Posted tagged ‘trauma’

Jung on the therapeutic value of abreaction (pp. 130-132, CW16) (update from 01/2010 post)

November 8, 2025

Here is a source quote from Jung, with a comment from me, on the importance of recognizing it is the dissociation itself that needs healing. Given the early conditions…glint in the eye of our parents, fetus, infant, toddler and on up, it is the nature of the situation that we will all have a number of unbearable split off episodic memory based encapsulated trauma complexes. Each of these, at the time, required the activation of psyche’s super power – dissociation – to survive. While life preserving at the time and into the mid-life, these dissociation based defenses do not allow vulnerability and emotional intimacy. Before we can heal we have to first “cure the cure” ie: let go of the dissociation based defenses, before we can get to the healing of the original overwhelm. Blur states, getting triggered that is, provide the energy to eventually pierce the encapsulated trauma complex, allowing us then more conscious access. See what you think about Jung’s take here:

“. . . the trauma is either a single, definite, violent impact, or a complex of ideas and emotions which may be likened to a psychic wound. Everything that touches this complex, however slightly, excites a vehement reaction, a regular emotional explosion. Hence one could easily represent the trauma as a complex with a high emotional charge, and because this enormously effective charge seems at first sight to be the pathological cause of the disturbance, one can accordingly postulate a therapy whose aim is the complete release of this charge. Such a view is both simple and logical, and it is in apparent agreement with the fact that abreaction, i.e., the dramatic rehearsal of the traumatic moment, it’s emotional recapitulation in the waking or in the hypnotic state – often has a therapeutic effect. We all know that a man has a compelling need to recount a vivid experience again and again until it has lost its affective value. As the proverb says, “What filleth the heart goeth out by the mouth.” The unbosoming gradually depotentiates the affectivity of the traumatic experience until it no longer has a disturbing influence.”

We recognize, Jung on McDougall, however that “the essential factor is the dissociation of the psyche and not the existence of a highly charged affect and, consequently, that the main therapeutic problem is not abreaction but how to integrate the dissociation. . . .that a traumatic complex brings about dissociation of the psyche. The complex is not under the control of the will and for this reason it possesses the quality of psychic autonomy. . . .it pounces on him like an enemy or a wild animal…” “Abreaction then is an attempt to reintegrate the autonomous complex, to incorporate it gradually into the conscious mind as an accepted content, by living the traumatic situation over again, once or repeatedly,” (pp. 130-132, CW16)

A Dream Time Image of Piercing Encapsulated Trauma: Three Crones Receive the Knife

June 18, 2025

(Note this post is a lightly revised post from August of 2019) How can we image the sticky wicket problem of opening to split off complexes, given their/our lifetime of dedicated defenses working to keep them split off? As Donald Kalsched has observed, healing requires the dismantling of the dissociation based defenses which were our survival; one must first cure the (partial) cure. For me this dream provided an orientation to the requirement that the defenses containing an episodic memory based trauma complex must be pierced prior to them allowing direct contact with the split off image and affect charged scene. Here is the dream:

11-29-12 Thursday 4:56: Very vivid, short dream with three of us, all women. I’m one of the them, and I am also myself, observing my woman-self as if standing behind and looking over my crone self’s shoulder. We are standing together in a kitchen and we understand we are dead, or have died, and its not a problem for us. The focus turns to the idea, the recognition of the timing being right, for giving and receiving the knife. This is a ritual process we are in charge of doing periodically. It is somehow vitally important we attend to this for the sake of the community. The woman opposite me pulls out several ancient, long curved bladed knives and with great intention brings one forward towards the belly of the woman on my left, making contact and slowly plunging it into her; the movement is a bit downward; I/we can all feel it going in deeply. Then, slowly withdrawing the blade, she turns to see me, signaling now it will be my turn to receive the knife. I seem to ready myself for this by involuntarily shuddering and leaning first forward, leading with my head/chin pulling up and back, offering my belly, and then, intensely anticipating the knife finding my belly, I can’t help flinching and pulling slightly back. I am struck by how deeply I can feel this wounding, penetrating me to my core, opening me up completely; there is a moment of tremendous surrender and release of pitiful grief as I fully experience receiving the knife. Coming out of this deep practicing of having been pierced, I am silently, through my tears, attentive to what will happen immediately, my turn… I am thinking, yes, this is what we do; this is what it is like, it happens like this to all of us. It is painful. This is the way it is.”

Waking Reflections: At the time I had this dream, my sense was it was a compensatory dream pointing to my ongoing vulnerability to inflation; this offered a radical image of deflation. The intensity and directness of the action suggested I was/am experienced in the giving and receiving of this primary wound. The ritual, anchored by ritual elders, crones in this instance, seemed to be in the service of supporting the community/collective to be continuously aware of the reality of ongoing sacrifices, both conscious, in this case, but also unconscious. A contemporary example of this would be government actions which seem completely removed from the profound impact on the children separated from their parents, without notice.

My analyst at the time, Jerome Bernstein, offered what seemed to me to be a very helpful interpretation. He suggested the crone on my left represented the opening of encapsulated trauma. While I have been able to grasp the conceptual meaning of this dynamic in this regard, the dream provided a direct experience of the relationship between function/purpose of the encapsulation in defending against previously unbearable trauma, in contrast to gaining direct access in the service of healing: this piercing of the encapsulation is necessary for one to access the original wound directly.

From this perspective, this sequence signals progress on the continuum of my personal work to support the deconstruction of my own dissociation enabled defenses. (see Kalsched’s “cure the cure”.)

In order to access our wounds directly for purposes of healing the split one must both suffer and bear witness to an immersion into the original affects. As Donald Kalsched has observed, for this to occur, a deconstruction of the partial cure defenses is required.

One more comment for now: We clearly have problems with inflation at the collective level. At this level, it seems the three crones are keeping the vigil for all who may not be able to choose deflation. At the human, personal and couple work level, how often do we put our partner in the position of delivering a necessarily deflating message? What might be going on here for you?