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IJP 16:361-362 (1935)

General: Sándor Ferenczi. 'Gedanken über das Trauma.' Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, 1934, Bd. XX, S. 5–12.

Author: H. Mayor

Abstract

I.The psychology of shock. Shock always comes unexpectedly. It must have been preceded by a sense of security, which in the result proves to have been misplaced. The immediate consequence of every trauma is anxiety, which consists in the sense of one's inability to cope with a painful situation by the usual means (removal of the stimulus, flight into phantasy). There remains only the outlet of self-destruction. The part of the self most easily destroyed is consciousness. In this way there comes about a psychic disorientation, which helps (1) as outlet (substitute self-destruction). (2) by elimination of further perception of the disturbance; (3) by reconstructing the fragments in the sense of a wish-fulfilment.
II.Revision of the theory of dreams. All dreams are attempts, more or less successful, to bring traumatic experiences to a more successful outcome than was possible at the time (traumatolytic function). The day-residues (and life-residues) are unconscious psychic impressions which have never been adequately dealt with and avail themselves of the wish-fulfilling capacities of the dream to this end.
Clinical dream-material is adduced to show that the deeper the state of unconsciousness, the better the prospect of arriving at a repetition of the trauma, which has left no memory traces behind, even in the unconscious, and must therefore be repeated and brought to perception and motor-discharge for the first time under more favourable conditions. The technical device to attain this end is the induction of a state of deep trance.
III.The trauma in the relaxation technique. The necessity of imposing some limit on the freedom of the patient, combined with the extent of the freedom which he has actually been allowed, causes him to reproduce the original traumatic condition. In the trance-state, the patient's sole link with the external world is the person of the analyst, who tirelessly urges him, in the very midst of his affects, to accomplish the necessar

IJP 16:361-362 (1935)

General: Sándor Ferenczi. 'Gedanken über das Trauma.' Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, 1934, Bd. XX, S. 5–12.

Author: H. Mayor

Abstract

I.The psychology of shock. Shock always comes unexpectedly. It must have been preceded by a sense of security, which in the result proves to have been misplaced. The immediate consequence of every trauma is anxiety, which consists in the sense of one's inability to cope with a painful situation by the usual means (removal of the stimulus, flight into phantasy). There remains only the outlet of self-destruction. The part of the self most easily destroyed is consciousness. In this way there comes about a psychic disorientation, which helps (1) as outlet (substitute self-destruction). (2) by elimination of further perception of the disturbance; (3) by reconstructing the fragments in the sense of a wish-fulfilment.
II.Revision of the theory of dreams. All dreams are attempts, more or less successful, to bring traumatic experiences to a more successful outcome than was possible at the time (traumatolytic function). The day-residues (and life-residues) are unconscious psychic impressions which have never been adequately dealt with and avail themselves of the wish-fulfilling capacities of the dream to this end.
Clinical dream-material is adduced to show that the deeper the state of unconsciousness, the better the prospect of arriving at a repetition of the trauma, which has left no memory traces behind, even in the unconscious, and must therefore be repeated and brought to perception and motor-discharge for the first time under more favourable conditions. The technical device to attain this end is the induction of a state of deep trance.
III.The trauma in the relaxation technique. The necessity of imposing some limit on the freedom of the patient, combined with the extent of the freedom which he has actually been allowed, causes him to reproduce the original traumatic condition. In the trance-state, the patient's sole link with the external world is the person of the analyst, who tirelessly urges him, in the very midst of his affects, to accomplish the necessar