Julie's museum: The evolution of thinking, dreaming and historicization in the treatment of traumatized patients

Abstract

The author contends that, following Freud, trauma may be viewed as a disruption of the ego's 'protective shield' and that a central factor of this shield is an internalized relationship to a thinking-containing mother. Severe trauma destroy this inner connection, resulting in the reversal of a-function and the establishment of a rigid traumatic organization (ss-screen) that brings coherence to the shattered psyche. However, this is an 'organized chaos' in which concrete forms of thinking predominate. The patient's ability to think, dream and imagine is significantly curtailed and she is consequently locked in a traumatic world from which she is unable to evolve. He offers a detailed case history to illustrate these points and the vital role the analyst's imaginative capacities play in the analysis of such individuals. Finally, he addresses the development of the capacity to represent the trauma, starting with primitive, often somatically encoded experiences, and evolving toward the capacity for historicization.

Memory in dreams

“…In the case of post‐traumatic dreams or memories (those following a violent trauma), the degree of dissociation is probably much more radical; for this reason too, they tend to be presented in analysis at a much later stage and with a greater sense of alienation and incomprehensibility, as the clinical accounts of certain authors show (Brown, 2006; Varvin, 2003; Yovell, 2000). With the dreams described here, on the other hand, once they are placed in the right perspective, copious associations arise in the patient’s mind so that he feels relieved of anxiety and confusion, and, later, gradually comes to see them as surprising insights that reveal the truth of his past.…”

The Transformation of Ashtanga Yoga: Implicit Memory, Dreams, and Consciousness for Survivors of Complex Trauma

“…Through vivid imagery, dreams give voice to the unconscious and our task is to understand the dreams in order to bring an alternative viewpoint to the unconscious (Edinger, 1972;Hillman, 1979;Sedgwick, 2001;Kalsched, 2003). This task would be highly relevant to the dreams and images of those who eISSN 1303-5150 www.neuroquantology.com 260 have suffered various forms of trauma, particularly relational trauma, as well as their recovery through body-based meditative practices such as yoga (Faber, Saayman and Touyz, 1978;De Saussure, 1981;Brenneis, 1994;Hartmann et al, 2001;Kalsched, 2003;Brown, 2006;Phelps et al, 2011).…”

Bion’s discovery of alpha function: Thinking under fire on the battlefield and in the consulting room

“…Though Bion rarely, if ever, mentions trauma in his psychoanalytic writings, many of the characteristics of the traumatized and psychotic mind are similar: the blunted capacity for abstract thought and dreaming (see below) and the tendency to fragmentation are two examples. Additionally, I propose the existence in severely traumatized patients of a traumatic organization which rigidly holds together a shattered psyche and can feel impermeable to analytic access just like the psychotic part of the mind (Brown, 2005, 2006). Much of what Bion ascribes to the psychotic mind also applies to the severely traumatized individual.…”

“…Two recent papers by Szykierski (2010) and Souter (2009) offer close readings of Bion's accounts of World War I in his diaries, especially the Battle of Amiens, and convincingly link these to his theory of the container ⁄ contained (Szykierski) and to ''the horrors of psychic abandonment'' (Souter, 2009, p. 795). In other writings, I (Brown, 2005(Brown, , 2006(Brown, , 2011a have suggested that Bion's (1957) notion of the psychotic part of the personality may also derive from his military exploits in which he was exposed to the structure of split-off parts of the self in severely traumatized individuals. 3 In preparing to write this paper, I became aware of a period for over a year from 1959 through 1960 during which Bion's ideas about alpha function slowly evolved through a long series of entries in Cogitations (Bion, 1992) and wondered whether this intense focus might have been associated with some important events in his concurrent life.…”