CAN you understand the mind of an incest victim when, after all the trauma, she writes a letter pleading with the court on behalf of her tormentor?

Jean (not her real name), 35, can. She's been through it all, having been raped when she was a teenager by a relative who was a 'father figure' for most of her childhood.

In a word, Jean calls it 'confusion'. She said: 'It was a confusing time - I kept trying to figure out what I had done to deserve it.

'I was going through puberty, and with all the hormonal changes, I felt like I had invited the sexual attention from him (the relative).'

Her self-blame didn't end there. She also felt responsible for a rift that developed in her family.

'My parents asked me why I wanted to break up the family, and told me to keep quiet about it,' she recalled.

She has not forgotten the trauma. It was a slow, hard, long road to recovery. Only after years of silence did she decide to confront her memories.

'This book called 'The Courage To Heal' by Laura Davis was practically my Bible. I carried it everywhere,' she said.

She religiously did the writing exercises in the book, which were an outlet for her pent-up anger.

'I just kept writing to let all my anger out,' she said.

She added that a conversation with a close social worker friend helped her realise that the rape wasn't her fault.

She said: 'My friend showed me that what happened was not my fault at all. Realising that was the first, and most important, step in my recovery process.'

Now Jean counsels girls who have been through similar experiences.

She said: 'The first thing I tell them is that they are not at fault, and that they shouldn't be afraid to be angry.'

Ironically, guilt is what's most likely to haunt victims of incest, on top of the shame and fear they already feel.

Psychiatrist Brian Yeo told The New Paper that common among incest victims is the guilt associated with feeling they were responsible for breaking up their families.

Because of this, some cases of incest don't surface until the victims reach adulthood.

He said: 'They keep it all inside because of the possible effects on their families. Family members could begin taking sides and this could cause the family to break up.'

He said that most incest victims had a tendency to feel responsible for causing family upheavals, such as changes in living arrangements.

'Most often, if the father commits the crime, the family's financial situation will also be affected,' he said.

Dr Yeo added that the extent to which an incest victim was affected depended heavily on whether her mother and siblings believed her account of what happened.

He said: 'A big issue is that these victims need to be believed - it's a crucial part of the recovery process.'

He added that cracks were most likely to form in families where the victim's mother did not believe the child's account, choosing instead to believe the attacker (often the father).

Dr Yeo said: 'This is why incest is far more devastating than rape, where the attacker is somebody outside the family. In those cases, the family is on the victim's side and can offer support, which helps the victim heal faster.

'With incest, things can be more complex and victims could take a long time to recover.'