Developmental paths and childhood trauma outcome: from child’s victimisation to juvenile sexual offender

Abstract

The Juvenile Sexual Offending is a disturbing phenomenon in which sometimes victim and abuser are confused. Very often the abuser himself is a victim of traumas that  can change the development pushing him in a compulsory repetition. 
In this paper clinical and experimental data are integrated for a attempt to identify the multiple etiology of sexual offending. In the history of these adolescents  we can often find a lot of different traumatisation with an impairment of  symbolic capacity. This impairment leaves  an emptiness of representation which leads to acting out.