Ferenczi and trauma

a short introductory map

Abstract

This study seeks to introduce the main aspects of Ferenczi’s thinking concerning trauma. It emphasizes the importance of this author’s contribution and the de-contextualized and misunderstood way he is usually read. It develops four fundamental points in his theory: that Ferenczi’s theory places the concept of trauma at the center of psychic functioning, giving importance to the action of unconscious communicative processes as a way of incorporating “unconscious primitive impulsive messages”; that trauma effects the structuring of the ego and the subject, producing an “injury to self love and self confidence”, a consistent and lasting state of “narcissistic mortification”; that the suffering deriving from these states of interrupted subjectivity will be effectively approached if the analyst provides a “function of witness”, agreeing to temporarily embody the patient, putting his/her person and analytical competence to this service; and finally that the direction of cure lies in reliving traumatic memory in the analytical relationship, offering the appropriate atmosphere, free from egotistical constitution, with the aim of staunching the mimetic state of eternal repetition of the trauma.