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… if the present process is to have a different outcome from the original trauma, then the victim of traumatic shock must be offered something in reality, at least as much caring attention, or a genuine intention to provide it, as a severely traumatized child must have. (Ferenczi, Clinical Diary, p. 28).
… there is a radical difference between the suffering in the other, where it is unforgivable to me, solicits me and calls me, and suffering in me, my own experience of suffering, whose constitutional or congenital uselessness can take on a meaning, the only one of which suffering is capable, in becoming a suffering for the suffering of someone else (Levinas, 1998, p. 94).
By way of introduction, let me thank Kenneth Frank for inviting me to participate in this discussion both of Paul Wachtel's superb clinical demonstration and of the conversation—with eminent colleagues—that followed. Though I was not present at the conference, I have seen Wachtel's video and read the transcripts. Frank also explicitly invited me to wear my philosopher's hat for this discussion, and though I can never really take it off, I especially thank him for that.
Speaking first as a clinician, I hear in Louise the traumatized “wise baby” of Sándor Ferenczi (Ferenczi, 1949). She has needed always to care for others as well as for her own survival, and in addition, her family history and northern European culture have not permitted her to express need for anything from anyone from the day she was born. Like Jody Davies and Paul Wachtel, I would have supported her efforts to stay intact in front of such an uncountable audience and in a consultation, but like Davies and like most of
those who have commented, I sensed the enormity of the efforts she has had to make just to keep going in her life. [Editors' note: Jody Davies was one of the respondents at the 2009 conference at which Wachtel presented his clinical work with Louise.] The shocking character of the events she reported in an almost offha