Psychopathology II

Adult Psychoanalytic Training (APT)
2019-20, 3rd Trimester — Fridays, 3:30-5:00pm
Michael Pauly, MD

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April 10, 2020 — Trauma

[58 pages]

56 pages of reading.

McDougall, J. (1978) “Primitive Communication and the Use of Countertransference-Reflections on Early Psychic Trauma and its Transference Effects”, Contemp. Psychoanal., 14:173-209

Joyce McDougall provides us with ample clinical material to show the impact of traumatic experiences that occur in the preverbal period of development and to highlight how these early experiences present via route of the non-verbal expressions (think of Manica’s procedural memory system of unrepressed unconscious) affecting that analyst’s countertransference. She calls these primitive communications. Her paper speaks of the analytic process as helping to transform action-communications / action-symptoms into that which can be verbally represented in language, allowing containment of the experience.

Tuch, R.H. (2007) “Thinking with, and About, Patients too Scared to Think”, IJP, 88:91-111.

Richard Tuch adds to our discussion an emphasis on separation anxiety and the links of this to difficulties in reflective thought and an intolerance of being thought about by the (other) analyst. Although not referenced in this paper I encourage you to think back to the paper by Britton (Subjectivity, Objectivity, and Triangular Space), as it set the foundation for understanding the developmental experiences leading to the clinical struggles highlighted by Tuch’s article.