Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,

Thank you for publishing the Roundtable discussion on exploring dissociation and Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). This rich conversation among these senior psychoanalysts is a “must read” for all candidates and faculty. It is full of information—both historical and current—on trauma, neuroscience, complexity theory, DID and DDNOS, as well as the suggestion that dissociation might be the most useful model of the mind that we know so far.

This discussion, unlike many psychoanalytic round tables, is a collaborative one that welcomes both curiosity and disagreement. For example, in thinking about dissociation, the discussants locate it in psychoanalytic history, then foreground it as a useful model of the mind for many reasons, including the idea that it is more experientially near to both patient and analyst. And in trying to find a definition of trauma, one discussant suggests that trauma is that which causes dissociation. She emphasizes the importance of this subjective definition of trauma—that it is something that overwhelms an individual’s mind—as opposed to the perception that trauma is an event. The discussion widens as “event trauma” such as 9/11 is acknowledged, perhaps or perhaps not influencing the subjective nature of trauma and dissociation. Discussants came down on different sides of this issue. I was delighted to see the group opening up to more and more questions. No one here had an answer or a “certainty.”

There has been a change of paradigms in epistemological theories over the last century. Much of that change is gradually being integrated into psychoanalytic thinking. The main way this is evidenced in psychoanalytic theory is the way we view our patients: not as potentially destructive beings needing to resolve their inner demons, but as people who needed to organize early life in the best possible way to survive and thrive. In addition, all that is true for the patient is also true of the analyst. For many of us there is no news here