Compartmentalism
When a person (and especially a priest) is charged with child sex offences, which most people find abhorrent, you often hear said “but he’s such a nice guy; it can’t possibly be true.” And leaving aside the theory that the reason he’s such a nice guy is because it enables him to prey on children unsuspected, this raises something I think needs to be better understood. Compartmentalism is the psycho-jargon term for not letting your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Or, to put it another way, being one kind of person in one part of your life, and a different kind of person in another part of your life, and keeping them so separate in your own psyche that the contradiction between the two is never admitted or faced. And sexual abusers are particularly practised at this, apparently – witness the fact that many convicted abusers have campaigned against pornography or other so-called moral evils, and that the second most common factor among abusers is conservative religious belief (Sexual Abuse in Christian Homes and Churches, Carolyn Holderread Heggen).
And without an understanding of compartmentalism, people will, of course, figure that “a nice guy like that” could never do such abhorrent things. If, however, you understand that someone you experience as a nice guy may not be a nice guy at all in another aspect of his life, then the contradiction becomes less incredible. Sure, it’s still hard to fathom, because most of us don’t exercise that large a degree of compartmentalism. But it’s crucial that society as a whole begins to understand that someone who seems nice on the surface may not be nice all through – may, in fact, be a very sick person whose survival mechanism lies in concealing the extent of his sickness.
Perhaps the most extreme case, currently in the news, is the “Austrian cellar monster” (see here and related links). Despite his almost unbelievable crimes, neighbours found Fritzl polite and quiet, and generally likeable. As one neighbour said, “I’m good friends with Mrs Fritzl. Both she and her husband are lovely people … they are well dressed, polite and very nice.” Yet, from DNA tests, direct evidence, and Fritzl’s own confession, there is no doubt that the man who seemed so nice on the surface was, in reality, a horrific abuser underneath.
That’s compartmentalism to the nth degree!
There’s one further point to make about the Austrian story: Fritzl had a conviction for rape 41 years ago, and another for attempted rape the same year. (Other later charges of arson and insurance fraud were dropped.) Yet, because the crimes were so long ago, when he applied to adopt his children/grandchildren less than 20 years ago, his record appeared clean. The point being that when a person is accused of sexual abuse, we can’t sit back complacently and say “this guy’s never been in trouble before; it can’t be true”. Far more likely, if the diclosure dates back decades, is that he has abused many victims, and the one who comes forward is simply the first one who has dared to do so.