Course Description:
Practice Gap/Need and Course Description: The concept of “trauma,” so central to Freud’s (1895b) original formulations of hysteria, continues to occupy a problematic place in psychoanalysis and for analysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapist. This paper re-examines Freud’s concept of trauma and some of its implications for analytic process when viewed from the perspective of his theory of psychic representation as it has been advanced and extended by contemporary authors influenced by the work of Bion, Winnicott, Green and the Paris School of Psychosomatics. Thus, in assessing the consequences of any experience or interaction, trauma can be measured by the extent to which various psychic processes referred to as cathexis (Winnicott 1971), containment (Bion 1970), objectalization (Green 2005), symbolization, figurability (Botella and Botella 2005), representation (Levine et al 2013), and other denominations of mental processing (Marty 1976, 1980) are disrupted or prevented from developing. A brief clinical example is offered as illustration of these views.
Course Link: http://www.mpi-mps.org
CE Value (credits): 2
CE Type: Standard
Sponsor Name:
Michigan Psychoanalytic Society
Contact Information:
Monica Evans
248-851-3380
monicasimmons@ix.netcom.com