Childhood trauma, unconscious conflict and developmental transformation

Abstract

Trauma is the subject of increasing attention in contemporary psychoanalysis. Its complexities will be explored in a clinical case, emphasizing traumatic experience and unconscious conflict across developmental phases. The patient, a young adult white man began analysis complaining of anxiety and depression. Born to adolescent parents, he had experienced infantile stress and childhood traumatic illness. Needy, greedy, and dependent, he was gratified by the frequency and intimacy of psychoanalysis. Genetic interpretation and reconstruction were particularly important in the analytic process. Analytic progress with attenuation of unconscious conflict and developmental transformation proved enduring after termination.

Key words:

• trauma
• conflict
• fantasies
• regression
• adolescent

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Harold P. Blum

Author

Harold P. Blum, MD, is a training and supervising analyst at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Education affiliated with New York University School of Medicine. He is a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, executive director emeritus of the Sigmund Freud Archives, and president of the Psychoanalytic Research and Development Fund. He is also past editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, past vice president of the International Psychoanalytical Association, and retired clinical professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine. Dr Blum is author of more than 170 psychoanalytic papers and several books. He is the recipient of numerous awards and lectureships, including the inaugural Sigourney Award, and Mahler, Hartmann, and Lorand prizes; the S. Freud lectures in New York, London, Vienna, and Frankfurt; the A. Freud, Hartmann, Brill, Friend, and Sperling Lectures; two plenary addresses to the American Psychoanalytic Association; and the Robert Waelder Memorial Lecture, Philadelphia. In addition, he is chair of five symposia on psychoanalysis and art, Florence, Italy.