New Ideas and Their Relation to Old Ideas: Trauma, Affect, and the Unrepresented

Abstract

The Shadow of the Tsunami and the Growth of the Relational Mindby Philip M. Bromberg (New York: Routledge, 2011, 215 pp.)
Unrepresented States and the Construction of Meaning: Clinical and Theoretical ContributionsEdited by Howard B. Levine, Gail S. Reed, and Dominique Scarfone(London: Karnac, 2013, 287 pp.)
The topic of trauma and dissociation, and borderline and other non-neurotic disorders in which psychic representation is missing or weak, have been one of the main, if not the leading, topics of psychoanalytic theorizing for many years now. The two books under consideration approach these topics from very different perspectives, yet find agreement in some key areas. I will begin with an exposition of some of the main ideas from each book, and will then discuss what the concepts developed by the authors can tell us about the present state of psychoanalytic theory and practice in relation to trauma, personality disorders, and their underlying causes, dynamics, and treatment.