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Feeling himself into the mind of the New York fireman at the World Trade Center, Bruce Springsteen sings, “Can't see nothin' in front of me. Can't see nothing coming up behind. I make my way through this darkness. I can't feel nothing but this chain that binds me” (Springsteen, 2002). The obscurity and anxiety of this moment, emotionally reliant on others, as the work task progresses, provides a beginning and context for discussion of applied psychodynamic consultation in the face of traumatic social horror.
The 20th century provided its full measure of human destruction. Concluding Civilization and its Discontents, pondered darkly and presciently that:
“The fateful question for the human race seems to be whether, and to what extent, the development of its civilization will manage to overcome the disturbance of communal life caused by the human drive for aggression and self-destruction. Perhaps in this context, the present age is worthy of interest. Human beings have made such strides in controlling the forces of nature that, with the help of these forces, they will have no difficulty in exterminating one another, down to the last man.” (, p. 81).
Rapidly, the 21st century has begun to follow its predecessor's nightmarish legacy. Increasingly, psychoanalysts have ventured from the consulting room to the “trenches” of social dislocation and trauma (Sklarew et al., 2004). Clinical confrontation with evil has required explicit extension of those ethical work horizons familiar to psychoanalysts. As Sue Grand writes, “mental health is not simply the capacity to love and to work. It is the struggle to behave with ethical strength on behalf of the other, and for oneself” (Grand, 2000, p. xi).
The present paper describes an evolving process of reflective thought in relation to a psychodynamic consultation project with the New York Fire Department (NYFD) following 9/11. Part I provides an overview of the author's two-year