That adds another clinically important dimension: intergenerational patterns of abuse, family-system denial, and the repetition of normalised behaviour across generations.
It is important, though, not to assume that relatives who witnessed abuse necessarily understand it in the same way, or that their denial has a single psychological cause. A clinical formulation would look at the family system and the coping mechanisms that developed around the abuse.
When children witness abuse of their own mother — and later deny abuse in the family
When family members grow up witnessing abuse, particularly when the abusive environment is never openly acknowledged, they may learn that certain behaviours are simply part of family life.
A child might observe intimidation, humiliation, financial control, violence or emotional domination and receive an implicit message:
“This is how relationships work.”
If nobody names the behaviour as abusive, the child has no framework through which to understand it.
They may instead learn to:
- minimise what they have witnessed;
- avoid confronting the abusive parent;
- protect themselves by staying emotionally detached;
- keep the peace;
- align themselves with the more powerful family member;
- avoid discussing what happened;
- regard disclosure as threatening family stability.
These adaptations can persist into adulthood.
The particularly painful paradox
When the same family members later witness similar behaviour happening to another family member, there can be a profound psychological conflict.
They may, consciously or unconsciously, have to confront something much larger than the current situation:
“If I acknowledge what is happening now, I may also have to acknowledge what I saw happening to my mother.”
That can be extraordinarily difficult.
Acknowledging the present may force a person to reconsider their entire childhood.
They may have to revisit memories they have spent decades avoiding.
They may have to acknowledge that someone they loved or depended upon behaved abusively.
They may also have to confront their own childhood helplessness:
“I saw it. Why couldn’t I stop it?”
For some people, denial may therefore function as a form of psychological protection.
But understanding denial does not excuse it
This distinction is crucial.
A clinician can explore why a family member may deny or minimise abuse without suggesting that the denial is acceptable or that the survivor should tolerate it.
There is a difference between:
understanding the mechanism
and
excusing the behaviour.
The survivor may reasonably experience the family’s refusal to acknowledge what happened as another profound injury.
The family can become part of the silence
In some families, abuse becomes an unspoken family narrative.
Everyone may know what happens.
Nobody talks about it.
People learn which subjects are forbidden.
Events are reinterpreted:
“He was just angry.”
“She knew how to push his buttons.”
“That’s just how Dad was.”
“Their marriage was complicated.”
“We don’t want to take sides.”
This can create what might be described clinically as family-system minimisation and avoidance.
The purpose may not necessarily be conscious or malicious.
But the effect can be that the abusive behaviour remains unnamed and the person experiencing it remains isolated.
The survivor can then face two realities
The first reality is:
“I was abused.”
The second is:
“The people who witnessed aspects of it still don’t want to acknowledge it.”
The second can sometimes be harder to process than expected.
The survivor may have imagined that eventually someone would connect the dots:
“You saw what happened to Mum. You saw what happened to me. How can you possibly say it wasn’t abuse?”
When that recognition does not come, the survivor can experience profound loneliness.
And there is an important clinical principle here:
A person’s experience does not become less real because other people refuse to acknowledge it.
Intergenerational transmission
This can also be understood through the concept of intergenerational transmission of relational patterns.
Children learn about relationships partly through observation.
If intimidation, emotional domination, silence, financial control or violence are repeatedly witnessed without challenge, those behaviours can become normalised within the child’s internal model of relationships.
That does not mean a child who witnesses abuse will inevitably become abusive or will inevitably tolerate abuse as an adult.
Many do the opposite.
But without reflection and intervention, dysfunctional relational patterns can be repeated, minimised or tolerated across generations.
And this is where therapy can become particularly important
The survivor does not necessarily need the family to agree with their interpretation before they can heal.
Therapeutic work can help them separate three things:
What happened.
How the family chose to respond to it.
What the survivor chooses to do with their life now.
Those are three different questions.
The first may never receive the acknowledgement the survivor hoped for.
The second may remain painful.
But the third is where agency can gradually return.
The deepest wound may be the silence
For someone who has lived through decades of multidimensional abuse, discovering that relatives witnessed similar behaviour in their own childhood—and still refuse to acknowledge what they see—can create a devastating sense of:
“Nobody was willing to name it then, and nobody is willing to name it now.”
Clinical work can provide something very different.
Not a judgement of the family.
Not a demand that everyone agree.
But a safe place where the survivor can finally examine the pattern without having to minimise it in order to protect somebody else’s version of the family story.
And sometimes healing begins with something remarkably simple:
“I don’t have to make everyone else acknowledge what happened before I am allowed to acknowledge it myself.”
