1st Edition
Analysing Patients with Traumas Separation, Illness, Violence
The focus of this book is on detailed case histories of patients with severe traumas. The author takes us through the successive stages of analysis and gives us a graphic impression of the progress of her diagnostic and therapeutic insights into traumatic processes and their treatment. Her main interest is in the development of the transference/countertransference relationship. Traumatic experience has to be actualised within that relationship if it is to be treated successfully, only in this way can therapeutic change become a feasible proposition. Traumatic micro-processes and trauma-sequel phenomena in transference and countertransference are described and conceptualized. The author demonstrates her point with examples taken from clinical practice: illnesses experienced as traumatic; separation traumas; childhood experiences of violence; adult experiences of violence: war, torture, and displacement that can engender PTSD. This book is a genuinely original contribution to psychoanalytic treatment of traumas.
Part 1: Sick Children - Sick Mothers 1. "No sick children in my house today": death fears in children 2. "That's my mother's trauma, not mine": concretistic fusion, acting-out, symbolisation 3. "We aren't starving yet": silence in withdrawal and communicating in images 4. Splitting and fusion Part 2: Separation Traumas 5. "This is my daughter. Take good care of her!": From objectless anxiety to separation anxiety 6. "Everyone knows my mother. Everyone except me.": Concretistic fusion and denial of object loss 7. "The greatest danger comes from myself": destruction and guilt 8. Acting out and compulsive repetition Part 3: Experiences Of Violence And Abuse In Childhood 9. A helper in search of help: splitting and psychic reality 10. "I want no part of this hell": en route to perversion 11. "I can look after myself": destruction and consolation in one and the same object? 12. Love and hate Part 4: Experiences Of Violence And Abuse In Adulthood: Torture And War 13. Post-traumatic stress disorder 14. Negative countertransference: depletion and resilience Part 5: Conclusion 15. Consequences for psychoanalytic technique 16. Trauma in society and politics: an outlook
Biography
Franziska Henningsen
