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The material strongly indicates that this woman had experienced prolonged relational complex trauma. She was haunted by ‘uncomfortable questions’. We know the biggest betrayal of trust is when abuse is carried out by those you depend on for your earliest care. These experiences have made it challenging for this woman to live in the present. I will reflect on the early dynamics of her life and comment on the clinical material from an infant/child–parent psychoanalytic perspective.
There is some reference of the patient being abused by ‘her loved ones’, consequently, there are questions regarding who was involved. What is clearer from the material is that her mother subjected her to beatings and psychological abuse. These experiences are conveyed as soon as the patient enters the therapy room. In her presentation, she is depicted as ‘ready to fend off an attack’, full of ‘terror and suspicion’. Her ‘cold’ distant father did not protect her from her mother and ‘kicked her out’ when she was still at school. She also distanced herself from her brother (due to his anger and jealousy), who we know ‘failed to have a family’. Furthermore, all her relatives were suffering from ‘mental illnesses’ and one distant relative committed suicide. It seems that she had no safe or containing adult around her. Although she describes her ‘beautiful’ childhood changing after she started school, there are
gaps regarding this time. We know that she spent time ‘in solitude’, playing alone in the garden, perhaps the only safe place she had? I would speculate that these early parental dynamics were deeply internalised because we know that she experienced further bullying (from peers) when she started school.
She describes leading a ‘double life’ in her childhood. When the psychological or physical pain became unbearable, she dissociated from her experiences (passed out). This dissociative state can become established in our ear