Presentation to the Westchester Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy

Working with Dissociated Aggression in Traumatized Patients

One of the most challenging aspects of working with patients who report childhood histories of abuse and/or neglect is bringing the patient’s attention to the parts of them that treat others with some form of the same cruelty of which they were the victim. This paper describes some clinical encounters with an adult patient with a history of intensely disorganized attachment to highly narcissistic parents. The author grapples with aspects of the patient’s suffering that evoke aversive, dysregulated feelings in him and describes the means he pursued to negotiate a more constructive and generative intersubjective experience with the patient.