Analysing Patients with Traumas: Separation, Illness, Violence

317 Pages·2017·3.07 MB·English

by  Franziska Henningsen

ANALYSING PATIENTS WITH TRAUMAS

ANALYSING PATIENTS
WITH TRAUMAS
Separation, Illness, Violence
Franziska Henningsen
First published in German in 2012 as Psychoanalysen mit traumatisierten Patienten.
Trennung—Krankheit—Gewalt by Klett-Cotta
First published in English in 2018 by
Karnac Books Ltd
118 Finchley Road
London NW3 5HT
© 2012 Klett-Cotta—J. G. Cotta’sche Buchhandlung Nachfolger GmbH,
Stuttgart
For the English language version translated by Andrew Jenkins
© 2018 Bernd Henningsen
The translation of this work was made possible thanks to generous funding by
the Sigmund Freud Foundation, Frankfurt
The right of Franziska Henningsen to be identified as the author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with §§ 77 and 78 of the Copyright Design and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A C.I.P. for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN-13: 978-1-78220-335-3
Typeset by Medlar Publishing Solutions Pvt Ltd, India
Printed in Great Britain
www.karnacbooks.com
Note
For ease of reading, throughout the book “she” is used for the therapist
and “he” for the patient, the victim, or the child, but, at any point, the
opposite gender can be substituted.

CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xi
AbOuT ThE AuThOr xv
FOrEWOrD xvii
by Werner bohleber
INTrODuCTION
The rift in the ego xxi
PART I
SICK CHILDREN—SICK MOTHERS
ChAPTEr ONE
“No sick children in my house today”:
death fears in children 3
ChAPTEr TWO
“That’s my mother’s trauma, not mine”:
concretistic fusion, acting-out, symbolisation 21
vii
viii coNTENTS
ChAPTEr ThrEE
“We aren’t starving yet”: silence in withdrawal
and communicating in images 43
ChAPTEr FOur
Splitting and fusion 65
PART II
SEPARATION TRAUMAS
ChAPTEr FIVE
“This is my daughter. Take good care of her!”
From objectless anxiety to separation anxiety 81
ChAPTEr SIX
“Everyone knows my mother. Everyone except me.”
Concretistic fusion and denial of object loss 97
ChAPTEr SEVEN
“The greatest danger comes from myself”:
destruction and guilt 109
ChAPTEr EIGhT
Acting out and compulsive repetition 133
PART III
EXPERIENCES OF VIOLENCE AND
ABUSE IN CHILDHOOD
ChAPTEr NINE
A helper in search of help: splitting and psychic reality 143
ChAPTEr TEN
“I want no part of this hell”: en route to perversion 161
ChAPTEr ELEVEN
“I can look after myself”: destruction and consolation
in one and the same object? 179
coNTENTS ix
ChAPTEr TWELVE
Love and hate 197
PART IV
EXPERIENCES OF VIOLENCE AND ABUSE IN
ADULTHOOD: TORTURE AND WAR
ChAPTEr ThIrTEEN
Post-traumatic stress disorder 209
ChAPTEr FOurTEEN
Negative countertransference: depletion and resilience 223
PART V
CONCLUSION
ChAPTEr FIFTEEN
Consequences for psychoanalytic technique 241
ChAPTEr SIXTEEN
Trauma in society and politics: an outlook 257
rEFErENCES 267
INDEX 281