UNCONSCIOUS PHANTASIES ABOUT THE SACRIFICIAL REPARATION OF THE OBJECT. THE DILEMMA OF REPARATION OF THE OBJECT AND THE SELF
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32782/upj/2024-2-2-8Keywords:
psychic trauma, narcissistic trauma, containment failure, damaged object, damaged Self, sacrificial reparation, reparation of the Self.Abstract
Abstract. In this paper, the author shares his observations of a specific phenomenon that manifests itself quite massively in a situation of total trauma, which is war. The experience of working in the system of crisis assistance to victims of traumatization allowed him to observe a specific phenomenon of depletion of own resources and designates it as sacrificial reparation. The author proposes to consider sacrificial reparation as a universal unconscious fantasy of sacrificial restoration of an object that is actualized and becomes dominant as a result of living a certain traumatic experience. The author’s hypothesis is that such protective patterns are actualized in the unconscious as a result of past childhood traumas of a certain content. In the study, I will examine my own observations based on the theoretical concepts of Melanie Klein on reparation and Wilfred Bion on containerization (1962), which were creatively reinterpreted and supplemented by Ronald Britton (1985, 1989, 1995) in the aspect of maternal containerization failure. The author believes that such a protective pattern is due to the experience of prolonged frustration of caregiving by the mother and maternal containerization disorders due to maternal depression or other reasons that make motherhood difficult. As a result of living through the experience of perceiving the mother as a “damaged object”, the child begins to care for her condition, sacrificially limiting his or her own needs, which leads to a characteristic sacrificial style in future relationships. Prolonged care for a damaged object leads to the depletion of the Self, which is manifested by a certain characteristic symptom complex. Additionally, the author offers his thoughts on the dilemmas of reparation, caused by the need to achieve the restoration of selfworth resulting from the deficit of care and containerization on the part of the object, and the long experience of frustration due to the inability to achieve the object’s reparation.
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