Bearing the unbearable: ancestral transmission through dreams and moving metaphors in the analtyic field

Abstract

This paper explores how untold and unresolved intergenerational trauma may be transmitted through unconscious channels of communication, manifesting in the dreams of descendants. Unwitting carriers for that which was too horrific for their ancestors to bear, descendants may enter analysis through an unconscious need to uncover past secrets, piece together ancestral histories before the keys to comprehending their terrible inheritance die with their forebears. They seek the relational containment of the analytic relationship to provide psychological conditions to bear the unbearable, know the unknowable, speak the unspeakable and redeem the unredeemable. In the case of 'Rachael', initial dreams gave rise to what Hobson (1984) called 'moving metaphors of self' in the analytic field. Dream imagery, projective and introjective processes in the transference-countertransference dynamics gradually revealed an unknown ancestral history. I clarify the back and forth process from dream to waking dream thoughts to moving metaphors and differentiate the moving metaphor from a living symbol. I argue that the containment of the analytic relationship nested within the security of the analytic space is a necessary precondition for such healing processes to occur.

Historical Trauma, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder And ‘’Hate Crime Victims: A Review

“…As noted by Jesus Jaime-Diaz [15] the origins of intergenerational trauma can be found in the 1966 work of Vivian M Rakoff, whose work related to survivors of the holocaust [16]. The development of 'hate crime' legislation in Europe has been partly related to such extreme bias related offences, and the subsequent trauma inflicted.…”

Disquiet in the consulting room: everything/nothing that is said here is confidential

“…(Richardson , p.69)Dreams and dream imagery can represent personal as well as transmitted collective trauma (Connolly ). Immersed in being receptive to unconscious experience, analysts can engage in the waking dream of reverie with and on behalf of their patients (Pickering ). Words and enactments directed by analysands and patients towards challenging the boundaries of the vas, and in the consulting room through ‘attacks’ on the analyst, can be attempts to navigate their way to symbolising both personal and collective experience (Meyerowitz‐Katz , , West , , ).…”