Trauma, recurrence, splitting and contraindications to standard treatment (Face au traumatisme, répétition, clivage et contre-indications de la cure type)

Trauma psychoanalysis

Abstract

Trauma led to the construction of the second topography of the drive theory that accompanied it, introducing the drive dualism between life drives and death drives. The death drive participates successfully in the cathexis of the object, thanks to anti-narcissism, to the change of the object of sublimation, and to mourning. Likewise, the compulsion to repeat gives a temporal basis to the mind, a primitive continuity of being to autistic stereotypy, and ensures the authenticity of the transference in classical analysis. The recourse to masochism, a factor that nonetheless favours fusion, is discussed. The repetition of the trauma, the unconscious sense of guilt and, above all, splitting, also become daunting impediments to the efficacy of psychoanalysis. Drawing on the work of Rachel Rosenblum on the vital danger of speaking about or writing about trauma, two clinical cases of Sydney Stewart are taken up in order to identify the factors that would counterindicate a classical analysis.