Publications list
Conference paper
Healing from trauma, Healing from shame: The national implications of individual recovery
Published 1992
Gesellschaft fuer Psychohistorisches Forschung, 01 May 1992–03 May 1992, Berlin, Germany
After a century-long detour, psychiatry is finding its way back to a vision of psychiatric dysfunction as originating in normal reactions to abnormal stress (Van der Kolk, 1987; Van der Kolk et al, 1989). The study of psychological trauma and its effects as the major factor in the origin of a significant amount of psychiatric illness is creating a paradigm shift with profound consequences to the treatment of the mentally ill and to society at large.
Conference paper
Trauma and War: The Need to Relive Traumatic Events
Published 1992
Institute for Psychohistory Meeting, 28 Apr 1992–28 Apr 1992, Berlin, Germany
The innate defense against the overwhelming nature of psychological stress is dissociation - the ability to segregate certain mental processes from the rest of the psychic apparatus. This mechanism allows the traumatized individual to split off the overwhelming affect from the experience itself, thus permitting the person to continue to function and defend himself without being paralyzed by emotion. [1st paragraph]