Victim-perpetrator dynamics

"If a person is traumatized by another person, one person is a trauma perpetrator and the other is a trauma victim. The trauma perpetrator has to develop perpetrator attitudes in order to escape the awareness that they are abusers. Similarly, victims have to develop victim attitudes in order to as survival strategies to avoid perceiving themselves as victims."

Dr. Franz Ruppert "I want to live, love and be loved" 2021

Victim-perpetrator dynamics arise and develop in cases where the victim is in a dependent relationship with the abuser and remains in a persistent community they cannot/will not leave:

Children – parents/caregivers
Partner – partner
Student – Teacher/school
Employee – Manager/Company
Citizens – State

The most serious dynamics tend to occur between children and parents/caregivers due to the dependency/power imbalance and the fact that children love their perpetrators. At the same time, children have less mental capacity which makes them more likely to become emotionally overwhelmed (traumatized).

Neither the victim nor the abuser is capable of living an autonomous life. The victim needs the abuser and vice versa.

One of the central motives for activating the abuser within is the fear of being left alone. Abusers do not trust anyone to voluntarily seek them out, stay with them, tolerate them, or satisfy their unmet needs. They believe they can only secure themselves through cunning and violence. Many perpetrators have had a lonely childhood.

Victim attitudes

On the victim's side, attitudes/patterns/explanations that are illusions must be developed in order to endure being a victim of psychotrauma.

Examples of victim attitudes:

Blames themselves partly or entirely for the incident/justifies themselves as a victim
- For children – I was a bad child/not worthy of my parents' love
- Rape – I shouldn't have dressed so provocatively
Keep quiet about the incident/protect the abuser
- Does not require redress
- Taking the abuser on the defensive (I need him and he needs me)
Ashamed of one's own suffering
Represses or trivializes the incident. "I'm fine."
Is strong.
- "What doesn't kill me makes me stronger"
- Despise your own "weakness"
Suppressing one's own anger and need for revenge
Identifying with the abuser's needs and perspective
- To understand one's abuser
Praises/compasses with their abuser
Stockholm Syndrome. Sympathy for the abuser

Perpetrator attitudes

On the part of the perpetrator, attitudes/patterns/explanations must be developed that are survival illusions that defend their own actions. Being an perpetrator is traumatizing to one's own organism. One can be an perpetrator by or without one's own choice.

Examples of perpetrator attitudes:

Denying one's own guilt and responsibility
Putting all the blame on the victim (look what you make me do)
Mocks the victim (in disgust at one's own victim attitudes)
Justify one's own actions
- In the name of God
- Abuse in the name of love
Creates feelings of being pressured/forced into the action (had no choice)
Number your own feelings about the act and/or compassion for the victim
Feels like a victim
Co-abuser through approving of other abusers' actions, in fear of losing

Victim becomes perpetrator

Most often, victims also end up becoming perpetrators, either against themselves or others. Refusal to eat: One's own perpetrator-part will suppress and destroy the victim part that the body represents. Autoimmune diseases: The immune system attacks healthy cells in one's own body. The biological representation. Attachment trauma I: A child who has experienced that close relationships are dangerous can grow up to become a parent who keeps an emotional distance and thus disrupts the attachment process to their own children. Attachment trauma II: A child who has not received love from their parents will be overwhelmed as an adult to become a parent of a child who needs his/her love. Bullying: In the split, the victim develops perpetrator attitudes. If it is not possible to take this out on the actual perpetrator, it can be done against other weaker people. Victim-perpetrator splits are found in all people who are part of such an attachment system and can be continued for generations in a family.

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