Psychoanalytic Perspectives On Early Trauma: Interviews With Thirty Analysts Who Treated an Adult Victim of a Circumscribed Trauma in Early Childhood

Abstract

Information on the long-term effects of early trauma and how such effects are manifested in treatment was obtained through interviews with thirty analysts who had treated an adult patient with a circumscribed trauma in the first four years of life. Childhood traumas fell into four categories: medical/accidental; separation/loss; witnessing a traumatic event; and physical/sexual abuse. Traumatic carryover was recorded in terms of explicit memories, implicit memories (somatic reliving, traumatic dreams, affective memories, behavioral reenactments, and transference phenomena), and global carryover effects (generalized traumatic affective states, defensive styles, patterns of object relating, and developmental disruptions). Linkages between the early trauma and adult symptomatology could be posited in almost every case, yet the clinical data supporting such linkages was often fragmented and ambiguous. Elements of patients' traumas appeared to be dispersed along variable avenues of expression and did not appear amenable to holistic, regressive reworking in treatment. The data did not support linear models of traumatic carryover or the idea that early traumatic experiences will be directly accessible in the course of an analysis. Factors that we believe help explain why traumatic aftereffects in our sample were so heterogeneous and difficult to track over the long term are discussed.

The enduring effects of early-childhood adversities and troubled sleep among Canadian adults: a population-based study

“…The higher association between more traumatizing forms of childhood maltreatment (i.e., chronic and severe) and sleep is consistent with Gaensbauer and Jordan's [50] theory that individuals who have been traumatized may develop maladaptive strategies to cope with their abusive history and/or become hyperaroused when confronted with acute stressors in adulthood. These maladaptive strategies and the increased hyperarousal can then increase troubled sleep [35].…”

Psychodynamic Psychiatrists' Experiences of Being Stalked

“…Put differently, the psychiatrist becomes the archaic selfobject, the rejecting parental figure both loved and hated. We glimpse this explicitly in Example 5 where after terrifying her psychiatrist, the stalking former patient apologizes for frightening her (Connors, 1997;Gaensbaurer & Jordan, 2009;McWilliams, 2006).…”

A Relational Perspective on Psychological Trauma:The Ghost of the Unspent Love

“…Studies of traumatised children have demonstrated unequivocally that infants and toddlers have the prerequisite emotional and cognitive capacities for trauma to have persisting effects on their psyche. Traumatised children can retain some type of internal representation of their trauma for years, as demonstrated through trauma-centric behavioural re-enactments, affective responses to traumatic triggers, expressive play, sensory and somatic symptoms, and even verbal recall [44].…”

“…A Relational Perspective on Psychological Trauma: The Ghost of the Unspent Love DOI: http://dx.doi.org/ 10.5772/intechopen.86375 waking states and as traumatic nightmares during sleep [24,44]. Olivia's traumatic depression lied in the early sexual trauma she was exposed to and although she did not have any recollections of being sexually abused herself, the enormity of the terror she witnessed damaged her developmental potential and the capacity to form healthy relationships driven by a constant battle between desire and affection towards an object that held oppositional qualities; a battle of gifting love driven by a lack of security.…”