Trauma and Symbol

Abstract

With the help of the conceptualizations of Amati and Bleger, and of Jung, the loss of instinctual experience and reality sense in the victims of incestuous abuse is described as an extreme regression to a primary undifferentiated stage of development: that of 'ambiguity' and 'identity'. At this stage the identity of the victim is taken over by that of the aggressor and becomes petrified in a form of mimicry. Differentiation processes are partially blocked. Through the therapeutic work with a woman who was sexually abused as a child, and whose daughter was also being incestuously traumatized, it is demonstrated how, through the use of fantasy, the instinctive reaction of thanatosis can be given up, together with the attempt to find meaning through self-sacrifice, which continually places the victim in renewed danger. By means of activating the transcendent function, the positive pole of the archetype can be set up as a counterforce in the internal world which was once feared like an abuser, and thus as a balance to the images of actual historical violation. The positive pole of the archetype then allows the inner world to loosen itself from the tangled aggressive and auto-aggressive layers of identity. This leads to a revival of protective instinctual reactions and to an improvement in reality functioning. It is emphasized that it is not the recall of actual abuse that promotes therapeutic progress but the evolving symbolizations. The analysis of the symbolic experience leads to the following conclusion: the hypothesis that, on the grounds of positive feelings, the children 'have also wanted' the incestuous activity, cannot be upheld.