Wounded by reality: emotional deprivation and unresolved trauma in psychoanalytical couple’s therapy

In this article, I will focus on highly conflictual couples with extensive emotional deprivation and unresolved trauma, which prevents them from developing healthy romantic relationships and overcoming the challenges entailed in any intimate attachment. I will describe how everyday interactions are experienced as threatening or even lethal movements between the partners. The question which arises in the psychoanalytical therapeutic process is how to help the couple tolerate the sensory reminders of the unresolved trauma as a necessary precursor to any process of symbolisation. In order to provide a safe enough therapeutic attachment bond, extensive time is dedicated to the emotional experience of self and the other in the here-and-now of the session, which validates the emotional experience of the couple as well as contains it. The therapy focuses on the transferential and countertransferential movements inspired by the matrix of the victim, abuser, and uninvolved witness (Davies & Frawley, 1994) to elaborate the intertwining of the unresolved trauma with the couple’s form of attachment. In order to illustrate my argument, I present two examples: one from a fictional narration and another from my clinical work.

Captain Aguilera and filicide: an attachment-based exploration

This article aims to explore a constellation of individual-attachment, family-attachment, and group-attachment experiences, as well as other psychosocial, cultural, and political factors, which contributed to the dual filicide perpetrated by Captain Gonzalo de Aguilera Munro—a count, landowner, cavalryman, and propaganda press officer for General Francisco Franco’s army during the Spanish Civil War. Learning from Luis Arias González and, above all, Paul Preston’s biographies of Captain Aguilera, the article will employ a combined methodology of historical investigation, psychiatric clinical formulations, and group analysis. In doing so, it will take into account a highly complex context of brutal group dynamics of national depression and exaltation, unresolved trauma, military rebellion, war, genocide, holocaust, and dictatorship.

Dialectics of Trauma in the Short Stories of Alice Munro

This paper argues that difficult relationships in human life followed by memories, introspection, retrospection, foreshadow, flashback, and awful remembrances are coloured by pain and trauma. Unresolved trauma affects the way one perceives others and oneself in relation to others, which has a significant impact on relationships and often results in behaviour that is not conducive to healthy relationships. Complicated, disordered feelings and distressing emotions that give rise to anxiety find an expression in relationships, either overtly or covertly. This paper will focus on how the characters, suffering from anxiety due to stressed relationships, in the short stories in The Progress of Love, written by Alice Munro, employ defence mechanisms to repress their trauma and project a different version of themselves as responsible individuals who are capable of leading a normal life. The dialectic of trauma covertly present in the narrative will be unravelled using Judith Herman’s theory of trauma. Further, this analysis will investigate and foreground how the underlying trauma finds indirect expression in complicated relationships.

Childhood Trauma in Women and Fragmented Interview Narratives – Some Interdisciplinary Methodological and Clinical Implications

Trauma experience is understood through its expression in language, with implications for psycholinguistic and clinical research and analysis. Clinical research approaches often approach childhood trauma through investigative, semi-structured, retrospective interviews (e.g. Childhood Experience of Care and Abuse, CECA). This facilitates the narration of abuse history for systematic analysis in relation to clinical disorder. Interview techniques assist such history-telling, for example by ‘scaffolding’ the account, aiding memory through chronological questioning, using a factual focus and using probing questions to collect detail and resolve inconsistencies. However, some personal narratives are fragmented, incomplete, contradictory or highly emotional/dissociated from emotion. This can be explained by trauma impacts such as being emotionally frozen (forgetting and avoidance) or overwhelmed (emotional over-remembering) and is termed ‘unresolved trauma’ with links to attachment vulnerability. These narratives can make investigative interview research more challenging but can offer opportunities for secondary psycholinguistic analysis. Illustrative interview quotes from CECA childhood physical and sexual abuse narratives of three women are provided with comment on style of reporting. The women had recurrent trauma experience and later life depression and anxiety. The interview responses are examined in terms of seven characteristics taken from available literature (e.g. incoherent, contradictory, lack recall, time lapses, emotionality, blame and vividness). The concept of unresolved loss is discussed and whether the linguistic characteristics are specific to a trauma or to an individual. Factual investigative interviews and psycholinguistic analysis of narrative may find ways of combining for greater depth of understanding of unresolved trauma, to extend available methods and aid therapy.

