Petrification and Revitalization: The Role of Somatic Narration in Working Through A War Trauma

Abstract

The author investigates bodily aspects of the defense organization in the treatment of a soldier suffering from a war traumatization. The patient reports two situations—a bomb attack and the subsequent confrontation with wounded comrades—that had a traumatizing impact. In the treatment process, a phase of stagnation is described before the shared attention is focused on the bodily perception of the patient. His petrified body feeling (“my body feels like concrete”) was systematically examined in the therapeutic process then slowly transformed through shared perception, leading to a process of vitalizing reorganization. This method is called somatic narration. It reverses the defense processes of the encapsulated body engram. This capsule results from the threatening impact of a traumatic event, disorganizing the patient’s body-self. This disorganization then is encapsulated through a process of petrification and avoidance of awareness. The therapeutic process is described in detail. The structure of the bodily unconscious is revealed. The process of reorganization of perception and memory is outlined.

Keywords:

• Trauma
• War trauma
• body
• bodily unconscious
• somatic narration
• encapsulated body engram
• unrepresented state
• memory

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sebastian Leikert

Sebastian Leikert, Dr. in Psychoanalysis, is a Psychoanalyst (DGPT) affiliated member of the DPV/IPA. He is a training analyst, lecturer and supervisor in Heidelberg Saarbruecken, Chairman of the German Society for Psychoanalysis and Music (DGPM), and a member of the editorial boards of the The Psychoanalytic Quaterly and the International Journal of Psychoanalysis.