Angels in the Architecture: Contemporary Case of a Orphic Functioning

So here the archangel paused

Betwixt the world destroyed and the world restored

We entertain angels unaware when we treat traumatized individuals. I refer to “angels of the psyche” who come to permanently dwell in the private, interpsychic architecture of certain of our traumatized patients' lives after such cataclysmic events as sexual abuse, physical abuse, war, or horrific environmental and natural disasters. These cancerous traumas invade and radiate massive fragmentation of the self. In describing these nuclear traumas, Sandor Ferenczi (1929) spoke of an “atomization of personality.” More astonishingly, in his Clinical Diary (1988) he went on to say that in the aftermath of such devastation, a “guardian angel” of sorts sometimes appears. Sandor Ferenczi and his patient, Elizabeth Severn, called this guardian angel, life preserving fragment of personality, “Orpha”.† Expanding on Severn and Ferenczi's long-forgotten “Orpha” phenomenon and its importance in the treatment of trauma, I invite you into my work with Sarah.

There were no epiphanies, nor did I hear even the ephemeral flapping of angelic wings that day I first laid eyes on Sarah in the waiting room. Orpha does not reside in intersubjective space. Sarah immediately communicated to me in every way that “Life is agony,” just as surely as “Water is wet.” Her hair was cropped short and speckled with flecks of gray and was agonizingly oily. She wore glasses—no hint of make-up—and in every session she wore the same navy blue sweat jacket with a