How Can That Be Me? Developmental Disruption in a Young Adult

ABSTRACT

A young adult who experiences a psychotic break is at high risk of feeling that his or her life and sense of Self before the de-compensation were fraudulent. This article describes a young man who suffered such a trauma and deeply felt this sense of fraudulence and covers how his treatment developed. We established a dual narrative: one that explicated the precursors to his break and one that showed how the life that he had previously held to be his personal story were both authentic. The capacity to integrate the two created a sense of wholeness that permitted him to re-establish himself in his everyday life.

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Marsha Levy-Warren

Marsha Levy-Warren, Ph.D. is a Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst in the International Psychoanalytical Association and the Contemporary Freudian Society; and Faculty and Clinical Consultant at The NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis.