Integration of Intellect and Emotion: Adams on Covert Incest

From pages 105 – 107:

Watch your seductive behavior. Keep your seduction in check. You don't do yourself or anyone else any favors by engaging in behavior which results in hurt, confusion and emptiness. Remember, your pattern of seduction and abandonment is a way to experience feelings of power and control intended to help you overcome the sense of victimization as a child. But it doesn't work. If your seduction is part of a pattern of sexual addiction, get some help.

Seductive behavior also has the purpose of hurrying relationships along to avoid your underlying fears and fulfill your fantasies. The seduction greatly distorts your sense of reality of the relationship and the person you are involved with. Once reality comes into focus, you may begin to withdraw because you realize you have gone too fast and become too vulnerable or realize that this is not someone with whom you should be vulnerable. By all means, when beginning new relationships, go slow, stay rooted in reality, and allow the relationship to unfold as it should, not as you would have it.

One of the consequences of being victimized is felling objectified and used not loved. As a result, you also relate to yourself and others as objects to be used. Your probably struggle to love yourself, having never felt loved for who you are. Loving yourself is an important part in your ability to love someone else. Part of the struggle with commitment for covert incest survivors is just this...

Another core injury is the damage caused by never learning to trust your own intuitive sense. The covertly incestuous relationship never permitted you to know and trust in your feelings because you were so preoccupied with your parent's feelings. The inappropriate dependency inhibited you from taking personal risks crucial in developing trust in your intuition.

As a child, you needed your parent to provide a safe haven where you would be nurtured when you took personal risks of autonomy. The incestuous relationship prohibited that from occurring. Your parent needed you too much to permit you the freedom to take risks. Being robbed of the freedom of autonomy is what interferes with developing trust of your own intuition. It is a crucial factor in creating ambivalence regarding your commitments. Ultimately, you need to be able to trust your intuitive “gut” feeling about a relationship to know what is best for you. When you mistrust this, you may over rely on your intellect. This can distort your intuitive sense. The split between the two helps create the agony of the ambivalence.

Begin by learning to take risks and trust your intuitive sense. Begin with small issues and decisions – make them based on your gut feelings. Keep practicing returning to this process. Remember, it is okay to do what is right for you.

Excerpts from

Kenneth A. Adams
"Silently Seduced:
When Parents Make Their Children Partners
~ Understanding Covert Incest"
Health Communications, 1991