Mental collapse as “disorganized attachment”: A dynamic understanding for clinicians

Abstract

Unresolved loss and unresolved trauma in adult mothers, and the commonly disorganized attachment pattern developed by their infants, have been repeatedly reported in longitudinal research literature as a crucial correlate or precedent of severe pathology. We describe and illustrate how unresolved loss and unresolved trauma are manifested in verbatim-transcribed language and how they are to be detected, so that psychoanalysts and clinicians in general are able to distinguish them and understand how such “states of mind” evidence the process of fragmentation they involve. We follow each example with a resolved transcript so it can be contrasted with a nonresolved case. We then describe excerpts of a taped “disorganized infant” – an example of infants who are usually babies of unresolved mothers, as shown during the Adult Attachment Interview. The analyst’s ability to identify and understand these “states of mind” and the subsequent sensitive reflection on the transcendental role of primary traumatic relations, which are involved in fear and the destructive dynamics of mental fragmentation – as seen in empirical research on attachment – can facilitate a resourceful integrative analytic scrutiny of the processes gone through by patients, and encourage the discovery of alternatives for working through the disturbing experience.

Key words:

• attachment-disorganization
• unresolved loss
• unresolved trauma
• mental-fragmentation
• dread-of-mother
• fear

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Mayus and Susan Nowogrodski for their support and encouragement to publish the paper, and Teresa Villarreal for her enthusiasm and comments throughout the whole development of the Attachment Research Project.

Notes

1 These examples are taken from the transgenerational research attachment project conducted by the Seminario de Sociopsicoanalisis with Mexican rural and urban dyads (Gojman, Millán, Carlson, Sánchez, Rodarte, González, & Hernández, 2012).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sonia Gojman-de-Millán

Authors

Sonia Gojman-de-Millán holds a PhD in Psychology from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and is a psychoanalyst. She was secretary general of the International Federation of Psychoanalytic Societies and an executive committee member. She is a training, supervising analyst and faculty member at the Seminario de Sociopsicoanálisis A.C. (SEMSOAC). She is a UC at Berkeley certified trainer on the Adult Attachment Interview, training in English (San Diego, Berkeley, Washington D.C., Minneapolis, and Sydney) and in Spanish (Mexico, Barcelona, and Panama). She directs the Attachment and Social Character Research project of Mexican Urban and Rural Dyads. Since 1974, she has been an active social character researcher in various community and intercultural participative action projects. She is member of the Social Character International Network and the Ibero American Network of Attachment RIA, of which she was the former vice president and is a member of the executive committee. Dr. Gojman-de-Millán was formerly a clinical professor, faculty member, and head of the social psychology department of the psychology faculty at the Mexican National University (UNAM).

Salvador Millán

Salvador Millán is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and a cofounder, training and supervising analyst and faculty member of the Seminario de Sociopsicoanálisis A.C. (SEMSOAC), Mexico City. He was a faculty member at the psychiatry department of the medicine faculty at the Mexican National University (UNAM). Dr. Millán is a cofounder and coeditor of Espacio Psicoanalitico the IFPS online journal in Romance languages – Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. He co-directs with Sonia Gojman-de-Millán the Attachment and Social Character Research Project of Mexican Urban and Rural Dyads. Since 1974, he has been an active social character researcher in various communities and intercultural participative action projects.