In the Shadow of the Towers: The Role of Retraumatization and Political Action in the Evolution of a Psychoanalyst

In this paper, I discuss some early and more recent experiences of trauma and retraumatization and how they have shaped my development as a psychoanalyst. The point is often made that when we present a patient, we are also presenting ourselves. I suspect the opposite is true as well, and I hope that in presenting myself—or, as relationalists might say, some aspects of my multiplicity (Bromberg, 1998)—I have the opportunity to explore some larger issues related to trauma, psychoanalytic training, and clinical theory and practice.

In support of a paper that does stir for me greater than usual feelings of vulnerability, and in the spirit of Sullivan's (1953) contention that “we are all more simply human than otherwise” (p. 32), I want to make reference to the relatively small but important literature that examines not the more commonly reported experiences of patient trauma, but, rather, analyst trauma. As early as 1934, British psychoanalyst Marion Milner (1981), writing under the pseudonym of Joanna Field, briefly mentions early trauma and its relation to inhibition of creativity. The fact that