DIVE, SURVIVE OR THRIVE: A Prescription for Post-Traumatic Thriving

Medical problems and procedures, along with a host of other issues, can be traumatizing. The fallout for post-traumatic effects can linger for decades. In any traumatic episode, the body switches off the parasympathetic (rest and digest) nervous system while turning on the sympathetic (fight-flight-freeze) system. In this mode, the body pumps high levels of adrenaline through the bloodstream. This is a basic survival instinct based on the need to escape the trauma and get to safety. Trauma causes a well-researched chain reaction. It shifts the brain activity from the outer "human brain" to the inner "reptilian brain" that governs instincts. This can result in a blurred and distorted mental state, so when the trauma ends, many patients remain stuck in the sympathetic nervous state. It is somewhat like a car at full throttle while parked in neutral. The human body is not designed to have a continual flow of high adrenaline levels flowing through the bloodstream. Yet, this is precisely what unresolved trauma does. This state of perpetual trauma hurts, so many self-medicate with any of the many harmful activities designed to dull the pain. Of course, self-medication only deadens the hurt but does nothing for the underlying unresolved trauma. Health care professionals have their specialties, yet all should be versed in the fundamental steps patients can take to flip the parasympathetic nervous system back on. Two of the most effective techniques are "grounding" and "sitting in the fire." They are simple practices, can cost nothing, and get right to the heart of healing the unresolved trauma. When included in the overall prescription, both physical and emotional healing can occur.

From Trauma to Healing

Organizational trauma, which results from a singular event or the sum of multiple experiences that occur over time, has an impact on the individuals and the collective that constitute the organization. For an organization to overcome its challenges and function in a new normal, leadership must play an integral role in engaging its individuals in a way that is explicit and intentional. The efforts of the leadership must first effectively describe the culture, as well as define leadership and its role. Undiagnosed and/or unresolved trauma (both crisis and systemic organizational trauma) within an institution may have exponential implications for both the person and the organization as a whole. To restore the organization to a state of wholeness, there must be an acknowledgement of organizational trauma as well as a committed approach to organizational healing. These efforts shift the organization from one that is experiencing organizational trauma to one that is considered to be a restorative community.

Verhelderende perspektiewe vir die pastoraat vanuit traumanavorsing rakende getraumatiseerde kinders

