The concept of trauma therapy in Analytical psychology

Research of the impact of trauma (especially from childhood or transgenerational trauma) on the human psyche shows an arising of ""a hole"" in the psyche, an empty space filled with anxiety, fear and other affects as results of the trauma, which are not associated with mental representations, memories and historical Self. ""Memories"" of trauma tend to split, so they usually occur either in the form of bare information without accompanying emotions, or in forms of nightmares, flashbacks, enactments of tendency to retraumatisation or in other forms of dissociative states. These dissociative states are actually the seeds of the first, autonomous and even preverbal but real memories of the traumatic event accompanied by emotions. Linking these dissociative states with facts about the traumatic events can produce meaningful and lived-through story that helps to cope with the traumatic event.

Martin Skála, Czech Society for Analytic Psychology, Brno, Czech Republic e-mail: martin.skala@psychopompos.cz