Quote in A Childhood Lost

From Thou Shalt Not Be Aware by Alice Miller. Emphasis my own.
…In therapy, my colleague’s four-year-old patient immediately assumed the active role of the aggressor as a way of describing to her situations in which he had been the victim (and spectator). Older siblings who mistreat and abuse younger ones likewise use active means to tell what happened to them earlier. This will continue to be the case as long as the child or adult has to keep quiet about he wrong done to him or her. In order to experience oneself as victim, one needs the ear of a supportive person. If no one is available, the wrong will be inflicted on someone else, giving rise to guilt feelings, which in turn interfere with the disclosure of the truth. This is why people cling to their guilt feelings, for they lend an illusion of power. (“I did wrong, but I could have done differently.”) To realize consciously one’s status as victim also means to sense the same boundless powerlessness of a child who has been subjected without warning to an outburst of rage or to sexual manipulation by someone the child loves who suddenly acts in a strange manner. For this reason, patients need therapists and analysts who will stand by them and support them as they suffer the pains of their powerlessness; they do not need people who,acting as spokesmen for prevailing societal norms, try to talk them out of their vague awareness of their earliest experiences. If therapists are advocates of their patients and not servile representatives of society, they will not attempt to conceal the way sexuality can be used to exercise power over those weaker than oneself.