From pain to violence and from violence to healing

Abstract

This article will describe the author's childhood during the Holocaust and postHolocaust years, his subsequent refugee experience in the UK which was both formative and deformative, and his adolescence and adulthood which revealed his susceptibility to further traumatisation. It will include insights and theories derived from thirty years of therapeutic work with Holocaust survivors and survivors of recent social and personal traumatisation, as well as forty years of work as a general practitioner (GP). This article introduces novel theories of psychic organisation including the concept of the psychic guardian function and the deformative effects of trauma. Finally, this article acknowledges how working with trauma survivors has generated unexpected healing in this wounded healer.