Silence as the Voice of Trauma

Ritter, Maria

doi:10.1057/ajp.2014.5

Cited by 8 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…In psychotherapy, silence can be used deliberately or autonomically by patients to defend against perceived traumatic intrusions which may also be useful therapeutically as a path toward understand the traumatic past (Dimitrijevic, 2021b; Ritter, 2014). Since silence also can indicate a lack of words for early traumatic experiences, the space of noncommunication can enable restoring and articulation of previously disorganizing and incomprehensible experiences.…”

Section: Self-silencing and Traumamentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-silencing and suicide.

Goldblatt¹,

Ronningstam²

2023

Practice Innovations

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Silence in the therapeutic encounter has multiple meanings and complex determinants and is often associated with early childhood trauma or neglect but may also be found in patients with character pathology, who try to exert a sense of control when they feel overwhelmed. Self-silencing is a form of nonverbal communication, which may be autonomic or culturally syntonic, serving as protection of independence and safety, see for example, where renunciation of self-interest is used interpersonally to preserve a relationship with a significant other. Loneliness and isolation arising from such impaired relatedness then increase vulnerability to suicide. Self-silencing often serves to manage intense affects but may also contribute to increased suicidal preoccupation when life circumstances overwhelm personality functioning and self-regulation becomes inundated by unbearable affective distress. Under such circumstances, patients may feel desperately isolated and alone but are still unable or unwilling to communicate their distress to others, including their therapists. Consequently, self-silencing may be unnoticed in the therapeutic relationship, both by the patient and by the psychotherapist. Suicidal action can serve as the ultimate fulfillment of a silencing of the self. In this article, we discuss the effect of self-silencing on therapeutic process and suicidal vulnerability.

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Section: Self-silencing and Traumamentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-silencing and suicide.

Goldblatt¹,

Ronningstam²

2023

Practice Innovations

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“…Silence is often regarded as an expression of deep trauma. Maria Ritter (2014) in her article "Silence as the Voice of Trauma" says, "Silence is a key to the unspoken world of the patient. Rather than interpreting silence as a defensive maneuver, the analyst may understand this disruption as a royal road to the patient's traumatic experiences."…”

Section: Parallel Presentation Of Ayesha and Behulamentioning

confidence: 99%

When Individual Represents the National: Understanding Trauma through History and Myth in Anisul Hoque’s The Ballad of Ayesha

Mazumder¹

2021

ALLS

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In his novel, The Ballad of Ayesha (2018), Anisul Hoque portrays a young woman named Ayesha and her sufferings in life after a sudden disappearance of her husband Joynal Abedin, an officer in Bangladesh Air Force, on a fated day in 1977. Ayesha, with her two little children, determinedly fights off the woes of life and waits, with a secret hope, for her beloved husband’s return. This tale, however, throws light on a period of extensive instability and bloodshed in the history of a newly independent Bangladesh, when a great mutiny in the armed forces has been brutally suppressed by then military ruler General Ziaur Rahman in the aftermath of his ascend to power after the brutal assasination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in the hands of a group of military officers. The novel, as I argue, presents this history in the background of Ayesha’s traumatic experience which is parallelly presented with Behula’s trauma, a legend found in the popular folk-epic Manashamangal Kavya, in the wake of Lakhinder’s death by snake-bite on their bridal chamber due to goddess Manasha’s wrath. Thus, the text intertwines the personal trauma of an ordinary village woman with a popular myth in Bengal in the context of a dark historical chapter of Bangladesh. This paper, thus, investigates the representation of history and myth in this historical novel and argues that the narrative, while presenting individual traumas of Ayesha and Behula, ultimately foregrounds a period of national trauma in the history of Bangladesh, and challenges some propagandist political narratives at the same time.

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“…In her investigation of the phenomenon in Holocaust survivors, Ritter (2014) found that projective identification was a core mechanism by which trauma was transmitted to offspring. Parents who projected Holocaust-related feelings and anxieties into children often had children who introjected them and who would, as a result, behave as though they had directly experienced concentration camps and other Nazi atrocities, themselves.…”

Section: Intergenerational Racial Traumamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is the wilful or unconscious desire to avoid distressing material. Denial is a common psychological defence against trauma (APA, 2018; Ritter, 2014). And, like many responses to trauma, as previously discussed, it is not limited to individual survivors, their family members or direct witnesses.…”

Section: Silence Power and The Social Unconsciousmentioning

confidence: 99%

Silencing, power and racial trauma in groups

Kinouani¹

2020

Group Analysis

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As a black woman I have found myself in various settings where as the only person of colour, speaking of my experience of the world has led to hostility, occasionally to violence, and, more frequently to disorientating silencing attempts. As a therapist working specifically with people of colour, clients have approached me, ashamed, often terrified, describing these familiar walls of impenetrable defensiveness bolstered by gagging manoeuvers their voices meet, when attempting to articulate racism within all social structures. This collective experience of silencing, as illustrated by Eddo-Lodge’s words, is of critical significance for group processes and social dynamics and thus group work practice. This article aims to illuminate the functions of racism related silencing in groups and to offer some formulations of the same in the hope of supporting the profession to make space for those whose voices and perspectives it is still by and large to integrate. This article will present my reflections on silence, silencing and power in groups, primarily from a black perspective. It will mainly engage with formulations and theoretical explorations of racialized dynamics personally experienced, witnessed or reported to me. It will argue that silencing is a mechanism that protects the white psychic equilibrium and the racially stratified social order. It will be further posited that acts of racial silencing as remnants of intergenerational trauma, reproduce and are borne out of power relations and, that they may be enacted within group analytic therapy.

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Silence as the Voice of Trauma

Cited by 8 publications

References 27 publications

Self-silencing and suicide.

Self-silencing and suicide.

When Individual Represents the National: Understanding Trauma through History and Myth in Anisul Hoque’s The Ballad of Ayesha

Silencing, power and racial trauma in groups

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