Comment: “Affective Attunement, Vulnerability, Empathy: The Analytic Experience With Veronica” by Paolo Stramba-Badiale

Abstract

The impact of trauma affects the very foundation of development, specifically the fundamental underpinnings of executive functioning, which involve implicit knowledge and memory operating outside of focal attention, verbal expression, and conscious awareness. It is in the zone of implicit knowledge that not only trauma resides, but also mutative change can take place. The nature of trauma, dissociation, and traumatic memories are considered. The case of Veronica is reviewed highlighting the role of trauma, dissociation, and enactment, with a view toward emphasizing nonverbal implicit relational interactions in fostering mutative change consisting of something more than interpretation. Enactments prompted an integrative collaboration, a dimension of the treatment alliance, and spontaneous problem solving in the context of stripping away traditional roles of patient and analyst and theoretically orchestrated scripts of engagement. Enactments carried the personal signature of both participants apart from the strictures of theory and technique.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Howard D. Lerner

Dr. Lerner is1 a member of the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute and on the faculty of the University of Michigan.