‘To return,to eat,to tell the story ’: Primo Levi's lessons on living and dying in the aftermath of trauma

This article invites Primo Levi, the internationally esteemed citizen of Turin, Italy and survivor of the Auschwitz to instruct post 9/11 psychoanalysis in five lessons on living and dying in the aftermath of severe trauma. Relying on excerpts from Levi's writings, the author invites Levi to speak to the reader words of warning concerning contemporary psychoanalysis' benign omnipotence in embracing overly simplistic theories of cure, resiliency and psychic repatriation of the human spirit in the aftermath of severe trauma.     

PTSD Symptoms in College Students Exposed to Interparental Violence: Are they Comparable to those that Result from Child Physical and Sexual Abuse?

Undergraduate students completed the Trauma Symptom Inventory and a childhood history questionnaire that assessed their experience of three types of childhood traumatic events: physical abuse (CPA), sexual abuse (CSA), and interparental violence (CPV). Six posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) subscales previously found to be associated with these types of abuse (anxious arousal, anger/irritability, intrusive experiences, depression, tension reduction behaviors, and defensive avoidance) were examined through multiple regression analyses to determine the extent to which each type of trauma history was most predictive of elevated symptomatology. For several subscales, having exposure to interparental violence was the strongest predictor of elevated symptomatology, suggesting that CPV is at least as powerful as CPA or CSA in producing symptoms of PTSD in adulthood.     

Transitioning from the Battlefield to Home: An Innovative Program for Israeli Soldiers

Soldiers moving from the army to civilian life encounter significant challenges during this time of transition, both in Israel and internationally. Identifying this period of time as a critical one, the Peace of Mind program is an innovative intervention designed specifically to address the issues occurring therein. This unique model focuses on mental health and normalization of responses, as well as on the processing of traumatic experiences. It is based on the considerable experience at the Israel Center for the Treatment of Psychotrauma in the fields of resilience building and trauma treatment. After reviewing the literature on returning soldiers, the model is described and several vignettes are presented.     

Childhood Sexual Assault,Quality of Life,and Psychiatric Comorbidity in Veterans With Military and Civilian Sexual Trauma

Veterans with military sexual trauma (MST) are at risk for a variety of psychiatric conditions, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. Survivors of MST are also likely to experience diminished quality of life (QoL). Individuals with higher lifetime incidence of sexual trauma may also be at increased risk for poorer outcomes in QoL and psychiatric symptomatology. The differences in psychological sequelae among those who have experienced sexual trauma as children, and those whose sexual trauma exposure is limited to adulthood are relatively understudied. The majority of sexual trauma literature has focused primarily on civilian trauma, and comparatively few studies have specifically examined psychosocial sequelae (e.g., QoL) in veterans with MST. This study examined how childhood sexual abuse (CSA) affects overall QoL as well as severity of PTSD and depressive symptoms. Veterans who reported CSA had significantly greater depression symptom severity than veterans who did not. No significant differences in PTSD symptom severity or QoL were found between veterans who did and did not report CSA. Results highlight the need for further examination of the relationship between CSA and depression in veterans with MST-related PTSD who also report CSA.     

20 Years is not long enough1

The author presents some Latin American sociopolitical vicissitudes exemplifi ed by Argentina, where she lives and where she trained and practices as a psychoanalyst. The exposition is based on the impact that her experience with two patients, Ana and Juana, had on her, and is presented in the form of clinical vignettes. The author refl ects clinically and technically on the transference and countertransference and on the ways in which self–analysis enabled her to distinguish between the countertransference related to the patient and that related to the psychoanalyst. Finally, the author discusses the traumatic effects of ‘the human condition’, ‘social violence’ and ‘Evil’, referring specifi cally to the ‘repetitive trauma’ individuals experience under the globalization of terror and to the use of mechanisms of disavowal that result in serious splitting. The author confronts the reader with totalitarian terror as something that attacks and destroys the main constitutive characteristic of human beings, namely, their ability to think, remarking that H. Arendt is the one who speaks about ‘radical evil’ as ‘the banality of Evil’. The author addresses the question of whether by tempering aggression and organizing levels of symbolization ‘words’ might prevent the emergence of ‘pure jouissance’ and be more powerful and signifi cant than violence, overriding it.     

A Jungian contribution to a dynamic systems understanding of disorganized attachment

This panel emerged from shared clinical concerns when working with adult patients whose presentation style was reminiscent of a disorganized (Type D) infant attachment pattern. Psychotherapeutic work with such patients poses complicated transference and countertransference dilemmas which are addressed by all four panellists via theory and clinical vignettes. In common is an interest in contemporary attachment, neuroscience and trauma theories and their relationship to analytical psychology. Intergenerational trauma seems to be a salient factor in the evolution of fragmented and fragmenting interactions that lead to failures in self-coherence and healthy interpersonal relationships. Such early relational trauma is compounded by further episodes of abuse and neglect leading to failure in a core sense of self. These clinicians share how they have integrated theory and practice in order to help dissociated and disorganized patients to transform their dark and extraordinary suffering through implicit and explicit experiences with the analyst into new, life giving patterns of relationship with self and others. The alchemy of transformation, both positive and negative, is evident in the case material presented.     

Family therapists in trauma-response teams: bringing systems thinking into interdisciplinary fieldwork

Attention to the mental health facets of disaster-preparedness and trauma-response teams has increased considerably over the past decade. As family therapists take part in these efforts, they bring with them a worldview that adds valuable contributions to the nature in which fieldwork is conducted and the manners in which interdisciplinary teams function on the ground. In this article, we present how systems thinking sensitizes trauma workers to a variety of clinical presentations and biopsychosocial complexities inherent in this work. We describe common clinical- and practice-related challenges, alongside practical strategies for effectively dealing with these challenges. We draw upon our experiences as family therapists trained in the field of trauma, and our work as field responders, supervisors and team leaders across a variety of local and large-scale disaster events and contexts.     

Jungian Perspectives on the Etiology and Treatment of Torture

As increasing numbers of people worldwide suffer the effects of torture and other war trauma, practitioners are challenged to adapt their theoretical backgrounds to their treatment. One such school of thought, Analytical Psychology, contains several premises that can help to decipher the causes of violence and oppression, and provides potentially useful techniques for treating those who have suffered their effects. Practitioners who find themselves in a position to treat survivors of torture and other war trauma can draw upon the basic principles of Analytical ology outlined in this article to enhance their treatment modalities.     

Adverse caregiving in early life: The trauma and deprivation distinction in young children

Knowledge and understanding about the impact of cumulative adverse experiences on the health and wellbeing of children, adolescents, and adults has rapidly expanded over the past 30 years. Despite the invaluable attention and support this proliferation has drawn to the importance of early childhood experiences, we believe that it is time to move beyond broad indices of risk and toward more specific and individualized understanding of how risk exposures are linked to clinical outcomes in young children. Within infant and early childhood mental health, there is a need for greater specificity in linking adverse caregiving experiences in early life to psychopathology in children. We highlight a framework distinguishing experiences of trauma from experiences of deprivation and use the examples of posttraumatic stress disorder and reactive attachment disorder to demonstrate how greater specificity in our understanding of early adverse caregiving can lead to more accurate and targeted diagnosis and treatment for young children. Both researchers and clinicians benefit from an approach to gain a greater appreciation of the links between specific types of experiences and outcomes in the children that we serve.