Victim-Suppressor Connection

The perpetrator-victim relationship is often manifested in family settings, for example in relation to rape, child abuse, but also in relation to murder or - also in Germany - acts committed during the Nazi era.

The abuser-victim relationship in family arrangements according to Hellinger

On the surface, the distribution of blame is generally clear: innocent victims on one side, guilty perpetrators on the other. Most people tend to side with the victims and judge the perpetrators. However, upon closer examination, it often turns out that this is not so simple. Often the cause is a systemic conflict that finds subconscious expression in the perpetrator’s hatred and violence.

From a systemic perspective, no one is evil just because they enjoy it. The perpetrator is a criminal, they are not free. It was their fate to be a criminal (for example, a murderer or a rapist), and it was the victim's fate to be a victim. Therefore, from a systemic perspective, neither is "better" or "worse."

Bert Hellinger says: “If someone becomes a criminal, the crime puts him in his service. [...] It is not just a matter of his responsibility. We are not given the freedom to be good or evil. A so-called good person may have many things better, but he is not better. Deep down there is an elementary agreement between all people. All people are equal there. They are all in the service of something, one this way, the other that way.”

At the latest after death, there is no longer any difference between perpetrators and victims. Thus, family arrangements relativize the ideas of "good" and "bad", "right" and "wrong". In principle, everyone is good, but everyone is also a "prisoner" of their own system. However, this does not of course free the perpetrators, the guilt remains with them and this must be accepted from them.

ស្រានក

The layouts have repeatedly shown that there is a deep connection between perpetrators and victims. In the case of a family member who has become a murderer, his victim often becomes part of his system. And vice versa, the murderer usually becomes part of the family system whose member he has murdered. Usually, even in cases where the perpetrator is convicted, the injured party or their loved ones often have thoughts of anger or revenge, as well as a feeling that an injustice has been done - even if the perpetrator has served his sentence. This is especially evident if either the victim or the deceased are still burdened with the residual consequences of the crime committed.

This connection between perpetrators and victims affects not only the victims but also their descendants. If the deceased perpetrators and victims are still not reconciled, this aggravating dynamic will affect subsequent generations:

• If the victim's family excludes the killer, later there will be someone in the family with "killer energy."

• The denied guilt of a crime committed by an abuser will often later be taken on by his child.

• However, the reverse often happens: the offspring of the victim system becomes the perpetrator himself, and this chain reaction and suffering never ends.

THE END OF THE DAY

Often the victim's representative feels unwell: his body is cold, sometimes he also experiences some physical discomfort (such as a sore throat, if someone has been strangled), and looks at the alleged perpetrator with fear or anger. The energy of the perpetrator is often perceived in typical features, such as clenched fists.

The method of the

From Bert Hellinger's perspective, it is essential to acknowledge the connection between the perpetrator and the victim and to re-release love into the system.

សានក

The perpetrator and the victim are part of each other's system, even if they are forgotten or ignored. The first goal of the deployment is to identify the members of this system, the next step is to recognize them and give them their proper place in the system. Without judging their actions, this space should also be given to criminals, murderers and perpetrators. From a systemic point of view, every criminal finds his victim and every victim finds his perpetrator, no one can escape his fate.

𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗿

According to Hellinger, only when the victim makes peace with the abuser (or the person who has systematically taken on the victim's feelings) is he or she free again. The system can only be put to rest when everyone involved admits their share of the blame. According to Bert Hellinger, developing the maturity necessary to bow before the abuser helps the victim heal.

The victim must be able to see beyond the evil and tell the abuser that they respect their extremely difficult choice - and nothing more. Reconciliation does not gain power if the offender apologizes and is forgiven. No, the solution is not forgiveness, but that the offender himself must be able and must accept the consequences of the crime.

Solution suggestions

• It is important that the perpetrator admits what he did, that is, he says: "I killed you."

• Also important is empathy from the abuser: "I'm so sorry for what I did to you."

According to Hellinger, the abuser should neither explain nor justify his behavior towards the victim, nor should he embellish it or demonize it. The abuser also has no right to ask the victim for forgiveness. The victim should not forgive the offender.

Forgiveness is perceived as arrogance. The victim has no right to do so. No one has the right to forgive (see also "Reconciliation and Forgiveness").

ខ្ញុងការ

The abuser often unites with the victim. The perpetrator either lies down with his victim or he simply walks up to the victim. They look each other in the eye and reconcile. In this way, the abuser and the victim become one.

THE WORD OF GOD

The victim and the abuser should have a place in the counselor's heart and be reconciled there, then it will be easier for the counselor's system to understand. It is also useful to place the offender behind the victim's fate. This often makes it clear to the victim that the offender was only acting in the service of his system.

The abuser-victim relationship in intergenerational psychotraumatology

For Franz Rupert, a symbiotic entanglement develops in a violent situation between victim and perpetrator.

The most important thing in life is to be happy.

Perpetrator structures are the survival rates of traumatized people. People become violent either because of their own trauma or because of symbiotic trauma, that is, through symbiotic entanglement with trauma experienced in a previous generation. Perpetrators were helpless themselves in the past and do the same to their victims, they now abuse others to escape this feeling of powerlessness.

This leads to a shift from victim to perpetrator. Of course, (violent) perpetrators also have healthy parts that can be brought out in friendships and other relationships.

The most important thing in life is to be happy.

According to Rupert, victims experience existential trauma from the perpetrator's threats. They typically develop self-preservation components with the following characteristics:

• Inability to defend oneself, subordination and submission, inability to say no.

• Fear of punishment and obedience to meaningless rules.

• Not having the ability to make one's own decisions.

• Feeling that their lives should be determined by others

• A vague sense of fear of another blow from fate.

This behavior and these fears inhibit the impulses of a healthy life. Victims fall into progressive, paralyzing idleness and, in the final stage, into severe depressive states.

Some victims even consider suicide as the only way out of their role.