“Turnings”: The Transformation of Trauma Into Grief: Discussion of Robert Stolorow's “Autobiographical and Theoretical Reflections On the ‘Ontological Unconscious’ “*

I quote this section of Stolorow's compelling poem for reasons that, as he tells, becomes apparent as we consider the intricate tapestry of the personal and conceptual threads he has woven together. It is a tapestry that tells a tale of many turnings—turning backward, turning inward, turning outward, forward, and moving ahead.

Coursing his way through his pain, horror, and the agonizing loss of his wife, Daphne, Stolorow takes us on his long journey through paralyzing trauma to the eventual opening of a space. A space that permitted the emergence of a qualitatively different grieving and, along with it, a sense of release, revitalization, and enhanced connection, as the temporal bridges between past and present began to achieve new purchase.

Through this personal journey, Stolorow demonstrates, in vivo, much of what the trauma literature has highlighted for us. He has documented many of these ideas in papers written at various points after Dede's death (Stolorow, 1999, 2003, 2004). So it is that he delineates unbearable affect