point, healing will entail the releasing the burden of carrying anotherr's anger.
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Neil Rocklin, Ph.D.
None of us were there, thankfully, so we don't know the particulars.
It wasn't right and it shouldn't have happened, but once that line had been crossed...
I love your writing and your energy
I feel fortunate to have meet you when e did at LOHAS and may it contunue
I guess we are now efriends and part of the HP living community
My many people read your blogs and enjoy your insights.
Lovongly,
Ed
Your caring, subtlety and depth are apparent in everything your write.
So happy to be e-friends.
love,
Alison
Surely you mean "allegations?"
Not "revelations"
Well it looks like McKenzie's public confession is helping MANY, MANY victims! Hoooorrraaay!! Thank you Oprah. May the dialogue continue! We need to keep the pervs. squirming as education is the key.
In reading comments on this topic here and elsewhere, I was surprised that some people are "angry" with MacKenzie for her revelations about the painful things she experienced.
I can understand why people would feel empathy, but if, for some reason, they didn't care for the topic, why wouldn't they skip this one and read another blog?
And then I realized, although by far the most common sexual abuse victims are women, there are also men who are abused by perpetrators of either sex. Abuse to males is even more underreported because men are not supported to express their emotions, or show signs of weakness, and it's wrongly presumed that men would naturally enjoy any form of sex If feelings of sexual enjoyment are present, it makes it more confusing to acknowledge the perpetration.
It's also well known that some victims will become perpetrators. For women, it's probably more common to look away while the spouse and daughter repeat the abuse experience, while for men, some may be inclined to perpetrate.
So if you are reading comments that are critical and angry at abuse victims,it won't hurt to offer a little empathy, because the person could also be a victim, but one who can't acknowledge it or allow him or herself to receive help.
For those who would like to continue this discussion, please sign up at: www.collectiverealm.com
Furthermore, the term "consensual sex," is often used in rape trials, in real life and on TV. The defendant rapist says it was "consensual sex" and if the jury agrees he is not guilty. I think this is most people's reference point for that term. When many hear "consensual sex" they think not guilty no matter what else they hear.
Most of all it seems everytime she says it to herself, let alone the public, it re-enforces the message that she was OK with this. It's one thing to take responsibility for one's actions, it's another thing to take responsibility for an amoral, abusive father who never gave her a chance to learn how to make the right decision.
Almost all of us are repulsed by incest, consensual or not. It is such a dark taboo and we don't want to hear or read about it, much less research and study its manifestation. Yet, there are consensual incestuous relationships all over the world. Many people have openly talked about their own incestuous relationships, in print, while the majority live in secret because of societal taboo.
The "Always Abuse" crowd is overwhelmed by this repulsion. They can not accept that a 'normal' person would do this, therefore, it must have been forced upon them. It is more psychologically comfortable to attach the act to something that can be easily condemned: abuse.
We must take Phillips' word at face value and hope to understand her ordeal. After all, she was a married woman when the relationship began. It lasted for 10 years. Now at 49, and her father gone, one would think that it was only after intense reflection and forethought that she would share such a difficult story with the entire world. And wouldn't it be easier for her to attribute the whole thing to abuse and avoid the scorns of society?
Furthermore, it is every inch abusive to raise a child by introducing her to drugs at 13 and shooting her up with cocaine a few years later. Apparently you did not read the article or take it in as you seem to have no understanding of the Stockholm syndrome. Another example of this is the young woman who was kidnaped over a decade ago, live with and bore children with her captor. I have the bad feeling you'd call this "consensual" too.
If Mackenzie were raised in a loving, supportive family that did not make drugging up the major family activity and then at 18 decided to have sex with her father, that would be different. But of course that would never happen, which is where your theory goes to hell in a hand basket. The only way to understand Phillip's "ordeal" is to understand the amoral and abusive environment she grew up in.
Here's the thing: MacKenzie has said that her father drugged and raped her the first time, that after that she "woke up with her pants around her ankles" for a few years, and *then* at some point she gave in and started initiating sex with him.
