A new language for traumatic experience: From dissociation–enactment to the fracturing of embodied wholeness

Abstract

When viewed from the vantage point of embodiment, the psychoanalytic understanding of traumatic experience is transformed. In this article, a new language is proposed that describes traumatic experience as disturbances in the flow of an individual’s effortless, unconscious focusing on oneself (“I”), the other or others (“you”), on oneself as connected to others (“we”), and on all that involves the nonhuman surround (“world”). From this perspective, developmental and late-onset trauma models are seen as overlapping rather than competing. The authors support their proposal by drawing on self psychology, relational theory, and the Boston Change Process Study Group and offer illustrative clinical material.

Key words:

• language
• traumatic experience
• embodied wholeness
• dissociation
• imagination

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jon Sletvold

Jon Sletvold, PsyD, is a licensed specialist in clinical psychology and psychotherapy. He was founding board director of the Norwegian Character Analytic Institute and is currently a faculty, training and supervising analyst at the Character Analytic Institute.

Doris Brothers

Doris Brothers, PhD, is co-founder and faculty at the Training and Research in Intersubjective Self Psychology Foundation and is a member of the Advisory Board and Council of the International Association of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology, New York, USA.