Energy in dissociated memories

Today, the 5^th of January 2010, the temperature in Stockholm is minus 12 degrees Celsius. For the first time in many years, we have a lot of snow. During the Christmas holiday, I went skiing every day and felt the special bodily pleasure connected with cross-country skiing. Several hours of rhythmic movement result in a satisfying physical tiredness at the same time as a return of mental energy.

During my vacation, I met a patient overwhelmed by “foreign thoughts” and feelings. She is afraid, vigilant, and suspicious like a child who is frightened that her mother will leave the room. My patient's panic is connected with a fundamental feeling of being alone and not being loved. Falling in love with a man has evoked immanent memories that cannot be thought, just acted with forceful energy in a chaotic attachment. She is passing into the vale of shame. Hopefully, she will not lose energy and become lost in an incapacitating depression.

I use the concept of energy as a way of understanding patients who are overcome by immanent memories, frozen memories and forces that cannot be mentalised. Other patients have lost their energy and joy entirely as a result of overwhelming stress, resulting in a burnout syndrome. In other cases, the lack of energy is a result of an inborn genetic failure to produce testosterone.

Loss of energy is a clinical problem that is illuminated by Siegfried Zepf in his article “Libido and psychic energy – Freud's concepts reconsidered.” The author examines different definitions and applications of the terms “psychic energy” and “libido.” Libido is examined as a psychic manifestation of somatic tensions. According to Freud, libido refers neither solely to a psychical nor a merely to somatic quality, but rather to the manifestation of a somatic quantity in the psychic field.

The power of nonverbal memory systems is demonstrated in Susan Kavaler-Adler's article “Seduction, date rape, and aborted surrender.” This paper clarifies the dual-layered nature of