Reencounter With History and Memory Through a Therapeutic Process

Abstract

In this co-authored paper, two clinical cases of extreme trauma from political persecution are presented, both of which were treated at ILAS, a center dedicated to treating survivors of such traumatization in Chile. In the first instance we refer to a woman who has been imprisoned and tortured in the first years of the dictatorship and who seeks psychotherapy 30 years after her experience. In the second case we refer to the daughter of whose parents were both detained and disappeared who seeks psychotherapy after she testifies in a film about the political repression in Chile. Both come to therapy many years after their original experience, triggered by testimony they gave for a documentary film about the Coup d’Etat in Chile. Using our understanding of intersubjective theory, most important the aspects of recognition and witnessing, we underscore the crucial role of the social context of the therapeutic dyad that allows the silence to lift. This gives way to the reparative function that words have when spoken to a live available person who represents society at large.

Notes

¹ This Commission (CNPPT, better known as Comisión Valech) worked for a first period in 2003–2004 and received the testimonies of over 35,000 people. The Commission worked for a second period during 2010, and another 28,000 people testified. The testimony was received in one or more interviews by people who had voluntarily applied to perform this task. People who declared were given the possibility of being referred to a human rights institution, among which our institution, ILAS, was the most important.

² The Spanish expression for giving birth is “dar a luz,” which literally means “bring into the light.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elena Gómez

Elena Gómez, M.D. Psychiatry; Psychoanalyst; Ph.D. in Psychoanalysis. She is working in the consequences of Extreme Traumatization that originated from the political persecution of the dictatorship, since the first years of the coup d’Etat. She is Founding Member of ILAS (Latinoamerican Institute of Mental Health and Human Rights) and Director of this institute. She is Teacher and Supervisor in the Universidad Albert Hurtado and she has been teacher in other universities. She has a great number of publications and in 2013 published the book Trauma Relacional Temprano: efectos en los hijos de personas que han experimentado persecución política.

Juana Kovalskys

Juana Kovalskys, M.A., is supervisor of the Chilean Society of Clinical Psychology, a member of ILAS and IARPP- Chile, and professor at University Alberto Hurtado. Her publications include “Trauma social, modernidad e identidades sustraídas: Nuevas formas de participación” and “Trauma y apego: su impacto en el vinculo terapéutico.”