By Tiziana DellaRovere

The revelation of the serial rapes, assaults, sodomy, and who-knows-what else on children by coach Jerry Sandusky has infuriated me, horrified me, and filled me with sorrow, but it did not surprise me. We have heard it all before. It happened recently with the Catholic priests, with the Boy Scouts of America, with Donald Fitzpatrick, manager of the Red Sox clubhouse. I personally heard these tragic stories many times in the private confines of my office when I helped adults recover from the pain they still suffer from their horrible experiences of childhood abuse at the hands of predators.

I heard stories of being assaulted sexually by stepfathers, grandfathers, tragic stories of abuse by fathers, uncles, trusted family friends, by priests and gurus. Yes, even gurus. Rage and sexual assault on young children is systemic in our society, which is organized in a hierarchical, patriarchal structure. The priest, the coach, the guru, the adult male with authority, all of them are father-figures and omnipotent in the eyes of a child.

A father is supposed to be the embodiment of integrity, honorability, loyalty, protective power, and the discipline that keeps the child safe. A father is a role model and an example of right action, who teaches the young ones wise conduct and helps them to distinguish what is right from what is wrong and destructive. The father is expected to care for his children and safeguard their well-being. None of these qualities were upheld at Penn State.

Jerry Sandusky, the predator, is obviously mentally deranged and emotionally disturbed, and should have been locked up a long time ago. He is the prototype of a man completely driven by his shadow to the point that he created the nonprofit, The Second Mile, for disadvantaged and at-risk children with the obvious purpose of generating a pool of children he could prey upon. But what is deeply disturbing is that all of the 15 men who knew that children were being raped completely failed to uphold any of the qualities of a good father and engage in any effective action to protect and care for the children. They lacked the courage necessary because they were afraid to displease the authority figure in charge, their superior, the godlike figure at the top of the hierarchy. Many of them did the minimum necessary to disclose what they knew to the next person up in the chain of command. Others covered it up and let the story be buried in the entrails of the “good-old-boys” club. At the top, they were protecting the brand of the football team and the university's reputation and were more than willing to sacrifice the children to this end.

All of these men who cowered, obliged, and let the children be slaughtered were embodying the archetype of the shadow father. The students responded with violent riots at the news of the firing of the legendary coach, Joe Paterno, not because they did not care about the victims, but because they were in shock and denial. Ironically, Paterno is an Italian word that means, “fatherly” or “paternal.” The students used to call him “Pa Paterno.” Learning that their beloved coach was not such a good father figure after all unleashed their rage and brought about the riot. They were protecting the father who did not protect them, which is a typical dynamic that happens between children and the shadow father, where there is a reversal of roles whereby the son takes on the duties that the father cannot sustain.

The primary characteristic of the shadow father is that he is absent. He may be absent because he is not present physically, emotionally, or because he is in denial of what is truly happening around him because he does not want to deal with it. He is so disconnected from his receptive and perceptive feminine nature that he is not aware of the damage he inflicts on others because he is hyper-focused on his personal pursuits. The second characteristic of this archetype is that he does not provide protection for his children because he does not want to shake up any situation that could jeopardize his position in society or within the family. The third characteristic is that he is profoundly dishonest with himself and others. With the shadow father, what you see is definitely not what you get. His respectability disguises a cesspool of filth. He is willing to sacrifice the well-being of his children for his own success, which he relies on to inflate his ego and alleviate his deep emptiness and insecurity. The fourth characteristic is that he has to subjugate, dominant, and treat as inferior any younger man (or woman), including his own progeny, whom he perceives as competing with him and threatening his position of power. He is more likely to use and abuse the energy and vitality of the young ones to absorb it within himself. This is exactly what Jerry Sandusky did by sexually raping the children who had entrusted him with their admiration and honored him as an elder fatherly figure of power and authority.

The consequences in the lives of the victims of rape and sexual assault go far beyond the abusive episodes, as frequent or horrific as they may be. Indeed, these consequences will remain with them for the rest of their lives, continously re-traumatizing them with various degrees of PTSD symptoms. No, they cannot “get over it.” Not just like that because they decide to “get over it.” The truth is that these kinds of traumas at a young age remain embedded in the deep psyche of the children for the rest of their lives. It is a trauma that keeps on giving. It is a seed of evil that, if it sprouts, creates another perpetrator. But even if the abused are strong enough not to repeat this crime by becoming abusers themselves, it will nevertheless affect their entire outlook on life, destroy their trust in humanity, shut down their hearts, affect their sexuality and their ability to bond in their intimate relationships, and corrode their self-esteem, but most of all, it will remain in their hearts as grief for a great loss. It is the loss of a part of their young souls.