Did You Say He Has a Hitler Mustache?: Analytic Vulnerability and Destabilization in the Face of Trauma

Abstract

This paper looks at analytic vulnerability and destabilization through a detailed clinical example. There are different ways in which we may be vulnerable with our patients. In this paper I describe the raw and sudden vulnerability of allowing ourselves to be in a place of not knowing when both patient and analyst are unable “to see.” I describe an experience in which I lose my ability “to see,” both literally and metaphorically, while in session with a patient who is unable “to see” because she has dissociated her experience of loss and her experience of a sense of danger when in the presence of her stepfather. I link this clinical experience to the patient’s dissociated feelings and to my history of intergenerational trauma as well to current cultural violence and hate.

Notes

¹ During the week these sessions took place, two videos of Black men being shot and killed by police were national news. Hours before this session, the second video was released showing a man, Philando Castile, being shot multiple times by police who had pulled him over for a broken taillight. His girlfriend and her four-year-old daughter were in the car.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sandra Silverman

Sandra Silverman, LCSW, is faculty, supervisor and co-chair of curriculum at The Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy. She is faculty and supervisor at The Stephen Mitchell Center for Relational Studies. She is in private practice in New York City.