There *may be* cases of incest that are consensual. This *is not* one of them. After years of being exposed to drugs as a child and then being drugged and raped by her father, MacKenzie wasn't "choosing" the life she ultimately led with him. As StellaRay has pointed out, you are demonstrating that you don't understand the Stockholm Syndrome.
Also google "Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica" and read this scholarly study of this condition.
Look, your repulsion is clear. I don't think anyone, other than the people in an incestuous relationship, think otherwise. Your emotionally-charged comment is exactly the kind of tunneled-vision thinking by an overwhelming desire to distance yourself from the act. This is also evident by your confusion between 'consensual sex' and 'consensual incest' and your lumping of different sex crimes, morality and abusive behavior together into one easy round ball to kick.
We ACKNOWLEDGE your repulsion of sex crimes, abusive behavior and particularly incest. Does that help?
You're gonna' get it.
For some reason, everybody is buying her "story" and can't stand it if anyone questions its validity.
Heck, if you have live with such a horror, might as well live with the horror and a few extra bucks.
I have the greatest respect and reverence for Nityananda, but Mackenzie's half-brother Tamerlane's suggestion that we "worship" Nityananda is just another form of drug addiction, and a powerful indication of the pathology inherent in the family.
What I find extraordinary about the negative reaction of many Huff Post readers to the story is that no one takes exception to Mackenzie's disclosure that her father initiated her use of addictive drugs when she was 11, but evidently find it inconceivable that such a man would sexually exploit his child In fact common sense should tell them that sexual exploitation is completely consistent with his drug addicted, amoral life style.
I hope and pray that Mackenzie has a very strong foundation of unconditional love and support. May she know peace.
While I feel it's important for people like Mackenzie to tell their story rather than keep family secrets, it all depends on who you tell it to and what kind of hearing you get. Telling it to cameras or millions of people or repeating it over and over can be retraumatizing.
It used to be thought that that was cathartic but sometimes it can re-trigger the negative emotions.
For more on the neurology of trauma, see this excellent post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/belleruth-naparstek/finally-figuring-out-what_b_292402.html
Sometimes when victims speak out in the "middle of the mess" it can be more powerful. We have the opportunity of a lifetime here in America to say, "McKenzie, we see you right now in all your flaws and we embrace you."
Pedophiles try to use the "messed up state" of the victim against them. If we respond right to this as a country, we will speak volumes to the pedophiles, as well as other victims by saying, "You don't have to be clean or perfect or articulate about your abuse before we'll believe you. It is safe for you to come forward even in the middle of your messiness."
If you don't care to read any more about it, DON'T click on the links to this story.
I thought your article was informative and thought-provoking. "Loyalty" in the context of abuse DOES have an undercurrent of collusion.
I am reminded of the work of psychotherapist Alice Miller as well, who did extensive work showing how the methods of pedagogy in pre-war Germany made the "people-dictator" dynamic more understandable to me. And this "Father Knows Best" idea is often found in fundamentalist or dysfunctional homes.
Maybe we need to rethink our entire structure of what authority is, what it means and its consequences--good as well as bad. Perhaps we will get more insight on why good people do bad things or get caught up in bad situations.
The psychologist, Bert Hellinger, with whom I trained in a method called Family Constellations asked just the same question.
He says that the most foundational human need and right is to belong-- even and especially in the presence of abuse and harm, people will remain loyal to the worst of the worst in order to belong.
For more on that work, sign up here and download the article on Clearing Ancestral Trauma:
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Was she a minor when it first happened? Then her father is a social deviant on two counts.
But that's what is on the table here. SOCIAL deviancy. It's our social mores which are on the table here, the rest of human nature is not, since this entire topic is ultra-taboo.
I'm not trying to defend him, but we don't know what state he was in. Unfortunately, way back in my naive youth, I knew a couple of junkies. I've seen what they do or try to do when they're barely conscious. It wasn't pretty, but they had no idea where they were, who they were with or what they were doing.
Obviously, if that was the case, it should never have been repeated. However, its been said that once a major taboo (murder,etc.) has been broken once, its easy to do it again.