Today an international expert on the impact of child sex abuse on adults will take the stand in the McColgan case against the North Western Health Board and the family doctor. She is Dr Suzanne Sgroi from Connecticut in the US.
This will be the third day of evidence on the impact of abuse on the mental state of Ms Sophia McColgan, who is suing the board and doctor for not intervening to stop the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father, who is serving 12 years for abusing her and her siblings.
The board and doctor are arguing that the case was taken too late; that, under the Statute of Limitation, Ms McColgan should have instituted proceedings within three years of reaching her age of majority in 1988. She and her lawyers are arguing that she was not mentally fit to do so at that time.
Lawyers for the board and doctor are countering this with the argument that she was capable of getting a degree and a job and forming a relationship with a boyfriend. Therefore, they say, she was able to manage her affairs in spite of the appalling abuse.
Much of yesterday was taken up with the evidence of Prof Ivor Browne on the impact of the abuse on Ms McColgan's ability to conduct her affairs and take legal action on the abuse.
He outlined the theory of "dissociation" as a response to sustained abuse over a long period. Here parts of the victim's personality, especially those relating to the intimate and emotional areas of life, are "dissociated" and he or she has no access to them.
The victim may be able to function more or less normally in other areas, he said. Ms McColgan was an example in that she had been able to get a degree and a job.
She had daily difficulties in her personal life, and particularly in her relationship with her partner, because of the frequent intrusion of the experiences of abuse at the hands of her father, and because of her difficulty in trusting people.
He said she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. However, he made a distinction between the kind of PTSD experienced by people in a war, or by the victims of accidents, whose lives had been normal up to that episode, and someone who has suffered sustained abuse from a very young age by a close relative.
The latter disrupted the relationships within a family which would normally sustain a personality, and instead it became distorted. Dissociation was an additional symptom of this kind of PTSD.
This interpretation of PTSD was disputed by Mr Pat Hanratty, for the doctor, who asked him for his authorities on it. Prof Browne said it was only coming into literature on the subject in recent years.
Confronting what had happened, and facing the buried recollection of it, was the first step in recovery, he said. However, she would not have been capable of making a decision about what she should do about this matter until her father's case was dealt with in 1995.
Mr John Rogers, for the board, put it to Prof Browne that this was not true. Ms McColgan's own evidence was that she had taken a decision to complete her education first, and that was why she did not take action earlier, he said. This was an entirely rational decision taken by a person who was clearly capable of getting a good degree and a job and running her life on a day-to-day basis. "Is she of unsound mind?" he asked.
"She is not of unsound mind in the sense of being psychotic or like a ward of court," Prof Browne replied.
As her soundness of mind was being discussed, Ms McColgan sat in court flanked by her brothers and sister, hunched forward, her head bent and supported by one hand, her face totally obscured by her long curly hair.