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Citation |
López-Corvo RE. Psychoanal. Rev. 2013; 100(2): 289-310. |
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Affiliation |
44 Inglewood Drive, Toronto, Ontario, M141H1, Canada. E-mail: lopezcorvo@gmail.com. |
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Copyright |
(Copyright © 2013, Guilford Publications) |
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DOI |
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PMID |
23566007 |
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Abstract |
Two forms of traumas are considered in this paper: "preconceptual" and "conceptual"; the former is ubiquitous and the latter, accidental. Preconceptual traumas represent "preconceptions" that take place during the first years of life, when there is not a mind capable of containing and endowing them with a sensible meaning, as distinguished from "conceptual traumas," which occur at a time when there is a mind already, which fails to contain the traumatic facts. There is always a continuous emotional entanglement between conceptual and preconceptual traumas. Preconceptual traumas are a consequence of the discrepancy present between the natural helplessness of the child and the supremacy of the parents. They split the mind in two opposite states that continuously interact: the "traumatized" and the "nontraumatized." The "traumatized state" is a consequence of the preconceptual trauma that takes place during the first years of life, which repeats compulsively and continuously. The "nontraumatized state," on the other hand, represents the mental development that will normally take place from birth to adulthood. All existing forms of psychopathology are always traumatic. The traumatized state is always minutely split and continuously projected everywhere, together with the part of the mind that contains it. A clinical case is considered in order to investigate how preconceptual traumas obstruct the possibility of dealing with the ensuing emotions that a true and violent threat of death can produce. Intense feelings linked to the phenomenology of early traumatic events obscured the true facts of the condition present at the time of the patient's analysis. Some aspects related to death and the death drive are examined prior to the clinical material. Language: en |