A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Trauma Post-Traumatic Mental Functioning, the Zero Process, and the Construction of Reality

Series Editor’s Foreword by Gabriela Legorreta

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1 The Traumatic Process

Lack of preparedness, and being overwhelmed

Triggers, repetitions, and conversion symptoms

Repression, dissociation, and ego shut down

Fixation to trauma

Overwhelming from outside versus overwhelming from inside

Traumatic memories and the construction of reality

The zero process, the primary process, and the secondary process

Some applications: mourning, intergenerational transmission of trauma, and internal objects

A trip down memory lane

The zero process drive

Repression

Dissociation

Zero process denial and temporal shifting

Dissociative identity disorder and splitting of the identity

The zero process, the primary process, and the secondary process revisited

Dynamics, deficits, and development in borderline disorders

Repression, Internalization, and trauma

Projective identification, identification with the aggressor, and splitting of the identity

Chapter 5 Therapeutic Technique in Analyzing Post-Traumatic States

Approaching the zero process

The relation of the analysis of the zero process to the analysis of other phenomena

The central post-traumatic complex

Summary

Biography

Joseph Fernando is the director of the Toronto Institute of Psychoanalysis, Canada. He has had a full-time psychoanalytic clinical practice, and taught and supervised students, for over 30 years. He is a Gradiva award winning author and has published widely and presented his ideas internationally.

"Dr. Fernando is an exciting psychoanalytic thinker and contemporary ego psychologist, whose creativity, riveting clinical acumen and scholarship show especially in the presentation of his new concept, "zero process" in illumination of how a traumatized person’s mind functions. This work is fresh and brilliantly helpful to everyday practice." - Rosemary Balsam M.D., Yale Medical School; Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis

"With a deft blending of the modern conflict theory of psychoanalysis with advanced studies of psychic trauma, the perspective of drives, and the work of Bion and contemporary French contributors, Joseph Fernando offers us an expanded and deepened view of the traumatized mind. An original contribution in this setting is his concept of the 'zero process' denoting the mental functioning left over after the ordinary construction of reality is shattered. Providing ample clinical illustrations, he lucidly presents the explicatory and therapeutic value of such conceptualization. This is an important book and deserves our serious attention." - Salman Akhtar, M.D. Professor of Psychiatry, Jefferson Medical College　Training and Supervising Analyst, Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia

"With his zero process theory, Joseph Fernando develops a unique psychoanalytic theory of trauma based on Freud's concepts and theories. With his theoretical approach and his detailed clinical descriptions of post-traumatic memories, symptoms, and disorders, he opens up a deeper understanding of how the traumatic mind works. He succeeds in shedding new light on hitherto inadequately understood traumatic phenomena, thus providing new directions for their therapeutic treatment. Fernando's book is an outstanding theoretical and clinically convincing contribution to the field of trauma research." - Werner Bohleber, PhD, Psychoanalyst, Former Editor of the German Psychoanalytic Journal PSYCHE

"There are many ideas in this new book that I totally subscribe to; others that, unsurprisingly, I would formulate differently. What really matters, however, is that the ideas contained here are at once bold, rational, thought-provoking, and clinically useful. Joseph Fernando’s work in general, and this book in particular, demonstrate something of great importance to me: that metapsychology is alive and kicking; that it is a field open to revision and to new and original contributions; that it is inseparable from – and vital for – clinical thinking in psychoanalysis." - Dominique Scarfone, Training and supervising analyst at the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society and Institute

"This book offers a detailed clinical and metapsychological description of how the mind responds to trauma, integrating Freudian and ego psychological drive and defence theory with some current thought about how the brain processes memory. In bridging neuroscience, contemporary trauma treatments such as eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) and sensorimotor processing, and classical drive theory, Fernando offers an exciting new psychoanalytic way of thinking about and treating trauma that serves as an important adjunct to other approaches.”- Thomas Helscher, (2025). Int. J. Psychoanal., (106)(2):446-450