Analysis of the Incest Trauma : Retrieval, Recovery, Renewal

Childhood sexual abuse within the family of origin and society's institutions, such as the church, education, sports and the world of celebrity has been neglected as a significant issue by psychoanalysis and society. The incest trauma needs to be understood as one of the most significant problems of contemporary society. This book is an attempt to re-establish incest trauma as a significant psychological disorder by tracing the evolutionary trajectory of psychoanalysis from the Seduction Theory to the Oedipal Therapy to the Confusion of Tongues Theory. By examining the theoretical, emotional, interpersonal and political issues involved in Freud's abandoning the Seduction Hypothesis and replacing it with the Oedipal Complex, we can see how system building became more important than the emotional welfare of children. In a series of chapters we will demonstrate this neglect of the incest trauma. Several case studies, using a Relational Perspective informed by the Budapest School of Psychoanalysis, illustrate the need to use the Confusion of Tongues theory of trauma, originated by Ferenczi as well his idea of expanding the analytic method to include non-interpretative measures to successfully analyze the incest trauma. Contents 6 About the Authors 10 Foreword 12 CHAPTER ONE The intellectual and emotional journey toward understanding the incest trauma 14 CHAPTER TWO Psychoanalysis’s neglect of the incest trauma 30 CHAPTER THREE Confusion of tongues drama: the suppression of the first theory and method for the treatment of the incest trauma 60 CHAPTER FOUR Confusion of tongues theory of childhood sexual trauma 78 CHAPTER FIVE A pioneering analysis of the incest trauma: Sándor Ferenczi’s analysis of Elizabeth Severn 122 CHAPTER SIX Listening to the voices of the abused 138 CHAPTER SEVEN Incest trauma, psychoanalysis, and the brain 150 CHAPTER EIGHT Analysis of an incest trauma in a difficult case 166 CHAPTER NINE Analysis of the incest trauma through the drawings of an outsider artist 202 CHAPTER TEN View from the couch: an analysand’s experience of trauma 244 CHAPTER ELEVEN Triumph of the human spirit: the emotional courage of a young woman who confronted her incest trauma 266 CHAPTER TWELVE Countertransference encounters: the analyst’s experience of trauma analysis 284 CHAPTER THIRTEEN Understanding an erotic transference as an enactment of a childhood incest trauma 304 CHAPTER FOURTEEN Education, training, and supervision for analyzing the incest trauma 322 REFERENCES 332 INDEX 352 Childhood sexual abuse within the family of origin and society's institutions, such as the church, education, sports, and the world of celebrity, has been neglected as a significant issue by psychoanalysis and society. The incest trauma needs to be understood as one of the most significant problems of contemporary society. This book is an attempt to re-establish incest trauma as a significant psychological disorder by tracing the evolutionary trajectory of psychoanalysis from the Seduction Theory to the Oedipal Therapy to the Confusion of Tongues Theory. By examining the theoretical, emotional, interpersonal, and political issues involved in Freud's abandoning the Seduction Hypothesis and replacing it with the Oedipal Complex, we can see how system building became more important than the emotional welfare of children. In a series of chapters the authors demonstrate this neglect of the incest trauma.