Trauma and the loss of basic trust

Abstract

Ferenczi's discovery of trauma was labelled by Freud as a return “to errors” that he himself upheld he had committed before 1897. During the dramatic period running from the Wiesbaden Congress (September 1932) to Ferenczi's death (May 1933), Freud wrote to numerous correspondents (among them Jones, Eitingon, and his daughter Anna) complaining that Ferenczi's latest theoretical elaboration corresponded to a simple return to the origin of psychoanalysis and was also a symptom of a serious psychosis. The theme of this paper is that Freud's opinion concerning Ferenczi's concept of trauma is a result of misunderstanding: the trauma as described by Ferenczi is not the one that preceded (in Freud's theory) the desertion of the seduction theory, but is something that is much deeper and mortifying, where the sexuality role is less central. The author pauses to ponder and reflect on the importance of the concept of Erschütterung as a cause in losing basic trust, a perspective that moves far from Freudian sex-centrism that puts psychoanalysis face to face with the sufferings of the victims of extreme trauma.

Key words:

• trauma
• Ferenczi
• basic trust
• post-traumatic states
• psychic concussion
• Erschütterung
• psychic death

Notes

¹ In the spoken dialect of my region, the verb becciare, perhaps from the French baiser, means “to copulate.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gianni Guasto

Author

Gianni Guasto, MD, is a psychiatrist with special experience in post-traumatic disorders in abused women and children. He has been secretary of the Associazione Culturale Sàndor Ferenczi since its foundation. In 2010, he was elected psychoanalytic fellow of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry.