A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Trauma: Post-Traumatic Mental Functioning, the Zero Process, and the Construction of Reality.

The article discusses Joseph Fernando's book, "A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Trauma," which offers a specific approach to examining trauma based on different unconscious processes. The book explores the concept of the zero process, which explains the mental shutdown that occurs in extreme traumatic situations. Fernando differentiates trauma from other psychopathologies and emphasizes the importance of addressing traumatic repetitions and their defenses directly in therapy. The article praises Fernando's work as a significant contribution to the literature on trauma and suggests that it will lead to improved treatment methods. [Extracted from the article]