Guest Editorial

This special edition of the Journal of Analytical Psychology is devoted to a clinical problem that is now becoming a central focus of psychoanalysis, the psychopathology and treatment of trauma. The conceptualization of trauma has been controversial over the history of psychoanalysis, and it is only within the last 10 years that the field has begun to again delve more deeply into its unique psychopathological manifestations. This renewed clinical interest is stimulated by recent attempts to expand psychoanalytic treatment models to patients with early-forming, severe developmental disorders.

The authors in this issue all share a Jungian perspective on clinical matters, and yet it is interesting to note that in their clinical expositions on working with trauma, each has independently incorporated salient information from related disciplines. These papers converge upon the indelible and enduring impact of early trauma on the evolving personality, and frame the treatment upon findings in developmental psychoanalysis, including the groundbreaking work of Winnicott, Fraiberg, and Bowlby. But in addition, as in a previous contribution in the journal (Davies 2002), current data from neuropsycho-analysis is also presented, information that has direct relevance to models of both the psychopathogenesis and treatment of early attachment trauma. In my own work I have suggested that a rapprochement between psychoanalysis and neurobiology is now at hand, and asserted that psychoanalysis, the scientific study of the unconscious mind, can offer and gain valuable contributions in ongoing dialogue with the other life sciences (Schore 1994, 1997).

This interdisciplinary perspective is especially valuable to a deeper understanding of trauma, a phenomenon that impacts both mind and body and thereby severely impairs both psychological and biological functions. Indeed, a number of other disciplines are now intensively investigating the psychobiological effects of traumatic stress. Current p