I take care of you. Case comment

The author of the comment on the article on the clinical case of a patient diagnosed with pedophilia and with the revelation of having abused a child, focuses on the centrality of ethics to the profession of psychotherapy as a professional aspects of care than legal professional privilege. Using the systemic reading the author analyzes the work of the authors of the clinical case and identifies, through the construction of the "pact relationship" between patient and therapist, gives the opportunity to respond to professional ethics and the legal wording. Pact that determines on the patient taking total responsibility of the event abuser. The therapeutic relationship frame determines in clinical work individual the recognition by patient’s of the dysfunctional mechanisms and the subsequent learning of new and more functional internal models. This evolutionary process of therapy allow authors of the clinical case of working with the couple married and build a useful therapeutic relationship context for the emergence and recognition of the patient’s family relational dynamics even in the couple system. The recognition of family relational dynamics in "repetitive cycle of abuse" offers to the married couple the opportunity to regroup after the tragic event of sexual abuse. Moreover, the author suggests the possibility of bringing the patient to an area of therapy which also includes abused the victim. The frame of this new therapeutic contract is to offer to the patient abuser and the victim the opportunity to confrontation in which the abuser says the responsibility of the event abuser and the victim, after that declaration, may receive recognition its foreignness in the dynamics of abuse and free from a sense of guilt.

Keywords: Sexual Abuse; Sex Offenders; Professional Ethics; Family Relational Dynamics

Anna Eugenia Squitieri, Mi prendo cura di te. Commento al caso in "PSICOBIETTIVO" 2/2010, pp 118-125, DOI: 10.3280/PSOB2010-002010