From Bewitchment to Enchantment: Transformational Process in the Psychoanalysis of Early Trauma

Patients who have suffered severe early trauma often find themselves bewitched by dark tyrannical voices assaulting them from within, leading to intense anxiety and depression. In dream work with such patients, the dark inner voices reveal themselves as both archaic and typical – hence archetypal – personifications whose inner purpose seems to be the defense of a vulnerable core of selfhood to make sure it is never violated again. However, in defending the true self against further trauma, the archetypal defenses also persecute and demoralize it, cutting off all hope for life-in-relationship to others. Therefore the positive side of the Self cannot constellate and the individuation process cannot get started. In successful depth psychotherapy these archetypal defenses slowly lose their power as their bewitching energy slowly becomes humanized in the transference and is transmuted into a mature capacity for love and creative living (enchantment). In this workshop, clinical material as well as the Grimm’s fairy tale Fitcher’s Bird (sometimes called Fitcher’s Vogel) will be utilized to illustrate this process. Attendees are asked to read the tale before the workshop.