The title of this article is: “Illuminating perspectives for the pastorate from trauma research on traumatized children.” This article focuses on the profound long-term implications of unresolved trauma during childhood. These implications can be physical, emotional or spiritual in nature. The important role of recurring traumatic memories is discussed as well as a number of further typical behavioural patterns as well as acting out behaviours. Exposure to the unresolved trauma using various exposure techniques during the counselling process is also discussed. Important aspects regarding a number of therapeutic strategies are then discussed, while also reflecting on possible pastoral implications. In this regard, for example, the focus is on the use of a journal, predictable routines and rituals, child-centred play, the child's identity in Christ, the importance of listening to the child, setting a timeline and the therapeutic value of drawing tasks. From the results of research in the field of trauma, it eventually appears that there are a variety of useful components and perspectives that can be effectively incorporated by pastoral counsellors and pastoral play therapists into the pastoral counselling and guidance of traumatized children. Key concepts: Traumatized children; Pastorate; Trauma research Opsomming In hierdie artikel word daar op die ingrypende langtermyn implikasies van onverwerkte trauma gedurende die kinderjare gefokus. Hierdie implikasies kan liggaamlik, emosioneel of geestelik van aard wees. Die belangrike rol van herhalende traumatiese herinneringe word vervolgens aan die orde gestel asook ʼn aantal verdere tipiese gedragspatrone asook uitreageergedrag. Blootstelling aan die onverwerkte trauma aan die hand van verskeie blootstellingstegnieke tydens die begeleidingsproses word ook bespreek. Belangrike aspekte met betrekking tot ʼn aantal terapeutiese strategieë kom vervolgens aan die orde terwyl moontlike pastorale implikasies deurgaans gereflekteer word. In hierdie verband word byvoorbeeld op die gebruik van ʼn joernaal, voorspelbare roetines en rituele, kind-gesentreerde spel, die kind se identiteit in Christus, die belangrikheid van na die kind te luister, die opstel van ʼn tydlyn en die terapeutiese waarde van tekentake gefokus. Vanuit die resultate van navorsing op die gebied van trauma blyk uiteindelik dat daar ʼn verskeidenheid van bruikbare komponente en perspektiewe is wat effektief deur pastorale beraders en spelterapeute in die pastorale begeleiding van getraumati-seerde kinders geïnkorporeer kan word. Binne God se volmaakte plan het Hy die gesin en dan ook die uitgebreide familie as ʼn veilige hawe en milieu daargestel waarbinne hierdie kind veronderstel is om alles te ontvang ten einde uiteindelik tot ʼn jong volwasse persoon te kan ontwikkel wat vir die uitdagings van die wêreld daar buite toegerus is. Soos wat egter vanuit die res van hierdie artikel sal blyk, het hierdie Goddelike plan in talle kinders se lewens, as gevolg van ʼn verskeidenheid van redes, nie altyd gerealiseer nie. Talle van hierdie kinders is in ʼn vroeë stadium in hul lewens reeds moedeloos en talle het al ʼn einde aan alles gemaak. Kernbegrippe: Getraumatiseerde kinders, Pastoraat, Traumanavorsing

Trauma and Its Ancient Literary Representation: Mark 5,1–20

This article revisits Mark 5,1–20 from the perspective of trauma theory, in light of historical contexts of Gerasa’s collective trauma and the cultural contexts of ancient perceptions of demons and their exorcism. The interplay between individual and collective levels of the story sheds light on symbolic overtones of an unresolved trauma about Roman military presence in the country of the Gerasenes. The story represents this trauma through literary indirection, including not only the enigmatic relation between “Legion” and the drowning swine, but also the paradoxical contrasts between individual and collective requests to Jesus. Mark 5,1–20 evokes meanings not only as pre-Markan tradition, but also as Markan redaction which intersect in crucial ways with the prelude to Jerusalem’s destruction (68–70 C.E.).

Childhood family violence and officer responses to officer-involved domestic violence: Effects of cumulative and resolved trauma

Law enforcement officers who witness or experience abuse in their family of origin are at higher risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and alcohol abuse. These trauma effects may, in turn, affect officers’ responses to domestic violence victims who call on them for help. The purpose of this study was to examine how these childhood traumas, PTSD, and alcohol abuse affect officers’ supportive responses to victims and perpetrators of officer-involved domestic violence (OIDV). We hypothesized that officers who witnessed or experienced family of origin violence would have higher levels of PTSD and abusive drinking than those without trauma. Furthermore, we hypothesized that officers with resolved trauma (i.e., no current PTSD or abusive drinking) would be more likely to support victims of OIDV than officers with unresolved trauma. Survey respondents were law enforcement officers ( n = 1661) in police and sheriff’s departments throughout the United States. Results partially supported the hypotheses regarding the separate and cumulative effects of witnessing family violence and experiencing child abuse. In addition, officers who endured these childhood traumas, but resolved these concerns reported a significantly greater average likelihood of helping an OIDV victim than those with unresolved trauma. Implications include the promotion of employee assistance programs and professional counselors to support officers with unresolved trauma, which may lead to improved responses to OIDV.