Trauma and place identity: the breaking and repairing of place attachment in the mind of an adolescent with developmental trauma

ABSTRACT

This paper illustrates features of psychoanalytic psychotherapy with a young adolescent who had experienced adverse childhood events, culminating in cumulative trauma. This led to the atrophying of her ‘sense of place’ and ‘place identity’, both integral to the development of a sense of self. The patient’s memory of places seemed to have been pulverised and required the contact and containment of the adult mind of the therapist to find recomposition. A therapeutic relationship developed, thanks to the sharing of objects and places which had become fragmented in the patient’s mind. There was a need for locations, paths, places, indeed entire nations needed to be emotionally recomposed in the transference, to assume rudimentary but thinkable forms. The psychotherapy made it possible to find part of my young patient’s memory through play, and the value of intensive but short-term work became evident. Psychotherapy allowed partial repair of the capacity for place attachment, which facilitated the exploration of the external world, the possibility of attachment to new places, and the construction of new place identities, alongside her developing sense of herself.

KEYWORDS:

• Place attachment
• developmental trauma
• psychoanalytic psychotherapy
• place identity
• transference
• countertransference
• trauma

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Place Identity is a concept derived from Social Geography, Urban Planning, and Environmental Psychology. It describes the experience of emotionally-imbued meaning and cognitions attached to places in a physical setting. Such experiences influence and inform a sense of self, and self in relation to a social, physical and cultural environment and personal history.

2. A pseudonym has been used, and identifying features have been changed. Sarah’s family gave consent for clinical material to be published both at the start of therapy and when reapproached regarding this paper. They were given the option to read the paper, but declined.

3. In Italy, we divide this developmental period into pre-adolescence (11–14 years) and adolescence (14–18 years, and older). Sarah was pre-adolescent when she met her adoptive parents.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Fiorenzo Ranieri

Fiorenzo Ranieri is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist. He works for the Italian National Health Service in Arezzo (Tuscany), at the Department of Mental Health, Childhood and Adolescence Unit. He also works privately as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. His main interests are: ‘hikikomori’ (acute social withdrawal), extreme risk seeking, trauma.