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Mental collapse as “disorganized attachment”: A dynamic understanding for clinicians

  • Unresolved loss and unresolved trauma in adult mothers, and the commonly disorganized attachment pattern developed by their infants, have been repeatedly reported in longitudinal research literature as a crucial correlate or precedent of severe pathology. We describe and illustrate how unresolved loss and unresolved trauma are manifested in verbatim-transcribed language and how they are to be detected, so that psychoanalysts and clinicians in general are able to distinguish them and understand how such >states of mind< evidence the process of fragmentation they involve. We follow each example with a resolved transcript so it can be contrasted with a nonresolved case. We then describe excerpts of a taped >disorganized infant< – an example of infants who are usually babies of unresolved mothers, as shown during the Adult Attachment Interview. The analyst’s ability to identify and understand these >states of mind< and the subsequent sensitive reflection on the transcendental role of primary traumatic relations, which are involved in fear and the destructive dynamics of mental fragmentation – as seen in empirical research on attachment – can facilitate a resourceful integrative analytic scrutiny of the processes gone through by patients, and encourage the discovery of alternatives for working through the disturbing experience.

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Metadaten
Author:Sonia Gojman de Millán, Salvador Millán
Parent Title (English):International Forum of Psychoanalysis, Vol. 28 (No. 3, 2019), pp. 173-179.
Document Type:Articles
Language:English
Year of first Publication:2019
Release Date:2020/11/03
Format:PDF-scan upon request / PDF-Scan auf Anfrage
IdNo:Gojman_de_Millan_S_Millan_S_2019a
Erich Fromm's Library and Erich Fromm Archive:Articles / Artikel
Licence (German):
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