THE DEVELOPMENT OF TRAUMA THEORY IN PSYCHOANALYSIS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32782/upj/2024-1-15Keywords:
trauma, trauma model, psychoanalysis, psychic trauma, timeAbstract
This paper is a translated chapter of the same title published in Werner Bohleber’s book “Destructiveness, intersubjectivity, and Trauma. The Identity Crisis of Modern Psychoanalysis” (2010, London, Carnac, pp. 75–100). In this chapter, the author provides a thorough scholar review of the development of various theoretical models of trauma, starting with Freud’s psycho-economic model of trauma. The author shows how gradually in the works of O. Fenichel and S. Ferenczi there is a noticeable transition to a model of trauma that considered object relations. In the 1950s, with the development of the theory of object relations, the consideration of trauma deepened this line. In the following subsections, the author examines the contributions of specific psychoanalytic studies to the further development of the understanding of trauma, such as: 1) the consequences of sexual abuse, especially in childhood; 2) the specifics of war neuroses; 3) a new understanding of traumatic experiences after the Holocaust; 4) research on the traumatic consequences of World War II. The author also speculates on the issue of conceptualising the notion of restored memory of a traumatic event. In addition, the paper provides a detailed review of new developments in the trauma model based on object relations theory and outlines attempts to integrate different approaches to trauma. Overall, the author shows that trauma requires consideration of both psychoeconomic and objectrelationship aspects. The psycho-economic model emphasises the experience of being overwhelmed and an excess of violence, anxiety and stimulation that cannot be bound mentally, which can lead to an internal surrender. Object-relations theory models, with the collapse of the internal supporting object relations, put the feeling of utter abandonment and the disruption of any and all affective bonds and internal communication at the center of attention, as a result of which the trauma cannot be integrated through narrative.
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