The Theory of Trauma
Looking at trauma from a psycho-analytical viewpoint, I refer to Dori Laub, who explains serious traumatisation of Holocaust survivors by Freud’s death instinct theory.
Freud developed the concept of death instinct by the trauma experiences of survivors of World War I. Such behaviour – namely the tendency of trauma victims to repeat painful traumatic experiences – is contrary to the expectations of the pleasure principle. Freud believed that death is the goal of life. The death instinct was seen by Freud in the aggression and self-destructive behaviour of continually recalling the trauma experience, which would block memories of the actual trauma. Freud also localised the trauma in negative therapeutic reactions, such as repression, by which the remembrance and knowledge of the trauma are rejected; also, in traumatic dreams, wherein an unknown masked memory attempts to penetrate through a different state of consciousness.
In this context, Laub interpreted the defence mechanisms of denial, dissociation, splitting and depersonalisation as being derivatives of the death instinct. Laub views the trauma as activation of the death instinct that takes place at an individual and intergenerational level.1See Laub 2000, p. 860.
The trauma suffered affects or destroys the survivor’s ability to bear witness to his experience.
‘The state of trauma is the reaction to occurrences that overwhelm the individual and render him helpless. One is subjected to such occurrences, but they are not experienced as part of the Ego [italics added by author], so are not considered suitable for the expected growth and preservation of a productive personality. If one survives the state of trauma […], the result will be seen in an absence of structure and representative experience in the Ego area. This absence is the primal repression.’2Kinston/Cohen 1986, p. 178, cited after Laub 2000, p. 861.
In other words, traumatised persons cannot assimilate the overwhelming experience and thus cannot remember it. By analogy to Freud’s death instinct, which focuses on a return to an inorganic world, the trauma demands an emptiness and destruction and leaves a lack of structure behind in the psyche, characterised by the absence of images.3See Laub 2000, p. 861. According to literary scholar Cathy Caruth, the trauma syndrome exists only in the framework of perception, as at the time of traumatisation the event was undergone in unawareness and therefore could not be fully experienced.4See Caruth 2000, p. 85.
The trauma thus prevents psychological structure in organizing one’s experiences. Laub puts this down to the ‘silent activity of the death instinct’.5Laub 2000, p. 862.
Traumas are characterised primarily by the lack of empathic connection during traumatisation. In consequence, there can be no empathic relationship formed with oneself. This failure will lead to feelings of detachment and the breakdown or termination of the life story. This will result in loss of representation and coherence as well as loss of the ability to communicate both internally and externally due to the destruction of the responsive Self.
A psychological process that will permanently block awareness is triggered by the traumatic experience, obstructing access to any knowledge of the ‘trauma content’. The real power of the death instinct is clearly perceived in ‘suppressed awareness’, according to Laub. Furthermore, this psychoanalyst developed the ‘concept of the empty circle’ in which he defends the idea that the origin of the trauma – I call it the trauma-content experience – is preserved in the psyche. An empty circle experience is a state of inner aimlessness as the result of Ego-regression caused by the death instinct.6See Laub 2000, p. 866 f. This aimlessness signifies the destruction of the innermost presence of the empathic bond. The experience terrifies the person involved. To cushion this ‘abyss of horror’7Laub 2000, p. 866. the psyche will attempt to employ various defence mechanisms, that – however conflicting this may be – are still easier to bear than the loss of the inner dyad.
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