We are exposed to the possibility of hurting ourselves in our relationships with others, a misunderstanding, an unusual situation or lack of tolerance can lead to being injured and having to deal with a conflict, but there are also experiences in which aggression and violence go further, and this is where it is possible to end up imitating those who harm us.
The expression? Identification with the aggressor: created by Sandor Ferenczi and soon resumed by Anna Freud, two psychoanalysts with somewhat different views, was defined as paradoxical behavior that could only be explained as a defense mechanism, which consisted of the victim of an assault or injury that eventually identifies with his attacker.
“Violence is the fear of the ideals of others. -Mahatma Gandhi-
Even in a scenario of terror and isolation, the victim’s attitude towards the aggressor can become pathological when a bond of admiration, gratitude and identification appears with the aggressor.
A typical example of identification with the aggressor is the behavior of some Jews in the so-called Nazi concentration camps, where some prisoners behaved like their guards and mistreated their own comrades, behavior that cannot be explained as a simple form of identification with their assailants, even if they are the victims.
A classic example of identification with the aggressor is called “Stockholm syndrome”. This term applies when victims establish an emotional connection to their captors during a kidnapping.
This syndrome is used to describe positive feelings and behaviors on the part of victims towards their abuser and negative attitudes towards anything that goes against the mentality and intentions of the same person, despite the damage caused.
When someone is at the mercy of an abuser, there are high doses of panic and anxiety that result in a childhood regression, this regression occurs as a kind of feeling of gratitude towards the abuser, in which the person begins to see someone who meets their basic needs, so that the victim will somehow become a girl again.
The abuser provides you with food, allows you to go to the bathroom, etc. In exchange for this “generosity,” the victim feels gratitude to his abuser for giving him the opportunity to get on with his life, forgetting that his abuser is precisely the cause of her. Suffering.
The usual way of one aggressor is to intimidate the other when he is helpless, that is, the aggressor abuses his victim when he is vulnerable, at this stage the victim is terrified and will hardly defend himself from harm, this behavior occurs. because the victim believes that by submitting, he is more likely to survive.
The emotional connection of the victim of harassment and abuse with the abuser is in fact a survival strategy, once the victim-abuse relationship is understood, it is easier to understand why the victim supports, defends and even loves the perpetrator.
The point is that such situations do not occur only when faced with a kidnapping, this type of mechanism can also be found in several more common situations, such as abused women.
Many of them refuse to press charges and some even pay for their boyfriend or husband’s finances, even if they physically abuse them, even confronting the police when they try to save them from violent assault.
There are conditions that are a real fertile ground for identification with the aggressor, for example, when domestic violence or labour harassment is the priority, even in sporadic situations of violence this mechanism is activated, as in the case of aggression or rape. In any case, life can become unsustainable if we don’t find a way to get over it.
Any trauma caused by an act of violence leaves a deep mark on the person’s heart, so identification with the aggressor is sometimes activated, without having a direct relationship with the aggressor.
What happens is that this power of the aggressor is so feared that the person ends up imitating it, to compensate for the fear that a possible confrontation will cause, an example of this is when someone is the victim of an armed robbery and then buys a weapon to defend himself . His attitude legitimizes the use of violence against him.
A person who has been mistreated risks becoming a abuser, this is because the victim has difficulty understanding what happened, but cannot, it is as if the personality is diluted in confusion and a void appears, a void that gradually fills with the characteristics of his attacker, and then the identification appears to himself.
At this point, it is necessary to clarify that this whole process unfolds unconsciously, it is as if an actor enters your character so much that he ends up becoming his own “character”. The victim believes that if he manages to appropriate the characteristics of his aggressor, he can neutralize it. She becomes obsessed with this goal, tries several times, and in this dynamic ends up looking like her attacker.
In this way, a chain begins that becomes a vicious cycle of violence, the boss acts violently towards his employee, the employee with his wife, her with his children, these with the dog, and the animal ends up biting the boss. one nation that acts violently towards another and the affected then feels the right to act so violently towards his aggressor, he believes he responds, but deep down he is imitating what he apparently rejects.
Unfortunately, this is happening on a large scale. People who are going through traumatic situations who cannot overcome them or who do not seek help are subjects who can replicate trauma in others, for some this consequence may seem obvious, for others it may be contradictory, but it is reality.