In this book, the author follows a psychoanalytic path in order to explain why child abuse is so widespread, and why it is so commonly ignored or overlooked. She argues that fundamentally mistaken Freudian theories on infantile sexuality have been used to conceal the true nature of the relationship between adults and children. The author combines case histories (in non-technical language) with dreams, fairy tales and the works of Kafka, Woolf, Flaubert, Becket and others.