New Developments in Psychoanalysis
Report on the International Psychoanalytic Association
44th Congress on Trauma
Rio de Janeiro, 28 – 31 July, 2005. Article by Andrea
Sabbadini
Every two years the International Psychoanalytic Association
(IPA) organizes a major conference with the intention of allowing
analysts from all geographical areas and ideological orientations
to get together, to present their theoretical and clinical work, to
discuss differences as well as to discover unexpected
similarities.
In July 2005 the
IPA
conference
took place in the vibrant Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. It was
attended by over 4,000 colleagues from all over the world and its
topic was ‘Trauma. New Developments in Psychoanalysis’. As always,
the central theme was expected to be of general interest to
delegates and to provide the inspiration to most of the events in
the vast programme. This consisted of a combination of lectures,
individual papers, panel discussions, workshops, and other
events.
I shall list here the titles of some
such presentations, arbitrarily chosen out of several hundreds, to
give an idea of the richness of what we were offered to reflect
upon: From trauma to loss of object; The specificity of torture
as trauma; Trauma and dissociative states; Trauma and family
crisis; The impact of trauma on the social structure of
communities; Trauma in literature; Trauma and transgenerational
transmission; Trauma and perversion; Trauma and symbolization in
Freud and Jung; Analytic listening to traumatic situations; Body
lesions and trauma; Indicators of trauma in children’s drawings and
dreams; etc.
Film and Psychoanalysis
Having been invited to present the
‘Film and Psychoanalysis’ section of the programme, because of my
interest in the ‘dialogue’ between these two languages, I
participated in a panel on Latin American Cinema,
Psychoanalysis and Trauma, and introduced the screening of two
powerful movies on loss: Behind the Sun (directed by
Walter Salles) and The Son’s Room (by Nanni Moretti).
Given the vast number of presentations
(as many would occur simultaneously, one was only able to attend a
fraction of the programme), and the variety of perspectives
available, it would be impossible to summarize here any specific
outcome of the Congress, or to believe that any conclusions,
however provisional, were reached on this disturbing and
fascinating topic.
However, it would be fair to state
that the majority of those attending this Congress would agree with
an understanding of emotional trauma as a sudden and violent
rupture of the ego defensive barrier, as an uncontainable invasion
of our sense of psychological (when not also physical and social)
self. In the course of the lively discussions, fascinating and
sometimes disturbing questions were addressed; for instance,
whether and how such traumatic events (mostly not isolated
instances but repeated over time and therefore with cumulative
pathological effects) could be overcome through psychoanalytic
therapy. Indeed, can one ever recover from traumatic experiences or
overcome major losses? What is the relative relevance of the age
when a trauma was suffered? What adjustments to psychoanalytic
theories and techniques are required for dealing with such
analysands? Can a reorganization of their personality and object
relations be achieved? Is the diagnosis of ‘post-traumatic stress
disorder’ useful? What are the transference and countertransference
implication in this kind of analytic work?
Questions & Certainties
I left Rio with more questions, and
fewer certainties, than I had before I got there. I also felt
privileged to have been part of this vast debate with my
psychoanalytic colleagues, on a theme so central to our everyday
professional practice. I hope that my involvement in those intense
days of reflection and discussion on trauma will percolate through
my clinical work by making me more sensitive to my patients’
sufferings and better equipped to be of at least some therapeutic
help to them.