Dissociation and Counterdissociation: Nuanced and Binary Perceptions of Good and Evil

Abstract

Dissociated experiences are often communicated to analysts. Clinicians may absorb patients' dissociation, thereby creating “counterdissociated” states. Counterdissociation contributes to binary thinking in the analyst similar to black- and-white thinking commonly seen in patients' dissociated states. This can have both positive and negative effects: Counterdissociation may help therapists identify with patients' experience, thereby cementing the therapeutic bond. If analysts remain counterdissociated, however, patients may remain dissociated. As analysts identify their counterdissociation, they may gain insight into patients' needs for dissociation. As they overcome counterdissociation, patients may concurrently overcome dissociation. This allows both to have a more nuanced view of inner experience. With two extended case studies of sexually abused men, this article tracks how an analyst deals with counterdissociation created through intimate contact with dissociated positive and negative introjects of victimizers, thus forming identifications or overidentifications with the patients' abused parts.

Keywords:

• dissociation
• counterdissociation
• binary thinking
• countertransference
• countertrauma
• vicarious traumatization

Notes

¹ For ease of expression, and because I am writing about male patients in this article and I am myself male, I will use the masculine pronoun throughout when referring to victims, patients, and analysts. What I say applies equally to female patients, analysts, and victims.

² Jeffrey Dahmer was a serial killer and sex offender who committed rape, murder, and dismemberment of 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991. Many of his later murders involved necrophilia and cannibalism (Wikipedia entry, n.d.).

³ “Grooming” refers to nonviolent behaviors designed to gain the trust of a potential child victim, leading slowly to increasingly seductive and sexualized behaviors and demands (Lanning, 2001; Clemente & Hakes, 2018).

⁴ See Burmester (2018) for a fuller analysis of the dissociation surrounding the Sandusky case.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Richard B. Gartner

Richard B. Gartner, Ph.D., is training analyst, supervising analyst, faculty, and founding director of the Sexual Abuse Service at the William Alanson White Institute. A cofounder of MaleSurvivor.org who is frequently quoted in the media about male sexual victimization, he is the author of Betrayed as Boys: Psychodynamic Treatment of Sexually Abused Men (1999) and Beyond Betrayal: Taking Charge of Your Life after Boyhood Sexual Abuse (2005). His most recent edited books are Trauma and Countertrauma, Resilience and Counterresilience: Insights from Psychoanalysts and Trauma Experts (2017); Understanding the Sexual Betrayal of Boys and Men: The Trauma of Sexual Abuse (2018); and Healing Sexually Betrayed Men and Boys: Treatment for Sexual Abuse, Assault, and Trauma (2018).