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Upon studying the two issues, I have developed a model of successful analysis of a highly traumatized patient that begins with my entering the experiences of two whole people, the patient and analyst. The patient is expressing facets of chronic trauma that are dissociated and repressed. As a result of the dissociation and repression, she is without an experience of agency or ownership of the facets of her chronic trauma. She feels hopeless in taking any ownership that would bring her closer to transforming the facets of her trauma into her narrative with a greater appreciation of what she has lived through in the context of her living today. As the trauma is repeated, she feels helpless, powerless, and unable to control her affects in a state of being injured while being unable to be reached by empathy. To even try to communicate her trauma fills her with defeat and generates unbearable humiliation. The most pressing question for the patient in her analysis is: How can I go on living in the present moment if I am unable to elevate my trauma into a more organized “consciousness?”
In the clinical situation, there is an intersubjective partnership toward making coherence from the dissociated and repressed parts of the patient. For the analyst, she becomes emotional, immersed in the patient’s trauma with a replica of her own trauma. In this state, she works toward bringing coherence and a narrative out of her patient’s experience by promoting a relationship that is safe while doing work of reaching out with interpretations. The safe relationship immersed with interpretations demonstrates that one can feel safe and work toward understanding the past from the present by baring the vulnerability of it all.
In my Prologue of the first issue, I said that an exploration of highly traumatized patients in a successful analysis should bring clarity of the place of reality in the analytic situation. In the patient’s experience, we see a gross distortion because, in the past, realit