You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
In this chapter I shall discuss the effect of disruption of transgenerational continuity on the developing sense of self. I shall view the influence of “tradition” on development, as well as on the ability to maintain the integrity of the self even at times of crisis, from within a self psychological perspective.
Heinz Kohut referred to the sense of psychic continuity as one of the central hallmarks of the cohesive self.1 Traumatic experiences that cannot be integrated into the fabric of the self interrupt the sense of continuity. Repression and disavowal are defenses by which such disruptions are mended. However, these defenses are also responsible for the symptomatic elaborations of these traumatic disruptions. Repression and disavowal create “empty pages in one's life's narrative” that may unexpectedly and intrusively call attention to themselves.
The painful retrieval of hitherto repressed traumatic memories and the following integration into the biographic narrative is here of central