Trauma and the Zero Process

The concept of the zero process, as a form of mental functioning distinct from the primary and the secondary processes, is proposed. A brief clinical vignette demonstrating aspects of the zero process is presented. The key characteristic of the zero process is that, because the traumatic experience is not processed, its contents remain in a frozen state. The perceptions, affects, and impulses connected with trauma are not processed in many ways (not integrated, not symbolized, not abstracted, etc.), and these form the core of the zero process. Because the traumatic experience is not constructed, at the psychic level it has not yet fully happened, but is always just happening or about to happen. The contents of the zero process have the retentive quality of memory, but they behave in other ways like an immediate experience: they are either present, real, and flowing forward in “real time,” as other present experiences do, or they are completely absent and seemingly irretrievable. A number of defences that use the specific qualities of the zero process are described, including splitting of the ego, splitting of the identity, and temporal shifting. The work of therapy with the zero process involves analyzing these and other defences in an atmosphere of safety so that the work of finally constructing the traumatic experience can take place.