Some readers may find it a curious or even unscientific endeavour to craft a criminological model of organised abuse based on the testimony of survivors. One of the standard objections to qualitative research is that...

Sofia the kind of woman no matter what she have in her hand she make it look like a weapon.

This vacillation between assertion and denial in discussions about organised abuse can be understood as functional, in that it serves to contain the traumatic kernel at the heart of allegations of organised abuse. In his...

Why spend your life working on defense when no defense can be made truly impenetrable? Take the offensive – learn the vulnerabilities of the world around you and be the change you wish to see...

Silence is the best defence for any argument.

Our lives consist of a series of internal battles, deep within us, where weapons don’t exist and technology is unable to create devices that better the best of yesterday. Our knowledge is our only defense;...

It’s purely a defensive device. We seldom quarrel, and this is one of the reasons. Can you imagine yourself getting all worked up and contorted and illogical and then coming face to face with yourself,...

DENIALDefense mechanism in which the existence of unpleasant realities is disavowed; refers to keeping out of conscious awareness any aspects of external reality that, if acknowledged, would produce anxiety.

You can be sure of succeeding in your attacks if you only attack places which are undefended.You can ensure the safety of your defense if you only hold positions that cannot be attacked.

Any philosophy, whether of a religious or political nature – and sometimes the dividing line is hard to determine – fights less for the negative destruction of the opposing ideology than for the positive promotion...

We have to distrust each other. It is our only defence against betrayal.

England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare’s muchd message, nor is it the inferno depicted by Dr Goebbels. More than either it resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black...

No one has the right to detract the attention of the nation from the defence of the country.

Sadness is also a kind of defence.

No thanky-you; you can’t overcome hatred with more hatred. Force can kill the liar but not the lie, the hater but not the hate, and the violent but not the violence. Hate begets hate, violence...

There are tree main bulwarks of defence against new thoughts: to pay no heed, to give no credence, and finally to assert that it had already long existed.

If a negative viewer looks at you with an ugly fiendish eye, find a way and pluck off his eyes, or better still, protect your good image.

It all I can do not to cry. I make myself wood I say to myself, Celie, you a tree. That’s how I come to know trees fear man.