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Blank pain and pathological mourning in the analytic situation.
- Source :
-
International Journal of Psychoanalysis . December 2023, Vol. 104 Issue 6, p1006-1024. 19p. - Publication Year :
- 2023
-
Abstract
- This paper presents an account of the psychoanalytic treatment of pathological mourning in the context of early psychic trauma. I introduce the concept of blank pain, understood as a negative of early trauma, to describe a distinct type of unthinkable anxiety. And I treat pathological mourning as a defence against the unbearable pain of the latter. Clinical observations reveal the extent to which, in a situation where the patient reacts to environmental failure by maintaining a façade (an insincere self), the construction of meaning depends on the use the patient makes of the analytic process and the setting. Considering these observations, I explore the relationship between the structural phenomenon of blank pain and defensive pathological mourning through the therapeutically mutative action of processive interventions and co-enacted scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- *BEREAVEMENT
*EMOTIONAL trauma
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00207578
- Volume :
- 104
- Issue :
- 6
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- International Journal of Psychoanalysis
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 174390731
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1080/00207578.2023.2234969