In the Shadow of Armageddon: Working Analytically After Trump’s Election

Abstract

The election of Donald Trump confronted patients and analysts with a shared trauma reminiscent of 9/11. Session after session, in the midst of our anguish, we were faced with patients who were emotionally flooded themselves, struggling in ways which sometimes complemented and sometimes threatened our own coping skills. There was simply no place to hide. In this paper, I utilize trauma theory to examine some of the clinical dynamics that ensued in the days following the election, as each member of the dyad’s trauma history, coping style and dissociative mechanisms created sometimes destabilizing enactments. I offer several clinical examples in which my tendency to cope through dissociation and withdrawal was threatened by—and threatening to—my most emotionally vulnerable patients. In such a fraught time, how does each member of the dyad profoundly impact the other?

Keywords:

• dissociation
• Donald Trump
• election
• enactment
• shared trauma.

Notes

¹ A number of authors (Goldman in Gensler et al., 2002; Goren, 2005) questioned labeling 9/11 a “trauma.” Their concerns would be at least equally true for Trump’s victory. Nonetheless, I do believe the election, which was experienced as catastrophic and initially too overwhelming to process by so many, can be considered traumatic. I use the concept generally in this article, without addressing the specifics of its definition.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eric Sherman

Eric Sherman, LCSW, is a faculty member and supervisor at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies in New York and the Center for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis of New Jersey. He is a contributor to several books and the author of Notes from the Margins: The Gay Analyst’s Subjectivity in the Treatment Setting. His work has appeared in Psychoanalytic Dialogues, The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, and Psychoanalytic Perspectives. He is in private practice in New York City and Montclair, New Jersey.