The contaminated analyst and transgenerational trauma in Abkhazia après‐coup

Abstract

The Covid‐19 pandemic lockdown and restrictions imposed on freedom of movement in Georgia and the economic collapse as a result, evoked psychotic anxieties in society and revived a traumatic not‐too‐distant past that has not actually been worked through. Fear of an unknown virus and danger has turned into a feeling of war, which was so familiar and constant in the immediate past of Georgian history: the Soviet‐Union, the 1991–1993 Civil War, the contant threat of Russia which occupied two regions of Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In this paper, I try to explain how the current traumatic situation in Georgia related to Covid‐19 gave après‐coup a new meaning to the transgenerational trauma. I presented the material of two of my patients, whose childhood was affected by the war in Abkhazia (1992–1993), the conflict that followed the declaration of independence of Georgia and led to the Russian occupation of its territories. Because of my contamination with Covid‐19 in transference–countertransference, the Covid turned into an inner conflict. The need and inevitability of informing patients about my infection caused a counter‐transference acting out with paranoid‐schizoïd splitting, projective identifications, unbearable pain and guilt, fear of starvation, and reparation.