Time-Soaked: How Trauma Submerges In and Out of Time

Abstract

This clinical presentation explores how we are submerged in time as patients and analysts, particularly when intergenerational traumas are present. The temporal dimension of this submerged time may involve an engulfing past that is heavy with destructiveness. This paper examines how a patient and analyst emerge from such a past. I suggest a patient may begin to feel a sense of “self in time” (Seligman, 2016) when a foundation for mutual recognition is established through implicit gestures and nonverbal interactions. Once this level of interaction becomes enlivened, time may begin as well as the process of becoming a self with an other.

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Notes on contributors

Bob Bartlett

Bob Bartlett, Ph.D., is in private practice in Manhattan as well as in White Plains, NY.