2． The actuality of trauma during infancy and early childhood.
This
second point that Itzkowitz raises might also invite a “turn” in our
conceptualization of the mind in psychoanalysis. In Freud’s drive model, the
goal for psychoanalysis was to make unconscious conscious with an assumption
that repressed sexual and aggressive drives in the child need to be dealt with.
Freud established this theory after he rejected the actuality of the sexual
trauma that a child experiences in 1897. If we accept and acknowledge the
actuality of trauma, the whole basis of Freud’s theory might need to be looked
at from a different angle. Howell & Itzkowitz states (2016a), “Even
Freud’s most influential theories- for example, the Oedipus complex - can
readily and easily be deconstructed in terms of the underlying motifs of the
most heinous type of child abuse; infanticide, murder”. (Ross, 1982, 2016a, p8)
However
actual trauma and its fantasy might not always be clearly distinguished from
each other and quite often both of them can co-exist in the patients’ history.
In Freud’s own case histories, such as Dora (1905) and “Wolfman”(1907), both
trauma and fantasy are described. In these cases, actual trauma and its
transformation and elaboration on a fantasy levels both need to be looked into to
fully understand its implications. Furthermore, an “actual trauma” itself could
also have a dual nature: its objective reality and its subjective meaning. As
Howell states “trauma may refer both to an objectively catastrophic event
and to something that feels subjectively upsetting” (Howell, 2011,.P74)
In
order to handle the dual nature of trauma, i.e., its actuality vs. its elaboration
on a fantasy level, Howell and Itzkowitz introduced new concepts related to
dissociation. In their paper “Is trauma
analysis psychoanalysis?”, they stress the ubiquity of trauma (“Everywhereness
of trauma”) and discuss the “dissociative nature of human mind”(2016b, p.37).
They quote Bromberg and state; ”repression enables a person to live with less
interference from unacceptable impulses and desires as well as from extremely
upsetting and unpleasant memories” (Bromberg, 2006). In contrast, Dissociation
occurs when the experience was so overwhelming that it could not be emotionally
borne or consciously formulated.
Thus, they suggest that in order to handle dual nature of
trauma, dissociation as well as repression need to be used. They also suggest
that this might require a different type of unconscious “dissociative unconscious”
which they explain “is characterized by gaps in our CS experience”. This “dissociative
unconscious” while "unconscious experiences in these gaps continue to
exist as living experience in that self-state (Howell & Itzkovitz, 2016.
p.38).
What
their ideas suggest is that the dual nature of trauma would require both types
of mental mechanism; “dissociative unconscious” mobilized when the actuality of
trauma is so intense and defense mechanism of dissociation is mobilized instead
of repression, besides dynamic unconscious which has to do with repression which
handles unbearable desire and fantasy. These two types of defense and
unconscious might be at work so long as there is “everywhereness” for both
trauma and fantasy.
