Traumatic Shutdown of Narrative and Symbolization: A Death Instinct Derivative?

Through a detailed clinical vignette and a review of the relevant literature this paper illustrates the failures in narrative formation, symbolization, and even in the process of psychoanalytic listening and comprehension, that occur in the wake of events of massive psychic trauma. Inexplicable gaps and absences occur in what should be all too evident and readily known, and the processes of exploratory curiosity come to a halt. The author attempts to explain this phenomenon through the cessation of the inner dialogue with the internalized good object, the “inner thou” that is annihilated in massive trauma. He tries to demonstrate the role the death instinct derivatives play in this presumed shut-down of processes of association, symbolization, and narrative formation. Such death instinct derivatives come unleashed once the binding libidinal forces of object cathexis are abolished and identification with the aggressor (the only object left in the internal world representation) takes place. Implications for psychoanalytic psychotherapy with severely traumatized patients are discussed and illustrated by another case vignette.