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Listening to and supporting child abuse victim is a devastating experience. In order to allow the child to emerge from the trauma, adults must manage to adjust to the child and become “transitional adults”, those through whom the pain, the confusion, the disgust and terror “can speak” without fear of being misunderstood. The present article is devoted to an analysis of the psychological impact of ill-treatment for the child victim and for the adult confidant; it also describes the risk of overvictimisation when the quality of adjustment is inadequate and suggests “sufficiently good” methods for care so as not to further jeopardise the future lives of these ill-treated babies, children and teenagers.