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.
This article describes some events in the psychotherapy of a survivor of profound childhood sexual abuse. These events involved dissociative states of the patient interestingly interacting with corresponding dissociations in myself.
In my clinical work with patients who suffer from dissociative disorders (e.g., Perlman, 1993, 1995, 1999), I have come to appreciate the power of intense affects, dissociation, and triggering of traumatic material in both the patient and myself. Each of us in the therapeutic dyad reacts to the other, mutually influencing and shaping the other (Lichtenberg, 1983; Davies and Frawley, 1992, 1994; Lachmann and Beebe, 1992, 1993; Beebe and Lachmann, 1994).1
Herman (1992) asserts in her classic book, Trauma and Recovery, that “no one can hold atrocities in their mind for any length of time.” For both patient or therapist, these horrors provoke too many intense affects. This truism ripples through clinical work with trauma survivors.