Sexual relations with a child destroy his psyche to the core, even if its further development turns out to be possible, it represents a series of deformations layered on top of one another. And the most terrible destruction is caused by sexual relations not just with an adult, but with one’s parent. For children, especially small ones, a parent is a huge, omnipotent figure possessing Great Knowledge and Great Power. He is closer, stronger and more important than God. He inspires adoration and obedience. And if sexual harassment begins, the baby (baby) has no chance to refuse. No matter how scary and stuffy it was! And there is an understanding, conscious or subconscious, that they both violate the Taboo. A taboo is a strict prohibition, the violation of which is punishable by death or curse. Thus, a parent, by having sex with his child, systematically endangers his life. And the child knows about it. Such knowledge makes the ground shake under your feet, shakes the foundations not even of stability, but of the very POSSIBILITY of being. And to be completely dependent on a huge strong creature, which itself is a toy in the hands of drives and instincts, is absolutely unbearable. In order to ensure protection from decay, the psyche of an incest victim follows the path of assigning blame for what is happening. Because being guilty is the only way to control the situation. “I control the situation while it is MY FAULT.” The guilt is aggravated by the ambivalence of the victim’s feelings in an unnatural connection. After all, in addition to pain, horror, disgust, the child often experiences erotic sensations and pleasure. The body wakes up much earlier than the psyche is able to process its sensations. And the body, imbued with sexual feelings, finds itself locked in a childish, small psyche, like in clothes several sizes too small. And the development of personality occurs as painfully and bizarrely as the growth of a tree that is grown like a bonsai. All experiences are eroticized, feel derived from guilt and are tightly swaddled with hatred. Because besides the seducer, incest has another character - an accomplice. This is the second parent who distances himself from what is happening, lets it pass by, and leaves the baby (baby) without his protection in the hands of the rapist. At home or outside, in reality and fantasy, such an object always exists. And it causes enormous, uncontrollable hatred that cannot be thrown out. Because it is hatred of the mother (or father). Children involved in incest, in adulthood, are unable to independently build their relationships. In everything they need to obey the command of those who are older than them. Mother and father. Seducer and Traitor. And these are your roles, gentlemen psychoanalysts, when a patient who has grown out of such a childhood comes to you with a ready-made transference. Bonsai man. And what therapy will begin with and continue to do is endless attempts to destroy the setting. O. Kernberg talks about the concept of a “psychoanalytic frame”: the regularity of sessions, the temporal and spatial organization of meetings, the rule of free associations of the patient and the technical neutrality of the analyst. That is, the setting is about what is POSSIBLE and what is NOT POSSIBLE. About the rules. And about how they are dealt with. For an incestuous patient, an attack on the setting is a test of betrayal. Will you give in to his temptation and break the rules (will you allow him to seduce you and endanger his life)? Will you betray him in response to his hatred? The attacks on the setting are varied, masterful, and occur in conditions of intense erotic transference. And the most important therapeutic task becomes RESISTANCE. To create a setting and with it a new, structured reality for the patient. A reality in which norms and boundaries are stable, not shaky. It’s paradoxical, but in order to free the bonsai and allow it to develop freely, healthyly, you need to constrain it within the framework of the setting…