Feeling Less Than Real: Alterations in Self-experience After Torture

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to bring a phenomenological perspective to bear on a specific problem: how to understand the diminished sense of reality that is often reported by persons who have suffered severe and prolonged interpersonal trauma. For this purpose I turn to resources from two traditions. First, I present a phenomenological account of the intersubjective constitution of objective experience, which is then complemented by a developmental account of how the very small child comes to inhabit a world of shared mind-independent things. On this basis, I aim to show how the sense of reality, as the clear and dependable sense of the difference in experience between inner life and external reality, is an interpersonal developmental achievement that goes hand in hand with the development of the sense of self. I will in particular draw on Husserlian phenomenology and Winnicott’s psychoanalytic perspective on developmental psychology.

KEYWORDS:

• Sense of reality
• sense of self
• trauma
• phenomenology
• psychoanalysis
• vulnerability
• objective experience

Notes

1 Arendt, The Life of the Mind, 49.

2 Winnicott, ‘Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena’, 89–97 (95, 96).

3 Herman, Trauma and Recovery.

4 See Cloitre et al., ‘Evidence for Proposed ICD-11 PTSD and Complex PTSD’, and Cloitre et al., ‘Distinguishing PTSD, Complex PTSD, and Borderline’; Elklit, Hyland, and Shevlin, ‘Evidence of Symptom Profiles Consistent’; Knefel et al., ‘Update to an Evaluation of ICD-11 PTSD and Complex PTSD Criteria’; and Perkonigg et al., ‘Evidence for Two Different ICD-11 Posttraumatic Stress’, 317–28.

5 Minkowski, Lived Time, 273–74, 125.

6 One must, of course, differentiate properly: the diminished sense of reality that is the topic here is different from the much more alien and often frightening sense of disintegration that we find prevalent in schizophrenia. Minkowski writes mostly in relation to schizophrenia, yet in line with his inspiration from Bergson, he often makes observations that apply in a more general way to human existence. So, I find, with the notion of “me-here-now” which denotes a basic and affectively imbued sense of self that necessarily underlies human self-consciousness.

7 Herman, Trauma and Recovery, 53.

8 Husserl, Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität: Texte aus dem Nachlaß ; zweiter Teil: 1921–1928; Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie; Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge.

9 Zahavi, Husserl’s Phenomenology, 115.

10 Noe, ‘Experience of the World in Time’, 26–32.

11 Zahavi, Husserl’s Phenomenology, 110.

12 Gallagher and Zahavi, The Phenomenological Mind, 204.

13 Cf. Husserl, Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstesens; Zur Phänomenologie Der Intersubjektivität: Texte Aus Dem Nachlaß ; Dritter Teil: 1929–1935.

14 Crowell, Normativity and Phenomenology in Husserl and Heidegger, 129.

15 Wittgenstein, Über Gewißheit, §125, 133, 247.

16 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV. 4th ed., 1994. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association. DSM-5 succeeded it in May 2013.

17 The Manual on Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment is commonly known as the Istanbul Protocol. Adopted by the United Nations as an official document in 1999, it is the first set of international guidelines for documentation of torture and its consequences. While a non-binding document, it sets out the guidelines for the investigation and documentation of torture, which is an obligation under international law.

18 Farkas, ‘A Sense of Reality’, 399–416.

19 Freud, Das Unbehagen in Der Kultur.

20 Loewald, Papers on Psychoanalysis, 5.

21 Winnicott, Psycho-Analytic Explorations, 222.

22 Winnicott, Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena, 91.

23 Wittgenstein, Über Gewißheit, 1970.

24 Zahavi, Husserl's Phenomenology, 115.